The Class Struggle: Students Challenge Teachers Over Evolution

Teaching uncooperative teenagers has always been challenging, but some of today’s biology teachers may feel nostalgic for the days when rowdy students whacked the bulletin boards with real spitballs instead of verbal ones.  Now, dodging student challenges to evolution is getting downright exhausting.  Students used to just accept what the teacher said about the subject matter; questions were more the “Why do I have to learn this stuff?” kind than “How do I know it’s true?”  Some teachers may regret the days they used to complain about students merely memorizing and regurgitating facts rather than thinking.  At least, it was easier to glide through the evolution chapter back then.
    Stephanie Simon reported in the Los Angeles Times March 31 about this growing problem.  “Sometimes disruptive but often sophisticated questioning of evolution by students has educators increasingly on the defensive,” she began (emphasis added in all quotes).  Al Frisby’s biology class in Liberty, Missouri provides a typical scene. 

As his students rummage for their notebooks, Frisby introduces his central theme: Every creature on Earth has been shaped by random mutation and natural selection – in a word, by evolution.
    The challenges begin at once.
    “Isn’t it true that mutations only make an animal weaker?” sophomore Chris Willett demands.  “‘Cause I was watching one time on CNN and they mutated monkeys to see if they could get one to become human and they couldn’t.”
    Frisby tries to explain that evolution takes millions of years, but Willett isn’t listening.  I feel a tail growing!” he calls to his friends, drawing laughter.
    Unruffled, Frisby puts up a transparency tracing the evolution of the whale, from its ancient origins as a hoofed land animal [sic] through two lumbering transitional species [sic] and finally into the sea.  He’s about to start on the fossil evidence when sophomore Jeff Paul interrupts: “How are you 100% sure that those bones belong to those animals?  It could just be some deformed raccoon.”
    From the back of the room, sophomore Melissa Brooks chimes in: “Those are real bones that someone actually found?  You’re not just making this up?”
    “No, I am not just making it up,” Frisby says.

Simon states that at least half the students in the class don’t believe him; “they’re not about to let him off easy.”  She attributes the class struggle to two decades of political and legal maneuvering, and to church influence.  “Loyal to the accounts they’ve learned in church, students are taking it upon themselves to wedge creationism into the classroom [sic], sometimes with snide comments but also with sophisticated questions – and a fervent faith.”
    It’s enough to make some teachers dread the evolution module, or skip it altogether.  Simon referred to defensive armor being provided by the AAAS, like guidebooks and workshops.  “We’re not going to roll over and take this,” she quotes Alan Leshner of Science.  “These teachers are facing phenomenal pressure.  They need help.”
    Some of the students, empowered by organizations like Answers in Genesis, are making it their personal crusade to challenge evolution in the classroom.  Simon mentions other arsenals: “Other students gather ammunition from sermons at church, or from the dozens of websites that criticize evolution as a God-denying sham.”
    No specific mention was made of Creation-Evolution Headlines.  But John Morris of ICR was quoted as providing the types of questions students could ask:

“If a teacher is making a claim that land animals evolved into whales, students should ask: ‘What precisely is involved? How does the fur turn into blubber, how do the nostrils move, how does the tiny tail turn into a great big fluke?’” said John Morris, president of the Institute for Creation Research near San Diego.  “Evolution is so unsupportable, if you insist on more information, the teacher will quickly run out of credibility,” he said.

Simon claims that one in five teachers are avoiding the E word in class.  Sometimes it’s not just because of the arguments.  Sometimes it’s because the students have done more research than the teachers.
    Stephanie Simon digressed briefly into the Kansas legal battle over evolution, and then came back to beleaguered Mr. Frisby.  She described him as religious by nature, and a childhood Bible believer, but converted to evolution by a near religious experience in college.
    Now, a lone ranger, he stands his ground.  He uses visual aids to try to illustrate the evolutionary timeline.  He makes claims about transitional fossils and how old they are. 

Frisby promised to show the class several fossils that document [sic] the halting and gradual evolution from apes to humans.  Then he reminded them not to expect equal numbers of human and dinosaur remains, because hominids emerged only recently [sic], while dinosaurs ruled the planet for nearly 200 million years [sic].
    At that, sophomore Derik Montgomery snapped to attention.  “I heard that dinosaurs are only thousands of years old, like 6,000.  Not millions,” he said.
    “That’s wrong,” Frisby responded briskly.  “What can I tell you?.  “You can’t believe everything you read.”

Earlier generations might have disobeyed their teachers sometimes, but did not often disbelieve them.  The article ends, “Sprawled out across his chair, Derik muttered: ‘You can’t believe everything you hear in here, either.’  Frisby put up his next transparency.”

No wonder Mr. Frisby is ineffective.  He’s still using transparencies.  Leshner, don’t waste your money on guidebooks and workshops; give the poor teacher a projector and PowerPoint.
    It takes some reading between the lines to appreciate the significance of what this article represents about the growing cultural revolution over evolution.  Like most reporters in the MSM (mainstream media), Simon is undoubtedly spinning this story to portray a brave, courageous teacher holding his ground against obstreperous mind-numbed students brainwashed by their churches.  There are probably some that fit the stereotype.  If you are one of them, please be advised that disrespectfulness and shallow, joking objections to evolution are shameful and harmful.  Let CEH go on record as strongly denouncing personal attacks, rudeness or disrespect against teachers.  Such behavior will only reinforce the Darwinist stereotype about students who doubt evolution being church-indoctrinated, faith-motivated, anti-intellectual lemmings of their religion.  Let CEH also promote the highest values of intellectual honesty and integrity.  These values are necessary to expose and effectively dismantle the faith-based, mind-numbing religion of Darwinism.
    What stands out in this story are the several references to students bringing “sophisticated questions” that are well-researched and credible.  This is what Dr. John Morris recommended.  Asking good questions is fair game and essential to a good education.  Mr. Frisby pointed to a poster on the wall, “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak.  Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen” (probably insinuating that students do the latter when hearing his evolution spiel).  But courage to speak up is praiseworthy when bad science is being presented.
    Challenging dogma does not have to be rude or disruptive.  Look at what Mr. Frisby presented as evidence – nothing but Bluffing Assertions of Dogmatism – the old B.A.D. habit of the Darwinists.  He holds up a paper-tape timeline of 430 million of years of evolution, with humans appearing in the last few inches.  Why not challenge that?  He says dinosaurs died out millions of years before humans evolve.  Says who?  He claims the fossil record is full of transitional forms, and “promises” to bring the evidence.  Where is it?  He says science must be about natural causes only.  Why so?  Simon waxed melodramatic telling a story about the spiritual warm fuzzies Mr. Frisby gets thinking about evolution.  Who cares?  In none of these cases did the teacher demonstrate solid evidence for evolution that would survive honest, critical inquiry.  He only reiterated the official dogmas of the Church of Charlie.  Courage demands that dogma be challenged in the science classroom.
    Calling all students.  Learn Baloney Detecting.  Learn good science.  Know your history.  Respect brute facts, but distinguish between evidence and dogma.  Be well-dressed, well-groomed, sit up straight, listen with vibrant attention, and learn.  Be a model student when it comes to homework and assignments.  But when something B.A.D. comes out of the teacher’s mouth, raise your hand, smile, wait your turn, and then ask that intelligent, pointed question that will leave Mr. Frisby at a loss for words.  Let your classmates see him forced to either quote the Darwin Articles of Faith in retreat, or, better, admit “I don’t know,” or best, “That is a very good question.  Let me research that.”  Ask in such a way that he will not be angry with you, but will gradually learn to become angry with the foolishness with which he himself was deceived.  If necessary, meet privately with your teacher instead of risking embarrassing him or her in class.  Do a good deed.  Enlist your teacher as an ally in the movement against B.A.D. science.