Teaching Evolution in Indiana

When I was a graduate student in archaeology at Indiana University, I supported myself through a variety of different jobs that more or less related to the area I was studying. One of my first jobs was as an Associate Instructor (other schools call them Teaching Assistants) for a large lecture class called A105--Human Origins and Prehistory. This course was IU's intro to living primates, Human Evolution, and the very beginnings of prehistory, if there was time and the professor was so inclined. While the course was not exactly in my wheel house--I was studying the Greek Bronze Age at the time and had only taken one Human Evolution course as an undergraduate--the position came with money and, more importantly, tuition remission, so I took it. How hard could it be?

Harder than I expected. Teaching is a skill that must be learned, but beyond that, I was surprised by the amount of resistance some of the students had to learning about human evolution. Every semester, I had at least a couple of students tell me that they were taking the course to test their faith. Often, when I read my course evaluations at the end of the semester, I would find one that said that I was very nice, but that they still didn't believe it. One student gave me a Bible when the class was over. Most of these students were polite, listened, and even learned the information I presented well enough that they did well on the exams.

I have been reminded of all this because of a new bill that recently passed in the Indiana State Senate that would make it possible to teach creationism alongside evolution in public school science classes. You can read a brief discussion here: Indiana creationism bill passes the Senate.

There are a number of reasons why this is a terrible idea. Teaching creationism as an alternative to evolution has been ruled unconstitutional under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which says in part: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Because creationism, creation science, and intelligent design are based on a religious (Christian) worldview, they may not be established as government-sanctioned explanations. An attempt to add intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in science classrooms in Pennsylvania  wound up in court (Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District 2004). In this case, the judge ruled that, in addition to violating the establishment clause of the Bill of Rights, intelligent design was creationism dressed up and it was therefore unconstitutional to teach it in the public schools. The settlement of the court case ultimately cost the school district $1 million in damages and legal fees.

Why? The fact remains that a creationist account of the origins of the earth is not a scientific explanation! It does not use the scientific method, which is the hallmark of science. Scientific explanations are testable, replicable, and falsifiable. Religious explanations are none of the above, because they are based on faith.

Denying the fact of evolution or teaching students that it is "just another creation story" in high school science classes puts students at a huge disadvantage. Evolution is the underlying concept that unifies all of the life sciences. It guides research in medicine, marine biology, epidemiology, and many other crucial fields. Not understanding evolutionary biology makes it hugely difficult for students to succeed in these fields.

The Indiana Bill


The text of the original bill presented to the Senate read in its entirety:

 The governing body of a school corporation may require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science, within the school corporation.

Like most bills that attempt to mandate the teaching of creationism in schools, this one says more-or-less explicitly, that the "various theories concerning the origin of life" really means the Biblical account of creation. This opens up all kinds of opportunities for lawsuits by people from non-Christian religious backgrounds, in addition to the objections that can be raised under the First Amendment. Interestingly, the bill that passed the Indiana State Senate was amended to say:

The governing body of a school corporation may offer instruction on various theories of the origin of life. The curriculum for the course must include theories from multiple religions, which may include, but is not limited to, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Scientology.

This is clearly designed to sidestep the objections that might be raised against just presenting the Christian version of creation and might be expected to appeal to creationists of other faiths. There are, after all, as many creation stories as there are religious groups; more, even, because we know a variety of myths from religions that have no present-day followers. A selection of non-Christian origin stories can be found here.


It is clear that creationists take evolution as a threat to the faith of their children. Scientists like Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) have argued that the fact of evolution disproves the existence of God, which is a position designed to make creationists nervous. If their children learn about evolution in school, won't that make them atheists? That is not a facetious question, it is a real one that faces creationist families. Evolution does, in fact, contradict a literal reading of creation as portrayed in the Bible and in most (but not all) other creation stories.


However, not all evolutionary scientists are atheists or agnostics and not all religious believe that evolution and religious beliefs are incompatible. Indeed, in 2009, Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture of the Catholic Church, said that the idea of evolution could be traced to St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas.


The Indiana bill is unlikely to pass the State House, in part because of the precedent of the Kitzmiller, et al. v Dover Area School District decision, but the issue is not closed. I don't think I will ever present creationist accounts of the origins of life as equal to evolution in my classes, but, like the professor I taught with that first semester, I always start by talking about the difference between science and religion. I'm not sure it has any impact.


If you want to learn more about the theory of evolution, I suggest the University of California--Berkeley "Understanding Evolution" website: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php and the National Center for Science Education website: http://ncse.com/