How Should Creationism and Intelligent Design be Dealt with in the Classroom?

Abstract

Until recently, little attention has been paid in the school classroom to creationism and almost none to intelligent design. However, creationism and possibly intelligent design appear to be on the increase and there are indications that there are more countries in which schools are becoming battle‐grounds over them. I begin by examining whether creationism and intelligent design are controversial issues, drawing on Robert Dearden's epistemic criterion of the controversial and more recent responses to and defences of this. I then examine whether the notion of ‘worldviews’ in the context of creationism is a useful one by considering the film March of the Penguins. I conclude that the ‘worldviews’ perspective on creationism is useful for two reasons: first it indicates the difficulty of using the criterion of reason to decide whether an issue is controversial or not; secondly, it suggests that standard ways of addressing the diversity of student views in a science classroom may be inadequate. I close by examining the implications of this view for teaching in science lessons and elsewhere, for example in religious education lessons and citizenship lessons and at primary level where subject divisions cannot be made in so clear‐cut a manner.

Evolution Versus Creationism: A matter of acceptance versus belief

“…Students may not react well to evolution teaching and some will actively wish to discuss the challenges to evolution posed by creationism. One way to deal with such challenges, as advocated by Reiss (2007Reiss ( , 2011, is to treat creationism not as a misconception in Evolution versus Creationism 9 science, but to see it as a worldview. I take a different view (Williams 2009), seeing creationism as a misconception arising from a religious worldview.…”

Biology Education: The Value of Taking Student Concerns Seriously

“…The term has recently been explored as a way of helping conceptualise why, despite the best efforts of many science educators, so few students leave their schooling with the sort of scientific understanding and disposition that most science teachers wish they had. The principal conclusion is that school science fails to enable most students to see the world from a scientific perspective [50]. By and large, students are content to see the world much as they always have.…”

The Transformation of Scientific Knowledge Concerning Evolution into the Content of the Curriculum and its Potential to Create a Conceptual Change in the Conceptual Structures of Pupils

“…Other causes include a lack of opportunities to express an opinion on various issues regarding Fančovičová / Knowledge and Understanding of Evolution 2 / 9 evolution (Clores & Limjap, 2006). The rejection of evolution is also influenced by religion (Miller & Toth, 2014), but religiosity does not necessarily mean non-acceptance of evolution (Reiss, 2011). In an absence or misunderstanding of evolution, it is assumed that other topics will not be correctly interpreted (Losch & Nzekwe, 2011).…”