Science

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: No Good for Creationism

Michael Reiss, head of science at the Institute of Education in London, caused a stir last week by arguing that ignoring creationism was not a realistic way of dealing with its rising popularity in students. Now, Reiss is a Church of England priest — so it’d be easy to blow him off as just another […]

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Michael Reiss, head of science at the Institute of Education in London, caused a stir last week by arguing that ignoring creationism was not a realistic way of dealing with its rising popularity in students.

Now, Reiss is a Church of England priest -- so it'd be easy to blow him off as just another creationist trying to confuse religious faith with scientific fact. But as he told The Independent,

I would not want any such teaching [about creationism], were it to occur, to give the impression that creationism and the theory of evolution are equally valid scientifically. They are not (nor is it appropriate to insist on spending equal amounts of time on evolution and creationism in science lessons).

Reiss said he came to his stance because of teachers telling him that more and more students believe in literal religious explanations of human origin; about one in 10 people in the UK, he estimates, believe these.

(One in 10? Dude, that's like people talking about their unsafe neighborhood where sometimes hoodlums scratch car doors. Come on over to the States, where this $#!* is real!)

"The days have long gone when science teachers could ignore creationism when teaching about origins," he said.

Instead, they should tackle the issue head-on but in a way that does not alienate students, he argues in the book, Teaching About Scientific
Origins: Taking Account of Creationism.

Reiss is right that ignoring such beliefs is impractical, if not outright dishonest. "Don't ask, don't tell" is a terrible idea in any situation. Students shouldn't feel like they have to keep their beliefs to themselves, that they can't ask questions, that they have to go through a charade. Reiss's heart is in the right place. But is there a way this can realistically be done in science class? In that context, it's simply not possible to tackle creationism -- in its most literal, text-based, and-on-the-third-day manifestations -- without alienating students. Even spending a little bit of time to talk about these ideas as possessing some scientific merit, albeit less than evolution, is misleading.

Yes, science teachers can -- and should -- use a nice tone of voice, they can explain that it's possible to believe in both God and Darwin, in science and faith. But they shouldn't tiptoe around faith, and they shouldn't pretend that creationism and intelligent design are science.
Creationism should be tackled in science lessons, schools told [The Independent]

Image: Thomas Cole, "Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

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