This is a sad little clip of a 1996 BBC documentary that has been resurrected and has been making the round of science blogs the past couple days.
It’s from a science classroom in Dayton, TN. (Home to the famous Scopes Monkey Trial.) These kids are now grownups of about 30. Many no doubt have children of their own, who likely continue to mindlessly parrot the same creationist talking points of their parents. And so, the circle of life continues.
The most frustrating part is that the students appear to have genuine confusion over evolution and are struggling to understand it. But the teacher, rather than address their misinformation and use his teaching skills to actually foster learning in the classroom, abdicates his responsibility and says, “How can I say to the student, your ideas are trash?” As if that would be his only alternative to just standing there ignorantly nodding his head in agreement.
Unfortunately, the teacher is not an anomaly. According to a 2007 survey of high school biology teachers, 16% believed that human beings were created by God in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.
