Creationism In Public Schools Research Articles

Деятельность епископа Порфирия (Успенского) на посту начальника Русской Духовной миссии в Иерусалиме (1847–1853 годы)

We analyze the missionary activity of the Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church Porphyrius (Konstantin Aleksandrovich Uspensky) in the territory of Palestine, which was part of the Ottoman Empire in the period under study from 1847 to 1853. Porphyrius’s preliminary explora-tion of these lands to justify the expediency of establishing a Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in the region, and the patronage of this idea among the authorities of the Russian Empire, including the Chancellor Count Nesselrode and Emperor Nicholas I, are shown. We consider the educational and charitable activities of Bishop Porphyrius among the local Orthodox population, including the provision of financial assistance in the creation of public schools and a theological school for the training of clergy from the local Arab population. It is noted that along with missionary work, re-search activities were extremely important for the bishop. As an orientalist, Porphyrius described local church folklore, collected relics and copied manuscripts, and described his observations. It is noted that his colleagues also sought to reveal to the Russian society the history and culture of the Middle East; in particular, the seminarian Solovyov made sketches of the area. The relations of the bishop with the Russian and Austrian consuls are described.

Challenging Evolution in Public Schools: Race, Religion, and Attitudes toward Teaching Creationism

Researchers argue that white evangelical Christians are likely to support teaching creationism in public schools. Yet, less is known about the role religion may play in shaping attitudes toward evolution and teaching creationism among blacks and Latinos, who are overrepresented in U.S. conservative Protestant traditions. This study fills a gap in the literature by examining whether religious factors (e.g., religious affiliation and Biblical literalism) relate to differences in support for teaching creationism between blacks and Latinos compared to whites and other racial groups. Using a nationally representative survey (N = 9,425), we find that although black and Latino Americans support teaching creationism more than other groups, religion plays a stronger role among blacks in shaping support for teaching creationism instead of evolution. Results add an important racial dimension to scholarly discussions on religion and science and suggest further exploration of race alongside other factors that may contribute to support for teaching creationism.

BRINCO, FANTASIO, MUDO DE NOME E TRANSGRIDO PARA BRINCAR: EXPERIÊNCIAS BRINCANTES DE CRIANÇAS SOB A ÉGIDE DA PROTEÇÃO INTEGRAL

Este estudo é a respeito de algumas reflexões sobre a infância, em especial das brincadeiras das crianças institucionalizadas. Remete questões sobre institucionalização da infância, o desafio das instituições para implementação de práticas balizadas nas diretrizes do ECA (Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente), a percepção de quem são as crianças institucionalizadas, as experiências lúdicas das crianças e as estratégias utilizadas para suportar a separação e a sensação de abandono. Igualmente, partilha a ideia de que as práticas consideradas como próprias das crianças, desde as normas, representações, obrigações e modos de se relacionar com seus pares e adultos, foram notáveis recentemente na Modernidade e quatro fatores são importantes nesse processo de estruturação. O primeiro é a criação da escola pública no final do século XVIII; segundo, a reorganização de família nuclear que aos poucos abarcou as outras formas de agrupamento familiar tais como o clã, a família alargada, poligâmica e outras; terceiro, a produção de um conjunto de saberes institucionalizados, saberes periciais; sobre a criança normal associada a um conjunto de prescrições, de natureza médica, psicológica, pedagógica e comportamental, por último, a administração simbólica da infância com definição, implícita e explícita, de regras de inclusão, interdição, compulsão e reconhecimento das crianças. A infância é reconstruída na Modernidade por meio de dispositivos institucionais, como a escola, a família e a justiça. E, finalmente, algumas reflexões a respeito das brincadeiras e da infância. Historicamente cunhamos uma infância irregular, invisível, frágil a tal ponto que não é capaz até mesmo de brincar, sendo necessária extrema vigilância. Esta infância atravessada por negatividade, de fato não quer ter visibilidade, prefere o anonimato. Entretanto a infância considerada na SI (Sociologia da Infância) requer um olhar diferenciado e transformador. Um olhar atento a suas necessidades e desejos, isso requer um grande desafio dentro da instituiçao, pois pressupõe significativas mudanças nas práticas. Um olhar que busque além do que simplesmente vê, mas que seja capaz de compreender seus sonhos e imaginação. Cumprir plenamente seus direitos com prioridade absoluta.Palavras-chave: Infância; Crianças abrigadas; Brincadeiras; Jogos.

Acceptance of Evolution and Support for Teaching Creationism in Public Schools: The Conditional Impact of Educational Attainment

Public acceptance of evolution remains low in the United States relative to other Western countries. Although advocates for the scientific community often highlight the need for improved education to change public opinion, analyses of data from a national sample of American adults indicate that the effects of educational attainment on attitudes toward evolution and creationism are uneven and contingent upon religious identity. Consequently, higher education will only shift public attitudes toward evolution and away from support for teaching creationism in public schools for those who take non‐“literalist” interpretive stances on the Bible, or to the extent that it leads to fewer people with literalist religious identities.

Communicating Evolution as Science

If you are a scientist or science teacher reading this journal, you almost certainly recognize evolutionary biology as straightforward science and intelligent design and creationism as non-science; which belongs inside the science classroom is clear. Unfortunately, the distinction is a blurry one for many. Most Americans support the teaching of creationism in public schools (Plutzer and Berkman 2008), and around one-fourth of biology teachers in some states think that creationism is scientifically founded (Moore and Kraemer 2005). Some anti-evolution groups have taken things a step further, by not just promulgating misconceptions about creationism’s scientific status, but attempting to redefine science to include creationism. In 2005, the Kansas State Board of Education enacted a change in the state's science teaching standards (Wilgoren 2005). Science went from being “the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us” to being “a systematic method of continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.” Though longer and more jargon-laden, the altered definition was less specific about the types of explanations science can build—not just natural explanations, but any sort of explanation deemed “more adequate.” By opening the door of science to supernatural explanations, the new definition threw out one of the key characteristics that make science work: the testability of its explanations. Happily, with the election of a new state board of education, the original definition was restored. These are the sort of battles that the National Center for Science Education and Eugenie Scott have been fighting for decades and that Kenneth Miller fights to keep science textbooks free of ideas that have “failed as science,” as he describes in an article in this issue (Miller 2010). Such conflicts often play out on a political stage, shaping classroom practice in a top-down manner. Is there something that science teachers can do within the walls of their own classrooms to impact the broader discussion of what ideas belong in science class? Science teachers can lighten the load of the next generation of evolution defenders by helping students recognize the distinction between science and non-science. This means finding ways to communicate the fundamental characteristics that set science apart from other endeavors and helping students learn to interpret representations of evolution in the media, such as those described by Carl Zimmer in this issue (Zimmer 2010). Here, we’ll examine what students need to know about these topics, provide evolutionary examples, and discuss how this content can be incorporated into science teaching. In so doing, we will introduce content from the University of California Museum of Paleontology’s Understanding Science website (www.understandingscience.org).

It's Déjà Vu All Over Again: The Intelligent Design Movement's Recycling of Creationist Strategies

The intelligent design (ID) creationist movement is now a quarter of a century old. ID proponents at the Discovery Institute, headquartered in Seattle, WA, USA, insist that ID is not creationism. However, it is the direct descendant of the creation science movement that began in the 1960s and continued until the definitive ruling against creationism by the US Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard1987, which struck down laws that required balancing the teaching of evolution with creationism in public schools. Already anticipating in the early 1980s that Arkansas and Louisiana “balanced treatment” laws would be declared unconstitutional, a group of creationists led by Charles Thaxton began laying the groundwork for what is now the ID movement. After Edwards, Thaxton and his associates promoted ID aggressively until it, too, was declared unconstitutional by a federal judge in Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District 2005. Subsequently, in 2008, the Discovery Institute began its multistate promotion of model “academic freedom” legislation that bears striking parallels to the 1980s balanced treatment laws. Because of Kitzmiller, ID proponents have written their model legislation in code language in an effort to avoid another court challenge. Yet despite attempting to evade the legal constraints imposed by Edwards, they are merely recycling earlier creationist tactics that date back to the late 1970s and early 1980s. The tactics that ID creationists now use—promoting legislation, publishing “educational” materials, establishing a “research” institute, and sanitizing their terminology—are the recycled tactics of their creation science predecessors.

The 2009 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting: Sir Harold Kroto, Chemistry 1996

English Chemist Harold Kroto shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for their discovery of Fullerenes (C(60;)), molecules composed completely of carbon (C(60;)) that form hollow spheres (also known as Buckyballs), tubes, or ellipsoids. These structures hold the potential for use in future technologies ranging from drug development and antimicrobial agents, to armor and superconductors. Harold Kroto was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire in 1939 and grew up in Bolton. Educated at Bolton School, he entered Sheffield University in 1958 to study Chemistry. During his time there he played tennis for the university team, illustrated the university's magazine covers, and played folk music with other students. Enjoying his time at Sheffield very much, he chose to stay on and complete a Ph.D. in Chemistry under Richard Dixon. Following graduation in 1964, Kroto went on to post doc at the National Research Council (NRC) in Ottowa, Canada where microwave spectroscopy became his specialty. After two years of study at the NRC he spent a year at Bell Laboratories. He then accepted a position as a tutorial fellow at the University of Sussex, where he was soon offered a permanent position. There, he applied his expertise in microwave spectroscopy to the field of astronomy and spent several fruitful years detecting long carbon chains in the interstellar medium. Upon hearing of the work of Richard Smalley at Rice, who developed a laser that could vaporize graphite, Kroto thought they could use Smalley's instrument to see carbon chains similar to those they had observed in interstellar matter. He suggested his idea for an experiment to Bob Curl, also at Rice. In 1985 he traveled to Rice to perform the experiment (and also to visit a half-price bookstore he'd heard about in Houston). Although he felt certain that the apparatus would create the carbon chains, the experiment revealed a totally unexpected result: the spontaneous formation of spherical shapes, which they called Buckminster Fullerenes in honor of the architect who popularized the geodesic dome. Though he is pleased to have received the Nobel Prize, Kroto does not believe in prizes or competition as a motivator for scientific (or athletic) progress. Rather, he believes that the pursuit of science or athletics should be simply for the enjoyment or interest in the subject matter, and he prefers to investigate subjects that other people aren't working on. Kroto has mixed feelings about the effect the prize has had on his life. On the one hand, he would like to be able to spend more time pursuing graphic design, something he has always deeply enjoyed. On the other hand, he now enjoys a sense of responsibility for supporting the scientific community. As an atheist, Kroto feels that science is, in itself, atheistic. He doesn't accept anything without evidence. Kroto expresses concern about people holding positions of power who do not use evidence as a basis for decision-making. "When they are prepared to accept one of 20-30 stories from thousands of years ago, I wonder what else they are prepared to accept when it comes to decisions which affect me?" Kroto is particularly worried about the effect of policies that require the teaching of non-scientific ideas, to the detriment of evidence-based scientific education. He points to the forced teaching of creationism in public schools and the existence of a "creation museum" in the United States as sources of misinformation that have given rise to "a whole generation of school children who've been abused."

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Creationism

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Creationism

How free can religion be?

Randall P. Bezanson's How Free Can Religion Be? explores the Supreme Court's varied history of interpreting the religious guarantees outlined in the First Amendment. The book discusses eight provocative Supreme Court decisions to track the evolution of Free Exercise and Establishment Clause doctrine, focusing on the court's shift from strict separation of church and state to a position where the government accommodates and even fosters religion. Understanding the First Amendment as a complex stew of untested political theory, fear of unlimited central government, universal acceptance of Christianity, uncertain ideas about liberty, and the backbone of a secular democracy, Bezanson evaluates the way that the Supreme Court has invoked historical perspectives to follow the shifting threads of judicial theory through a series of detailed case studies. Beginning with cases in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the cases present new problems and revisit some old ones as well: the Mormon Church's claimed belief in polygamy; state support for religious schools; the teaching of evolution and creationism in public schools; Amish claims for exemption from compulsory education laws; comparable claims for Native American religion in relation to drug laws; and rights of free speech and equal access by religious groups in colleges and public schools. Historical but not a work of history, How Free Can Religion Be? invites readers into a rewarding examination of the contested and ever-changing role and meaning of religion in America. Rather than aiming at conclusions about whether the Court's varied enforcement of the First Amendment's ambiguously worded guarantees is right or wrong, Bezanson instead works to identify the principles underlying the changes. Using transcripts of oral arguments before the Supreme Court accompanied by his own editorial narration, he engages the reader in a revealing Socratic discussion of the issues and encourages them to draw their own conclusions.

Twenty Questions: What Have the Courts Said about the Teaching of Evolution and Creationism in Public Schools?

Although the Scopes trial remains the most famous court decision associated with the teaching of evolution, there have been many other more important court decisions associated with the teaching of evolution and creationism in public schools. An understanding of these decisions can help teachers answer students' questions about the teaching of evolution and creationism. Such an understanding can also be used to counter the antiscience attitudes and actions of creationist parents, school administrators, and colleagues.

The Evolution of Creationism in Public Schools

The Evolution of Creationism in Public Schools

Conflict and Consensus Revisited: Notes toward a Reinterpretation of American Educational History

Since the early 1950s, educational historians have increasingly turned their attention to the role of social conflict in the creation of public schools. Consensus historians claim that most Americans were in agreement on the issue of free public education, while recent conflict historians posit that the social elite imposed public schooling on the working class. Author Carl Kaestle suggests that each view contains elements of the truth but that both are reductionist. In this article, he briefly examines these interpretations and then suggests improved models of historical research to define more precisely and elegantly the relationship between conflict and consensus in American educational history.