On Mon, 27 Dec 2004, Dennis Goff went:
> I have encountered this bias in a few of my students too. I now
> state clearly on the first day of my Developmental Psychology class
> that we include an evolutionary view in our exploration of human
> development. That disclaimer leads to a one or two drops before the
> next class.David Epstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
This sort of thing continues to amaze me because I've never knowingly
encountered it. <snip>Neither have I, and I'm wondering what other TIPSters' experiences might be. I teach introductory psychology, and to my way of thinking there is NO WAY to teach intro psych without using evolution as a lens and focal point--without some kind of theme, intro psych is famously a grab-bag.
I've never had a problem; possibly because I teach in a Catholic school, so there won't be any religious backlash? (I'm not sure when the Vatican signed on to Darwin, but they seemed to have learned something since Galileo about how to handle these things.) Or perhaps because I'm in Massachusetts?
My students have difficulty with science in general--because they've been taught badly, because they're still at the concrete operational stage, because they've developed learned helplessness about it, because science is, let's face it, hard--but religion has NEVER been the cause of the problem.
I'm not claiming there are no creationists (I'm descended from a few) and I know the dismal statistics about belief in evolution versus belief in, say, astrology (which is also condemned by most religions, oddly enough). But my personal experience hasn't reflected this.
Robin
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