…it’s one of five states where human evolution is mentioned directly in the state curriculum for school.
I want to be proud that Hoosiers didn’t manage to mess this up, but I’m too overwhelmed by the fact that thirty-two states don’t mention human evolution in their curriculum at all. How can the US expect to produce competent biologists and doctors when children aren’t learning the most fundamental and important biological principle?
It’s even more depressing when I think about what my evolution education was like. Pretty much one or two days out of a whole year of AP Biology. I don’t remember discussing it at all in freshman biology, which is the class everyone is required to take. That’s enough to make us green? No wonder Americans don’t accept evolution.
(Via Why Evolution is True)
I’m from Illinois and I’m pretty sure it’s correct here. I don’t recall even a mention of evolution in my grammar school. I learned a little bit about it in High School. But get this: I WENT TO A CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL. Weird right? It wasn’t part of the curriculum, I think the teacher just wanted to explain how it worked with creationism. Still, he explained it fairly accurately. In college, I learned a lot about evolution in my Physical Anthropology Class. It seems like Anthropologists are almost as anti-creationist as Biologists. I enjoyed that haha.
Yeah, I remember it being mentioned in HS. We had a full chapter on it in our books, IIRC, and I went to Texas. BTW, I went to Purdue for college, and yeah, Anthropology talked about human evolution in great detail. I was shocked when I read your piece on how little mention of it there was in other science classes.
I’m not sure how those statistics were determined, because I live in South Carolina, and I knew about evolution from middle school on. I’m not sure whether it’s strictly required by legislation (knowing our government, probably not), but when I had my first college biology class, I already knew almost everything they told me about human evolution. I just hate for people to think that nobody here is getting a decent education- we are, it’s just that there are more people here who wish we weren’t.
As I understand the description of that image (on Why Evolution Is True), it shows which states mandate it, which mandate an implication of it, and which do not mandate it. You can’t say that all the solid-red states get no mention of evolution based on that. We need data showing the flip side – which states mandate that it *not* be mentioned. Even more useful would be data taken at a school level and weighted by cohort size at each school, about what the school’s policy is. You’d want the dataset to separate public schools from private, as well.Wow, this (comparatively) recent training as a social scientist is really sticking…
I’ve been in Catholic/Christian schools for most of my schooling life and I don’t recall learning about evolution early on in school at all- of course, I wasn’t allowed Harry Potter or Sabrina the Teenage Witch either so maybe that was just expected. I did however know about evolution because I distinctly remember thinking ‘wait, this isn’t right’ when learning about the creationist side of things.
Ah, yes, I didn’t exactly make that clear enough in my original post – tweaked the wording a bit, thanks.
The “biology” teacher at my (public) high school said little or nothing about evolution. He taught Haeckel’s “law” as holy writ, told us that men are missing one rib, and spent one whole class session telling us the story of an unmarried pregnant girl woh had an abortion. The fetus, allegedly, would have been a boy. Later she married, but “something” “punished” her by causing all of her children to be girls (!!!).
I was taught evolution in jr high… in 6th grade. but it was california… and i really got a ton dumped on me in high school. but high school was an international school in china. where we pride ourselves on being independent of the usa, and our psych classes studied clips of fox news for brainwashing techniques.
The original images (as linked to by PZ) have the far more reassuring map 1, showing that (ignoring Iowa) 41 states of 49 have a syllabus that mentions general evolution in a straightforward manner, and only 8 that mention it “briefly and/or unclearly”. I think high school students can independently take the step that “animals/plants evolve” implies (in the loose sense at least) that “humans evolved”. Well, some at least, depending on other avenues of indoctrination.
And now increasing my comment density further than I’d like, I just want to mention that, as far I’ve been able to tell from a brief investigation, the UK’s National Curriculum doesn’t require that evolution be mentioned. Evolution and speciation (without mechanisms of the latter), yes, but nothing specific about any given species. This matches what I remember from (oh my god) 12+ years ago.
Really? Just FIVE of the U.S. states actually teach evolution in the standard curriculum? Man, am I happy to live in Europe.
This is rather preposterous, but I hate the educational system anyway. If it were optimized we would be sending people to college at the age of 14.I would also like to protest the information about Washington, as I went to school there and learned about evolution, but I dropped out before 08 so the publicly available curriculum must have changed.But that is ok, they will secede soon :)
Holy wow! I’ve always been proud to live in a state which is generally cultural, academic, and forward thinking. But WA has really disappointed me with this.
My freshman High School Biology teacher gave extra credit to anyone who would do a short talk before the class about any chapter in the textbook. I was the only one who did and I gave it on evolution. There were a few who took notes and I even had a question from of the other students. It didn’t occur to me until a few years later that this was probably the first time some of my classmates had ever even heard about evolution because I grew up in Anderson, Indiana, the World Headquarters of the Church of God and Anderson University.
This map reminds me to be happy that I am a Canuk.
I don’t recall evolution being mentioned in my schooling (Oklahoma), but I was aware of it. Probably picked it up from one of those subversive science programs on PBS that I watched with my parents.BTW Jen, you might want to update your “About Me”; it appears that you have successfully escaped Indiana.
I’m still here until September D:
I went to high school in rural Texas, and took two years of regular biology (freshman bio and then integrated biology and chemistry) in which evolution was not mentioned or hinted at, period. We also didn’t have sex education at all (not even abstinence only) and our state mandated health class didn’t cover sex at all either. My school was ultra-conservative (for a public school) and the state of Texas pretty much allows all this to be left up to individual schools. So there will be schools where it is taught and schools where it isn’t. At least, that is my understanding.
Oh I forgot to add that I did know about evolution as a high school student, but through my own independent “study” (ie google searches…also how I educated myself about sex and contraception, feminism, and atheism…yay internet!)
Physical anthropology is impossible without human evolution, so is early human archaeology. I’m not at all surprised that it discusses it at length. Even cultural anthropology has to look at evolution.Edit: And I’m from Michigan. My freshman science teacher had the evolution fish on her foot. ^.^
I was just thinking if my school taught evolution (Alberta, Canada), and it *might* have been mentioned in Junior High, but not enough for me to specifically remember when/where.Disclaimer: Bio was never my strong suit – I bailed for Chem and Physics for grades 11 and 12, so it might be covered there.
Huh. I grew up in New York, and I’m pretty sure we talked about evolution in my Bio class. Perhaps not in great detail, but I could swear it was discussed. That was 1999, of course. I don’t know what the stats were then.Perhaps my biology teacher was being subversive!
Guys, this is about *human* evolution being *required*. Go to the original source of the image (http://www.campusexplorer.com/… to see the one above this on the curriculum requirements mentioning (or not) general biological evolution. Plus just ’cause it’s not required doesn’t mean no-one teaches it (but it should be required, if you ask me).
No, it’s 5 that mention *human* evolution in their requirements. The original image (at http://www.campusexplorer.com/… shows the map for mentioning evolution in their requirements. Much greener.
You need to take up lots of speaking engagements that give you expenses (at a minimum) in the meantime, I reckon. Firstly, get out and see more of the country (or even the world, you never know) and secondly, get even more well known!
Part of this is due to an ongoing battle between anthropology and biology departments. Anthropology is trying to create a monopoly on human evolution in order to further their field. At least, that’s the complaint some bio profs made here whilst drunk.
We did 2 weeks on human evolution in my ancient history class.
Why, why, why in a (supposedly) secular country can facts be ignored in favour of religious dogma? America makes me sad.
It is traditionally covered in great detail at the high school level, Considering the science focus in Alberta, it is ignored until a basis of knowledge allows for a comprehensive (non-dogmatic) discussion. If I remember, just after the cellular biology unit. It is easy to introduce with after the concept of mitochondria DNA and the absorption theory of that organelle. I don’t want to say more about the science though, Jen you know way more about biology then me.
Dunno about other states, but in Virginia we’ve got SOL’s (Standards of Learning, an ironic acronym if ever there were one) and they require that very specific things be taught because those things are going to end up on the standardized tests. My memory of biology in high school is a whole lot of cell biology, some taxonomy, and a few pages on evolution that focused more on Darwin than his theory. Also my group’s final project was about the reproductive system and we had to look up diseases and there are some things I can just not unsee.To be fair, the mention of creationism was limited to a sentence saying what it was. No undermining of evolution, just a weak explanation of it. It’s no wonder why non-majors Biology is considered one of the harder sciences at my university; people aren’t prepared for it. If you know enough to argue with a creationist it’s easy, but most people can’t.
We were taught evolution pretty clearly in Arkansas, twice. Once in 8th grade where my teacher explained he hated teaching it because every year, someone’s parents would cause problems, but the state mandated he teach it. Again in 10th grade in a smaller, more rural school where it turned into an open conversation; I think my teacher then just didn’t want to get into it with parents and students like my 8th grade teacher did. She taught it, but she did gloss over it a bit more.
Ah, I missed the “human” evolution stipulation until I read the comments. That, I don’t remember one way or another.
Well, that’s a lot better, but still pretty bad.
That is seriously weird! Here in New Zealand, teaching evolution is definitely part of the national curriculum,.. and I suspect that if a biology teacher tried to teach creationism, they wouldn’t be employed for very long. Here in New Zealand, Athesim is the norm, and it’s the Christians that are the “freaks” (which I was when I was in high school).
I learned about Human Evolution in Middle School, but half of the class was able to opt out and my class even made one of my substitutes cry while she was talking about. Saying how she is going to hell. Kids are so sweet.
Like Kahikatea, I’m from New Zealand, and evolution is an important part of the national curriculum, (though I wouldn’t say that atheism is the norm). In my last year of school, of the 20 credits we sat, 3 were on evolution generally, and 3 were on specifically human evolution. (And, despite being an atheist myself, I went to a Christian school.)
Checking, the current Virginia Standards of Learning mentions of evolution in “Life Science” and “Biology” do not specifically mention that humans evolved in their coverage of Evolution; however, one of the examples in the “Enhanced Scope and Sequence” materials includes the example of evolution of Cytochrome C in humans and other organisms. Given the State also has both Liberty University and Regent University, I’m surprised at having that much.I suspect it would be more productive to push for inclusion of Uniform Common Descent as part of the standards — that ALL life on Earth seems to be related by common ancestry. If you focus on pounding in that it’s ALL connected –birds to bees to baboons to botulism– then “oh yeah, humans too” can be added later as an unremarkable afterthought.Virginia’s standards do not appear to include UCD at present. =(
We learned about human evolution in 6th grade at my public elementary school in California. I don’t remember learning about *human* evolution in my 7th grade life sciences class, or in my 9th grade bio class. Of course, my 9th grade teacher didn’t actually teach. She was a liberal hippie who almost certainly accepted evolution but I think she did wayyy too much acid in college. I learned a ton in my college Biological Anthropology class. It was basically human and other primate evolution 101.
I went to high school in Utah and evolution was absolutely talked about as fact. That was in the early ’90’s though, so I asked my girlfriends daughter who is in high school, in Utah, and she said that evolution was absolutely talked about in depth. That chart is crap.
I’m from Texas as well. I’d say, in my case, that it’s not even left to the schools as a whole, but to the individual teachers. I had a great teacher in middle school and another in high school who did decent jobs teaching evolution. On the other hand, one of the other biology teachers at my high school gave extra credit to students who went to see Expelled when it came out in theaters.
Californian here. There were units on it in both freshman Bio and AP Bio. My freshman Bio teacher was fanatical about it. My AP Bio teacher treated it as a part of Biology but didn’t go into how the Creationists had totally screwed us.Strangely, it was the part of Bio that I did best in — something that my non-Christian friends used to just laugh about. Maybe it was because evolution makes sense and I don’t find it to be mutually exclusive to my faith?
VERY incorrect to have Oregon identified on that map where Evolution is not mentioned. The Pacific Northwest is one of the least religious and more liberal parts of the country. The author of that map was making assumptions without checking out the facts.
hmmm. well i distinctly remember being taught a *bit*, not a ton, but a small amount, about direct evolution, and i went to high school in alabama! yes, it pains me to admit that, no i’m not from there, and yes, some of it is backwards… maybe it was because i was in the college prep classes…but surely, that map can’t account for all the renegade schools out there…
I was taught about evolution in elementary school, with the example of [predominantly white moths living in a forest where something happened that made the trees get all black-colored, and in a few years the moths were predominantly black, mostly as a story to show us how friggin cool nature is. And taught about evolution in somewhat more detail in middle school, and again in high school. But I grew up in a fairly liberal state and while I’m unclear as to how politics as it relates to education works, it seems possible that in CT it just wasn’t legislated because it was taken for granted that of COURSE science should be taught in the science classroom and religion should be left out of school.Why did I ever move to Arizona?
I found out for the first time that not everybody believed in evolution when I moved to the U.S. …. I was shocked!
I think that last sentence really rings true. Have you ever seen any of the old anti-Darwin cartoons?http://scienceblogs.com/laelap…They were quite against the whole people from Apes thing. From what I can tell, the rest would have been and least somewhat acceptable.
Over-powered peddlers of untruth.
It could be worse, I went to a baptist high school and they didn’t teach a damn thing about evolution, then my freshman year of college was spent at a christian college where, as a biology major, we still weren’t taught jack shit about evolution and I’m pretty sure my advisor was a young earth creationist.I didn’t know anything serious about evolution until after I stopped believing and considered myself an atheist. Now I can’t learn enough about it and got a radial version of the tree of life tattooed on my left forearm just yesterday.
states can set requirements, but individual schools/teachers can go above and beyond. I went to international school, they don’t really have standards there. I know this because another international school taught creationism in AP bio. our teacher went above and beyond.
I graded the Indiana Core 40 this year, and one of the questions was on evolution. It asked students to name two key elements that were necessary for the evolution of single-celled organisms to multicellular ones. Believe it or not, most students attempted the question, even if they clearly did not know the answer. A few students did write essays on how God created the earth, but the mention of religion in the student responses was surprisingly low.
Er, you do know the Catholic Church has never had a problem with evolution, right?
People who ignore facts are easier to manipulate on Election Day.
Or maybe you’re misreading what the map is reporting.
I gotta say, I’m from Louisiana and I remember a good portion of all my biology classes talking about evolution, so I’m not so sure of the accuracy of that map. I asked my friend from Houston and she said it’s taught in Texas, too. It may be a county/parish thing instead of a state thing. I know the parishes here mandate part of the school curriculum. I really doubt this map’s accuracy, though.
Weirdly, I don’t remember being specifically taught about evolution at my UK school. I don’t remember being taught about creationism either though, and I definitely went to a CofE school…