Sick in bed and was thinking about 8th grade Biology class (my only Biology class before college) and that there was really no serious discussion on evolution and that intelligent design was most definitely discussed in the classroom. I know my teacher was LDS although it didn't bother me or the class, but I also feel like had I actually known the facts about evolution and all the evidence that was discovered, I feel like my view on life would have turned out a lot different.
So for me, evolution was introduced as "just a theory" and none of the subsequent evidence was discussed. This was 12 years ago in Utah, wondering what other's "educational" experiences have been regarding evolution.
Perhaps that's why mormonism will never gain influence in Europe. Incidentally, and rather uncomfortably for the likes of me, mormon shenanegins were certainly discussed as part of our local history education, particularly when teaching of migrations and the reasons for them. I live in Lancashire.
My biology class in high school covered evolution in depth and even went into the history of Charles Darwin and his work. We covered how species evolve and adapt to their surroundings. The whole theory of men evolving from apes was not covered but evolution in other species was.
Even my best friend from those days, who's a bishop now and a working scientist, says it was amazing that crackpot didn't derail him from the sciences...
He did me, and my friend--who coined a delicious nickname for the dumb arse--was surprised when he found out I moved over to humanities (simply to save my sanity; my highest aptitude is in science).
I kept up on evolution, however, courtesy of my grandmother (a former "nice little Mormon girl" who helped found my family's apostate lineage). Robert Ardrey, Desmond Morris, anything about the Leakey's... Full praise to PBS and National Geographic particularly...
I will give the teacher one bit of credit for pointing out Joseph Fielding Smith said you "couldn't believe in evolution and the Divine Mission of Jesus Christ."
I read Smith's "Man, His Origin and Destiny" in high school, and seeing what that headcase was saying saved me from being baptized despite the ministrations of the bishop's daughter.
He was speaking at my university and I was the PR intern in charge of promoting the lecture series for which he'd be speaking. I had to arrange all his travel and lodging details and make sure someone was taking him from point a to point b. I was allowed to sit in on his main lecture and my boss took a moment to introduce me to him before he went on. "Here's the punk chick who's been promoting your lecture, Dr. Leakey!" "Oh, thank you, young lady. You did a good job!"
Really nice man, fascinating lecture.
Oh, and relevant to the OP: I went to school before the whole intelligent design issue came up. I recall being taught about Darwin's work, the fossil records, and it was made clear to me that humans did not evolve directly from apes, but that we have a common ancestor. I learned about this stuff first, so when I started going to church, I had trouble reconciling Creation with Evolution. Finally, I decided that perhaps God created the process of evolution so he could take that day off. Like a gardener: once you plant and water, there's not much to do but sit back and wait. So that's how I viewed evolution: God created that process so he could let all living things grow and develop as they needed to.
dogzilla Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I decided that perhaps God created the > process of evolution so he could take that day > off. Like a gardener: once you plant and water, > there's not much to do but sit back and wait. So > that's how I viewed evolution: God created that > process so he could let all living things grow and > develop as they needed to. ================================================== I was raised Catholic. This is what I was taught from a very early age. Also that since God is timeless, a "day" would by no means indicate a 24-hour period for Him as it does for us.
> I was raised Catholic. This is what I was taught > from a very early age. Also that since God is > timeless, a "day" would by no means indicate a > 24-hour period for Him as it does for us.
I remember reading someone's comment in the newspaper back when the Kansas School Board dropped evolution from the curriculum and gained a lot of notoriety around the country. The commenter said, "does anyone else recognize the irony that if you want your kids to learn about evolution, you have to send them to Catholic school?"
The only hint of evolution I ever got before college was visiting the natural history museum at the UofU.
But I didn't connect the dots. As a kid I had no global sense of the timeline, of the transendence, of the preimminence of evolution. It didn't even occur to me that church and science were at odds, especially since the church claims to be all about education, and I knew doctors, professors, engineers, architects, etc. in church.
I didn't take college biology until after my mission. By then I knew to expect opposition, and I hyped myself up for it. By then I'd heard the church apologetics...ie some major apostle's "framework" talk about it. Essentially he gives you permission to pretend it's true for academic purposes, but he definitely implies there's a higher law. That gave me a very tentative attitude about it.
Then surprisingly there really was no evolution tsunami after all even in college biology at my secular schools in a big west coast city. The biology community takes it for granted. You have to actually study it per se if you want to get down to it...which I did. I took a vertebrate zoology class that was ALL ABOUT evolution. It laid bare the evidence, which was self-supporting. For the first time, I KNEW it was unequivocal, not "just a theory", not just a stretch, but actually WHAT HAPPENED according to ample fossil and genetic discoveries. Then I realized how it HAD to fit all the other biology I had taken.
I guess I was lucky, I was raised by an excommunicated Catholic and an atheist/agnostic, neither active in any church. Pedophile Dad however, subscribed to National Geographic, and I had free access. This was during the 60's. I learned many things ... that magazine and I. He had only graduated high school and my mom only finished 6th grade. My Dad had a firm belief that blacks were further down the evolutionary ladder than whites, and was always hopeful National Geographic would prove that. Sighs. Gays flat out scared him for the future of the world and he felt Hitler had some good points. He taught me to educate myself and encouraged any discussion that would diss churches, any church. So I became a Mormon and felt him rolling in his grave, :O
My Gawds, that old fart child abuser was right about some things! rofl
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2012 08:12AM by mindlight.
notsurewhattothink Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > So for me, evolution was introduced as "just a > theory" and none of the subsequent evidence was > discussed. This was 12 years ago in Utah, > wondering what other's "educational" experiences > have been regarding evolution.
I grew up in Sweden and my school presented evolution as 'scientific fact'. The concept of 'intelligent design' was never mentioned and would probably have been met with ridicule if presented.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2012 08:24AM by swiper.
I grew up in sweden too. Yes, creationists would be the laughing stock of the class. In school there was no doubt that evolution was the way to go. Yet I didn't really learn anything about evolution until I read for myself Darwins book and a few of Dawkins books about it.
Don't know if it's better now, but it's actually pretty sad that in school all you learn about evolution is that it's taken for granted as true. There was no mention or discussion of the most basic of it all: natural selection, nor any of the evidence for it. Only simple references to "adaptation" that often were wrong.
Barnes and Bradshaw taught it in my Biology 100 class at BYU. Evolution occurs, no getting around it. They basically said that if God used evolution to create man, they had no problem with it. I don't know how you'd reconcile that with the earth being 6,000 years old. Evolution is s.l.o.w.
I grew up far, far away from the Mormon heartland, on the fringe of one of America's largest urban concatenations.
We learned about evolution as scientific fact.
We also studied the Scopes Monkey Trial (The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes), and concluded that what separates intelligent people from dumbass religulous hicks is ...
I went to school in Montana. We studied evolution in depth, including the meanings of "theories" vs. "hypothesis" so we'd understand why evolution is categorized as a theory. We also studied the Scopes trial to learn about how to break religious philosophy away from science.
Creationism was explained as the way the ancients saw the world when they didn't have the tools or experience to understand otherwise. The phrase "intelligent design" wasn't even part of the conversation.
In high school, I was taught evolution. Period. In college (at BYU), my biology teacher taught evolution and told people who had a problem with it to report him to the department chair or the Honor Code office. (He was a grad student, and I don't remember his name but he was pretty ballsy.) When I was a TBM, I always believed that God oversaw the evolutionary process (which is intelligent design, I guess). Now I can believe in evolution and never have to think about it again.
I grew up in California. I remember being taught natural selection, but not evolution or intelligent design. I wish they had presented me with more of the evidence, but it was good to try to figure it out on my own. Based on what I learned I leaned towards evolution, but because it was so hard to tie that in with my religious "knowledge" I didn't think about it too much. Then one day I saw a TV special on intelligent design that sounded rational and fit perfectly with my religious "knowledge." So I converted to intelligent design. However, I continued learning and trying to find the evidence I had been deprived of, and the more I researched and learned the more I saw the major flaws in the arguments used in that TV special. So, I converted back to evolution, and as I researched I became more and more convinced of it until the day I left mormonism, at which point I did a facepalm.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2012 11:25AM by kimball.
I had never-mo parents who accepted evolution and I had no problem with it when it was touched on briefly in High School biology class. It wasn't until I converted that I ever questioned it, and even then, I more set it aside rather than challenged it even in my own mind. My wife was taught that HF could have used evolution to build the world so there wasn't a great deal of controversy over the theory - it wasn't discussed much in favor of other TBM topics, however.
The more I learn about evolution and the scientific process, the more I have difficulty with those who argue so strongly against it. I have to believe it is lack of exposure and understanding. I suppose there are those who also feel threatened by a concept of anything that rivals their religious belief but this is mainly a willing form of ignorance (imo).
I remember watching "Inherit the Wind" in my Utah public high school biology class. I don't remember there being much debate or discussion at all about evolution - mostly we learned about classification and cell anatomy.
However, I took honors biology courses in college in Utah, and the professor happened to be in my stake presidency. We read Darwin's book, and he very plainly explained that anyone who disputes evolution is an idiot who either didn't read or didn't understand the theory (and it's true - I love when creationists claim that Darwin says we evolved from apes, because NO HE DIDN'T. If they actually read the book they'd know that).
This professor also said that he saw absolutely no conflict with accepting evolution as fact and still believing in a creator. He thought of it as God setting up a sort of cosmic Rube Goldberg machine billions of years ago that eventually led to the creation of Man. Made perfect sense at the time.
I grew up in the morridor and had a couple of high school classes that discussed evolution without any real depth. I always thought it was very likely to be true and assumed the dichotomy between religious views and scientific views were something that needed further investigation. One or the other was true, and I always suspected it was science that was the correct path.
Fortunately I was never a true TBM because I wasn't "properly indoctrinated" by my Jack Mormon parents. Since then I have studied it rather extensively on my own and believe that Darwinian evolution is a very sound and reasonable theory. I have simply relegated all religion to the realm of mythology. It's important because it's integral to human culture but it's not factually true at all.
Evolution was taught in increasing levels of understanding in various science classes, mostly biology, from elementary through to high school. In uni, I took various human evolution courses as part of my anthropology degree: physical, cognitive, just basic evolution (humans and all the other creatures) and the history of evolution as a field of study.
Not once was 'Creationism' or 'ID' ever mentioned.
When I was growing up, evolution was taken for granted, but not looked at in depth. I never learned it was actually a theory until I was in my twenties. A critical, in-depth look at both evolution and id would have been more beneficial. And it should all be taught as theory.
You obviously do not understand the scientific meaning of the term "theory". Evolution is fact. If it was just something scientists think might maybe be an explanation for some things it would be called the Hypothesis of Evolution.
I spent 6 years in Catholic school...they didnt play...we learned a lot and there was no "ID"...ID is NOT science so how can you teach it "right along" with evolution as evolution was taught in a science class! Thats what i am sayin...just sayin!!
just enlightening!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2012 07:03PM by bignevermo.
I never heard of opposition to evolution until I was in college and was surprised to hear someone who believed in Adam and Eve as literal. The next time I heard opposition was in my senior year at MIT when a young woman I dated, who was a graduate student at Harvard, was having a problem with the issue because she was brought up in a church which didn't believe in evolution. I later belonged to a church which, I later learned, didn't believe in evolution - though I didn't know this when I joined. Similarly, only long after joining TSCC did I hear that the church didn't support evolution and finally learned that it does't even believe that death existed until after the Garden of Eden! I still find it difficult to believe that anyone takes the Bible literally on these matters. That said, at the time when DW and I went to the temple for the first time (see my story in the bios), the ceremony referred to everything as "a similitude". So I figured TSCC didn't take it as literal. Oops, it does.
I took "Life Science" and a required beginning biology class in college.
I never recall learning about evolution. If a teacher even thought about teaching creationism, they would have been ridden out of town on a rail... 'Intelligent Design' hadn't been thought of in the'80's.
All I remember is breeding Drosophila melanogasters, (fruit flies), to see what color their abdomens would come out. Eventually, all the fruit flies prematurely 'flew the flask' and I wrote a computer program that, sort of, duplicated the process. Anyway, my biology teacher was impressed.
That and being asked on a test to name the three types of mammals – I got monotremes, (platypus), marsupials and completely spaced out on placentals. Talk about embarrassing.
I went to a high school in a very mormon part of of utah. The science teacher was a great guy and I have no idea if he was or is religious. I don't remember much of the teaching of evolution mainly because it was a long time ago but I do remember him going into pretty good detail about it. I also remember clearly getting the feeling that it annoyed him a bit that he had to answer any question about how evolution fit with mormonism. You could just tell when a student asked something that it bothered him. There was no question in my mind that evolution was the explanation for how life developed on earth. Now I spent the next 15 years or so as an active member and so there was some cognitive dissonance there, but I like to think that the science teacher planted some good seeds that just took a while to grow. I left high school with a good understanding of evolution and Darwin's theory. I also left with a good idea of the scientific method so he must have been a good teacher.
Nobody's religious-tinted school memories can't approach what I experienced in a public school in Tennessee, early 1960s. The state legislature was considering another bill about evolution, and we students started talking about it. At some point we realized we really didn't know exactly what Darwin had said, so we asked our teacher. His reply: "We can't talk about that in school." He was right; in TN it was illegal. When I reached high school biology evolution was simply ignored and by then we were all polite enough not to raise questions and embarrass the teacher. She was a nice lady; we didn't want to get her into trouble.
I learned about Darwin and evolution from my own reading and college courses. Now I feel so sorry for my teachers who were faced with this stupidity and ashamed of the state I grew up in.
I am glad to see that some people were taught correctly and that, at least from what I see on this board, was in the minority when it came to creationism in the classroom.