Why Teach Evolution
Scientists, authors, academics, and classroom teachers describe the beauty of evolution and the critical importance of evolution education for our nation's young people as part of our #WhyTeachEvolution campaign.
The first thought that popped into my head when starting to answer the question “Why teach evolution?” was how would you teach biology without teaching evolution? Or any life science for that matter? I began to consider this possibility further and examined my own yearly lesson plans from when I…
As a physicist, I have not concerned myself professionally with the details of biological evolution. Nevertheless, it is significant to the physicist (or any scientist) because of the way it fits perfectly with the evolution that takes place in every aspect of nature—from the Big Bang and cosmic…
Dating back over a hundred years, the struggle to understand and teach evolution was among the first fights in the modern scientific era. Teaching evolution reinforces the value of objective information, regardless of whether or not it's consistent with fundamentalist beliefs.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and this is never more true than when examining evolution. Since 1859, unscrupulous actors have used a poor understanding of Darwin’s work to justify eugenics, subjugate other nations, and rationalize socially deleterious behaviors. (And equally unscrupulous…
I am a lineal academic descendent of the Russian-born geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, who said in his famous 1973 essay: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." No truer words have ever been penned in our field. Evolution holds the same position in biology as cosmology…
As a child, I thought the natural world was fascinating and full of amazing things to explore and learn, and was constantly asking questions. It wasn’t until later in life that I realized that many of my childhood questions could be answered simply by understanding evolution.
Learning about…
Why teach evolution? A school administrator might answer simply that the district teaches evolution because it a required part of the science curriculum. Evolution is in the standards and a school would be derelict in its educational duty if its textbooks and curriculum failed to include it.…
Teaching evolution is fundamental to understanding and explaining the diversity of life around us. Supported by multiple lines of evidence, evolution has the broad power to explain biological phenomena on small and large scales. By understanding how evolutionary changes occur, scientists can make…