UK teachers say ‘let creationist views be discussed’
With the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth looming large, there is no end in sight to the creation-evolution debate. Nearly a third of British teachers (29 per cent) in a poll said that creationism and intelligent design should be given the same status as evolution in the classroom; 53 per cent disagreed. However, 88 per cent agreed that if pupils raised the issue in a science lesson, they should be able to discuss it. The poll of 1200 teachers was commissioned by the broadcaster Teachers’ TV.
Recently, members of the Royal Society forced the resignation of its education director, Professor Michael Reiss, after he advocated toleration of creationist views in the classroom. Prof Reiss estimated that 10 per cent of British schoolchildren came from families with creationist beliefs. Some 50 per cent of teachers in the new poll agreed with his view that excluding alternative explanations to evolution is counter-productive, and could alienate pupils from science.~ Times Online, Nov 7
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João Pedro Afonso said...
Portugal | Tue, 18 Nov 2008 at 2:32 am
This is always catching news except,… I could perfectly have wrote the title “UK teachers say ‘DO NOT let creationist views be discussed’” to it too. After all, there was more answers against than in favor, was not? And both titles cannot describe the same information since they appear to be mutually contradictory, or can they?
What I want to find is the original poll and his findings. As it is, the information about it appears to follow the classic pattern, who recounts a story, adds a new dot to it (or looses one… decide yourself). The news article in which the title above was based had the more informative title “Put creationism on a par with evolution, say third of teachers”, but even TimesOnline fails to mention that the inquiry was sent to 10600 teachers, but only around 1200 answered (with ~280 science teachers in it). The number of answers could have been meaningful, but their optionality and the degree of missing answers risks to bias strongly the sample. Think on it, who would be more likely to be lazy about this survey, the teacher with an unorthodox opinion eager to share it, or the orthodox one comfortable in its supposed majority? Add the fear against phishing techniques (wasn’t an e-mail based query?) but also the fear to be caught with unorthodox ideas (to balance it), and we’ll have enough factors to distort meaningfully the result, unless corrected somehow. I think it would have be more honest to say, 3% are strongly in favor of teaching it, 6% are strongly against, 2% has no opinion and 89% didn’t answered… but then, there wouldn’t have be any news worthwhile,… which might explain why no one took that direction.
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With the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth looming large, there is no end in sight to the creation-evolution debate. Nearly a third of British teachers (29 per cent) in a poll said that creationism and intelligent design should be given the same status as evolution in the classroom; 53 per cent disagreed. However, 88 per cent agreed that if pupils raised the issue in a science lesson, they should be able to discuss it. The poll of 1200 teachers was commissioned by the broadcaster Teachers’ TV.
This is always catching news except,… I could perfectly have wrote the title “UK teachers say ‘DO NOT let creationist views be discussed’” to it too. After all, there was more answers against than in favor, was not? And both titles cannot describe the same information since they appear to be mutually contradictory, or can they?
What I want to find is the original poll and his findings. As it is, the information about it appears to follow the classic pattern, who recounts a story, adds a new dot to it (or looses one… decide yourself). The news article in which the title above was based had the more informative title “Put creationism on a par with evolution, say third of teachers”, but even TimesOnline fails to mention that the inquiry was sent to 10600 teachers, but only around 1200 answered (with ~280 science teachers in it). The number of answers could have been meaningful, but their optionality and the degree of missing answers risks to bias strongly the sample. Think on it, who would be more likely to be lazy about this survey, the teacher with an unorthodox opinion eager to share it, or the orthodox one comfortable in its supposed majority? Add the fear against phishing techniques (wasn’t an e-mail based query?) but also the fear to be caught with unorthodox ideas (to balance it), and we’ll have enough factors to distort meaningfully the result, unless corrected somehow. I think it would have be more honest to say, 3% are strongly in favor of teaching it, 6% are strongly against, 2% has no opinion and 89% didn’t answered… but then, there wouldn’t have be any news worthwhile,… which might explain why no one took that direction.