It is probably no surprise to my regular readers that I get a little exercised about the science wars that play out across the U.S. in various school boards and court actions. Its probably unavoidable, given that I think about science for a living when youve got a horse in the race, you end up spending a lot of time at the track.
From time to time, though, thoughtful people ask whether some of these battles are distractions from more important issues and, specifically, whether the question of what a community decides to include in, or omit from, its high school biology curriculum ought to command so much of our energy and emotional investment.
About seven years ago, the focus was on Dover, Pennsylvania, whose school board required that the biology curriculum must include the idea of an intelligent designer (not necessarily God, but well, not necessarily not-God) as the origin of life on Earth. Parents sued, and U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that the requirement was unconstitutional. If you missed it as it was happening, theres a very good NOVA documentary on the court case.
As much as the outcome of this trial felt like a victory to supporters of science, some expressed concerns that the battle over the Dover biology curriculum was focusing on one kind of problem but missing many bigger problems in the process for example, this dispatch from Dover, PA by Eyal Press, printed in The Nation in November 2005.
Press describes the Dover area as it unfolded for him in a drive-along with former Dover school board member Casey Brown:
We drove out past some cornfields, a sheep farm, a meadow and a couple of barns, along the back roads of York County, a region where between 1970 and 2000, 11 percent of the manufacturing jobs disappeared, and where in the more rural areas one in five children grows up in a low-income family (in the city of York the figure is one in three). Dover isnt dirt poor, but neither is it wealthy. Its the kind of place where people work hard and save what they can. Looking out at the soy, wheat and dairy farms while Brown explained that lots of older people in the area cant afford to keep up with their mortgages and end up walking away from their homes, I was struck by the thought that this was a part of the country where, a century ago, the populist movement might have made inroads by organizing small farmers against the monopolies and trusts. These days, of course, a different sort of populism prevails, infused by religion and defining itself against outside forces like the ACLU.
Press also went to see what the students in Dover thought of the controversy:
What do the intended beneficiaries of the Dover school boards actions make of the intelligent design debate? A few days before meeting Casey Brown, I drove out to Dover high school to find out. It was late in the afternoon and a couple of kids were milling about outside, waiting for rides. When I asked them what they thought of the controversy, they looked at me with blank stares that suggested I could not have posed a question of less relevance to their lives. I think you should leave us alone, one of them said. Everyone just sleeps through that class anyway, said another. I approached a third kid, who was standing alone. Nobody he knew ever talked about the issue, he told me; it was no big deal.
Press suggests that this is not just a matter of teen ennui. The schools in the area may not be up to the challenge of addressing the real needs of their students:
For the most part, though, kids in Dover seem perplexed that so much attention is being paid to what happens in a single class. It is a sentiment shared by Pat Jennings, an African-American woman who runs the Lighthouse Youth Center, an organization that offers after-school programs, recreational services and parenting and Bible study classes to kids throughout York County. The center, which is privately funded, is located in a brown-brick building in downtown York, next to a church. A deeply religious woman who describes her faith as very important to her, Jennings nonetheless confessed that she hasnt paid much attention to the evolution controversy, since shes too busy thinking about other problems the children she serves facedrugs, gangs, lack of access to opportunity, racism. When we are in this building there are no Latinos, blacks, Caucasian childrenjust children, she explained after giving me a tour of the center. But when I go out thereshe pointed to the streetIm reminded that Im different.
See the article here:
Is it worth fighting about what's taught in high school biology class?
