Promoting positive attitudes towards science and religion among sixth‐form pupils: dealing with scientism and creationism

A sample of 187 female students, attending a sixth‐form study day on religious studies, completed a questionnaire containing four scales concerned with assessing: attitude towards theistic religion, attitude towards science, scientism and creationism. The data demonstrated a negative correlation between attitude towards religion and attitude towards science. However, this negative correlation was transformed into a positive correlation after taking into account individual differences in the students’ views about scientism and creationism. The implications of this finding are discussed in the context of the increasing support within society for the teaching of alternatives to evolution within the science curriculum. The authors argue both that it is important to challenge scientism by developing a better understanding of the role and limits of scientific methods, and that religious belief about creation should be recognised as essentially a claim about the ontological dependence of nature rather than about the details of its origins and development.     

Scientific and Religious Perspectives on Evolution in the Curriculum: an Approach Based on Pedagogy of Difference

There is a long history of some students finding that the science instruction they receive in schools fails to address their deeply held concerns about the theory of evolution. Such concerns are principally religious, though there are also students with deeply held religious views who are perfectly comfortable with the theory of evolution. New instructional strategies are emerging, aimed at reducing the tensions that may exist between evolution and religion by making space for students to examine their own views and recognize the spectrum of views that exists between atheistic evolution and special creation, as well as the bounded nature of science and different ways of knowing. In this article, we discuss the teaching of evolution in societies where acceptance of the theory of evolution is far from universal, and argue that an approach based on pedagogy of difference has considerable potential to enhance students’ development of epistemic insight through recognition of the multiple perspectives that exist concerning the relationship between religion and science. In doing so, we explicate precisely what pedagogy of difference entails and introduce an approach that should enhance evolution education, and even aid students’ situating of science as a resource for making decisions about issues with scientific and societal aspects where the acknowledgement of multiple perspectives is valuable.     

All Christians? Experiences of science educators in Northern Ireland

In this paper we respond to Staver’s article (this issue) on an attempt to resolve the discord between science and religion. Most specifically, we comment on Staver’s downplaying of difference between Catholics and Protestants in order to focus on the religion-science question. It is our experience that to be born into one or other of these traditions in some parts of the world (especially Northern Ireland) resulted in starkly contrasting opportunities, identities and practices in becoming and being science educators. The paper starts with a short contextual background to the impact of religion on schooling and higher education in Northern Ireland. We then explore the lives and careers of three science/religious educators in Northern Ireland: Catholic (Jim) and Protestant (Ivor) males who are contemporaries and whose experience spans pre-Troubles to post-conflict and a Catholic female (Colette) who moved to Northern Ireland during the Troubles as a teenager. Finally, we discuss the situation regarding the teaching of creationism and evolution in Northern Ireland—an issue has recently generated high public interest. The Chair of the Education Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly recently stated that “creationism is not for the RE class because I believe that it can stand scientific scrutiny and that is a debate which I am quite happy to encourage and be part of…” (News Letter 2008). It could be the case that the evolution debate is being fuelled as a deliberate attempt to undermine some of the post-conflict collaboration projects between schools and communities in Northern Ireland.     

Scientific Experts and the Controversy About Teaching Creation/Evolution in the UK Press

The issue whether creationist accounts of the origins of life should be taught in science education alongside or even instead Darwin’s theory of evolution is controversial in many countries. In 2002 there was a controversy around teaching creationism in science classes at a secondary school in England. The research presented in this paper uses this controversy around teaching creationism/evolution as case study to find out more about the public representation of science education. Here it focuses on the question who the experts were that appeared in the press coverage and examines the role of scientific experts in this controversy. Expertise is a key resource in many public controversies involving science and can also have an impact on decision-making processes and on the public opinion. Also the way expert sources are presented in media accounts of socio-scientific controversies can have an effect on how their credibility is perceived and the arguments being made.     

Modern Science and Conservative Islam: An Uneasy Relationship

Familiar Western debates about religion, science, and science education have parallels in the Islamic world. There are difficulties reconciling conservative, traditional versions of Islam with modern science, particularly theories such as evolution. As a result, many conservative Muslim thinkers are drawn toward creationism, hopes of Islamizing science, or other ways to retain the primacy of faith while continuing efforts to catch up with modern technology. Muslims argue that science and Islam coexist in harmony, but both intellectually and institutionally, the Islamic world harbors many tensions between science and religion.     

Should science educators deal with the science/religion issue?

I begin by examining the natures of science and religion before looking at the ways in which they relate to one another. I then look at a number of case studies that centre on the relationships between science and religion, including attempts to find mechanisms for divine action in quantum theory and chaos theory, creationism, genetic engineering and the writings of Richard Dawkins. Finally, I consider some of the pedagogical issues that would need to be considered if the science/religion issue is to be addressed in the classroom. I conclude that there are increasing arguments in favour of science educators teaching about the science/religion issue. The principal reason for this is to help students better to learn science. However, such teaching makes greater demands on science educators than has generally been the case. Certain of these demands are identified and some specific suggestions are made as to how a science educator might deal with the science/religion issue.     

Teachers as journalists?

I start by considering some of the similarities between journalists and science teachers in their work and then go on to examine three questions that are of importance in dealing with creationism in schools: Is the issue one that is worth dealing with? How might one deal with it? What does one hope to achieve by dealing with it? I conclude that (1) it is worth science teachers dealing with the issue of creationism in schools but only if they wish to; (2) science teachers should not give the impression that the theory of evolution is scientifically controversial; (3) while one is very unlikely to change the mind, as a result of school teaching, of someone who does not, on religious grounds, accept the theory of evolution, it is very worth presenting the scientific account of the theory and enabling students to review the evidence for it.     

How Should Creationism and Intelligent Design be Dealt with in the Classroom?

Until recently, little attention has been paid in the school classroom to creationism and almost none to intelligent design. However, creationism and possibly intelligent design appear to be on the increase and there are indications that there are more countries in which schools are becoming battle‐grounds over them. I begin by examining whether creationism and intelligent design are controversial issues, drawing on Robert Dearden's epistemic criterion of the controversial and more recent responses to and defences of this. I then examine whether the notion of ‘worldviews’ in the context of creationism is a useful one by considering the film March of the Penguins. I conclude that the ‘worldviews’ perspective on creationism is useful for two reasons: first it indicates the difficulty of using the criterion of reason to decide whether an issue is controversial or not; secondly, it suggests that standard ways of addressing the diversity of student views in a science classroom may be inadequate. I close by examining the implications of this view for teaching in science lessons and elsewhere, for example in religious education lessons and citizenship lessons and at primary level where subject divisions cannot be made in so clear‐cut a manner.     

The Relationships Between Paranormal Belief, Creationism, Intelligent Design and Evolution at Secondary Schools in Vienna (Austria)

The present study is the first to investigate the relationships between a multiple set of paranormal beliefs and the acceptance of evolution, creationism, and intelligent design, respectively, in Europe. Using a questionnaire, 2,129 students at secondary schools in Vienna (Austria) answered the 26 statements of the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (R-PBS) and three statements about naturalistic evolution, creationism and intelligent design (ID). The investigated Austrian students showed an average R-PBS score of 82.08, more than 50% of them agreed with naturalistic evolution, 28% with creationism, and more than a third agreed with ID, the latter two closely correlated with each other. Females generally showed higher belief scores in the paranormal, creationism and ID. The agreement with naturalistic evolution correlated negatively with religious belief, but not with other paranormal beliefs, whereas the two non-scientific alternatives to evolution significantly correlated with both traditional and paranormal beliefs. Religious belief showed a significant positive correlation with other paranormal beliefs. All subscales of paranormal belief decreased during the eight grades of secondary school, as did acceptance of creationism and ID. However, the acceptance of naturalistic evolution did not correlate with age or grade. Possible reasons and implications for science education and the biology curriculum at Austrian secondary schools are discussed.     

Philosophy in the science classroom: How should biology teachers explain the relationship between science and religion to students?

This review explores Thomas Lessl’s “Demarcation as a classroom response to creationism: A critical examination of the National Academy of Science’s Science, Evolution, and Creationism (2008).” Lessl’s work examines philosophical debates about the relationship between science and religion from the perspective of communication dynamics between science teachers and audiences skeptical about evolution. His essay raises a number of important points that might help educators craft statements that are less likely to alienate religious students and to entrench any pre-existing opposition to evolutionary science. However, in this review, I raise a number of criticisms of Lessl’s account of the problems with the approach taken by the National Academy of Science. I argue that many of the criticisms of NAS’s approach to demarcation are not well-supported, and even were they to be strong criticisms, they do not justify skepticism toward evolution or science in general. Ultimately, I argue that addressing Lessl’s concerns means creating space for more intellectually rigorous and satisfying discussions of science and religion, but this is not appropriate in a biology classroom that merely wishes to introduce evolution. Addressing these concerns requires making more space for philosophy in the curriculum.

     

Socioscience and ethics in science classrooms: Teacher perspectives and strategies

This study explored teacher perspectives on the use of socioscientific issues (SSI) and on dealing with ethics in the context of science instruction. Twenty‐two middle and high school science teachers from three US states participated in semi‐structured interviews, and researchers employed inductive analyses to explore emergent patterns relative to the following two questions. (1) How do science teachers conceptualize the place of ethics in science and science education? (2) How do science teachers handle topics with ethical implications and expression of their own values in their classrooms? Profiles were developed to capture the views and reported practices, relative to the place of ethics in science and science classrooms, of participants. Profile A comprising teachers who embraced the notion of infusing science curricula with SSI and cited examples of using controversial topics in their classes. Profile B participants supported SSI curricula in theory but reported significant constraints which prohibited them from actualizing these goals. Profile C described teachers who were non‐committal with respect to focusing instruction on SSI and ethics. Profile D was based on the position that science and science education should be value‐free. Profile E transcended the question of ethics in science education; these teachers felt very strongly that all education should contribute to their students' ethical development. Participants also expressed a wide range of perspectives regarding the expression of their own values in the classroom. Implications of this research for science education are discussed. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 353–376, 2006     

Grist to the Mill of Anti-evolutionism: The Failed Strategy of Ruling the Supernatural Out of Science by Philosophical Fiat

According to a widespread philosophical opinion, science is strictly limited to investigating natural causes and putting forth natural explanations. Lacking the tools to evaluate supernatural claims, science must remain studiously neutral on questions of metaphysics. This (self-imposed) stricture, which goes under the name of ??methodological naturalism??, allows science to be divorced from metaphysical naturalism or atheism, which many people tend to associate with it. However, ruling the supernatural out of science by fiat is not only philosophically untenable, it actually provides grist to the mill of anti-evolutionism. The philosophical flaws in this conception of methodological naturalism have been gratefully exploited by advocates of intelligent design creationism to bolster their false accusations of naturalistic bias and dogmatism on the part of modern science. We argue that it promotes a misleading view of the scientific endeavor and is at odds with the foremost arguments for evolution by natural selection. Reconciling science and religion on the basis of such methodological strictures is therefore misguided.     

Teaching evolutionary biology: Pressures,stress, and coping

Understanding what teachers need to be more comfortable and confident in their profession is crucial to the future of effective teachers and scientific literacy in public schools. This study focuses on the experiences of Arizona biology teachers in teaching evolution, using a clinical model of stress to identify sources of pressure, the resulting stresses, and coping strategies they employ to alleviate these stresses. We conducted focus groups, one‐on‐one interviews, and written surveys with 15 biology teachers from the Phoenix area. On the basis of their responses, teachers were clustered into three categories: “Conflicted,” who struggle with their own beliefs and the possible impact of their teaching, “Selective,” who carefully avoid difficult topics and situations, and “Scientists,” who see no place for controversial social issues in their science classroom. Teachers from each group felt that they could be more effective in teaching evolution if they possessed the most up‐to‐date information about evolution and genomics, a safe space in which to reflect on the possible social and personal implications with their peers, and access to richer lesson plans for teaching evolution that include not only science but personal stories regarding how the lessons arose, and what problems and opportunities they created. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 791–809, 2004     

Religious beliefs in science classrooms

The question of the relationship between science and religion assumes importance for many secondary school students of science, especially but not exclusively for those in Christian schools. Science as presented in many school classrooms is not as objective and value free as it might seem on first examination, nor does it represent adequately the range of beliefs about science held by students and teachers. This paper reports part of a larger research study into beliefs about science and religion held by students, teachers and clergy in a Lutheran secondary school. Results indicate that participants in the study was the relationship between science and religious belief in ways unforeseen and unappreciated by traditional school science programs. The stories of selected participants are told and they frame a discussion of implications of the study for science teaching.     

Philosophical Approaches of Religious Jewish Science Teachers Toward the Teaching of ‘Controversial’ Topics in Science

This research examines the problems that religious Jewish science teachers in Israeli high schools have in coping with science subjects (such as geological time) which conflict with their religious beliefs. We do this by characterizing the philosophical approaches within Judaism that such teachers have adopted for dealing with such controversy. Thus, we surveyed 56 religious teachers using a Likert‐type questionnaire developed for this research, as well as interviewed 11 teachers to more deeply probe their approaches. In addition, we surveyed 15 religious scientists, so that we could both contrast their views with our teacher samples as well as to better understand their coping strategies when confronted by scientific topics that challenge their beliefs. Results indicated that no single philosophical approach earned overwhelming support from the teachers or scientists. Instead, most of the subjects relate separately to each source of possible conflict in accordance with the philosophical approach that appears to be the most fruitful for resolving such conflicts. Moreover, both the scientists and the teachers felt less conflicted toward the specific subject of geological time, in comparison to issues connected to creation of the earth and (especially) evolution. The teachers did differ from the scientists in their preference toward philosophical approaches which help them better integrate the domains of science and religion. Based on our findings, we are able to suggest a set of strategies to help teachers overcome their difficulties in teaching ‘controversial’ science topics to a religiously oriented student population.     

On relations between science and religion

This article proposes an alternative way of looking at religion to that proposed by Mahner and Bunge, and challenges a claim they make about a presupposition of science. From the alternative perspective there are constructive tensions rather than incompatibilities between science and religion. The article concludes with a proposed set of criteria to be used in critical reflections on faiths, religious or secular. It suggests that education would be enhanced by introducing students to the reflections and dialogues where these criteria are applicable.     

The Influence of Creationism and Scientism on Attitudes towards Christianity among Kenyan Secondary School Students

The attitude towards Christianity of 624 form six students in Kenya was measured using the Francis scale of attitude towards Christianity Form ASC4B. Indices were developed to measure the view that science attains to absolute truth, the perception of Christianity as necessarily involving creationism, and personal religious behaviour. Sex, academic achievement, study of religion in form six, study of a science subject in form six, parental educational level and parental church attendance were taken into account in the analysis of the data by path analysis. No significant relationship was found between attitude towards Christianity and perception of Christianity as necessarily involving creationism, but the view of science as attaining to absolute truth does have a negative influence on attitude towards Christianity. The significant influences of students’ sex, mother's educational level and father's church attendance on attitude towards Christianity are all mediated through religious behaviour.     

Creatures in the Classroom: Preservice Teacher Beliefs About Fantastic Beasts, Magic, Extraterrestrials, Evolution and Creationism

Faculty have long expressed concern about pseudoscience belief among students. Most US research on such beliefs examines evolution-creation issues among liberal arts students, the general public, and occasionally science educators. Because of their future influence on youth, we examined basic science knowledge and several pseudoscience beliefs among 540 female and 123 male upperclass preservice teachers, comparing them with representative samples of comparably educated American adults. Future teachers resembled national adults on basic science knowledge. Their scores on evolution; creationism; intelligent design; fantastic beasts; magic; and extraterrestrials indices depended on the topic. Exempting science education, preservice teachers rejected evolution, accepting Biblical creation and intelligent design accounts. Sizable minorities ??awaited more evidence?? about fantastic beasts, magic, or extraterrestrials. Although gender, disciplinary major, grade point average, science knowledge, and two religiosity measures related to beliefs about evolution-creation, these factors were generally unassociated with the other indices. The findings suggest more training is needed for preservice educators in the critical evaluation of material evidence. We also discuss the judicious use of pseudoscience beliefs in such training.     

Learning How to Make Inquiry into Electricity and Magnetism Discernible to Middle Level Teachers

As university professors we sought to disrupt the practice of giving our students the actions we felt they should imitate in their teaching practice. Instead, we sought to actively engage teachers in the creation of workable solutions to real-life problems. We accomplished this by conducting a participatory action research project. This paper illustrates our action research project focused on preparing middle level science teachers to foster inquiry-based learning in their classrooms. The findings of this study not only lead to a revised professional development opportunity for science teachers, but also provided an example of university faculty engaging in pragmatic research focused on addressing contemporary issues in K-12 science education. The work reported within was partially supported by a National Science Foundation Grant. The opinions, views and conclusions expressed in this paper may not reflect those of the funding agency.     

Secondary school teachers’ perspectives on teaching about topics that bridge science and religion

The question of where to locate teaching about the relationships between science and religion has produced a long-running debate. Currently, science and religious education (RE) are statutory subjects in England and are taught in secondary schools by different teachers. This paper reports on an interview study in which 16 teachers gave their perceptions of their roles and responsibilities when teaching topics that bridge science and religion and the extent to which they collaborated with teachers in the other subject areas. We found that in this sample, teachers reported very little collaboration between the curriculum areas. Although the science curriculum makes no mention of religion, all the science teachers said that their approaches to such topics were affected by their recognition that some pupils held religious beliefs. All the RE teachers reported struggling to ensure students know of a range of views about how science and religion relate. The paper concludes with a discussion about implications for curriculum design and teacher training.