CSI in the News October 2011 - CSI Today

adically incomplete, if not mistaken.Berkman and Plutzer turn in Chapter 3 to explaining this observed pattern of public opinion. Theydescribe “a nation divided by religion, education and place.” Support for creationism is the product of acentury‐old split between mainline Protestant denominations and doctrinally conservative ones. Thesplit within Protestantism reflects profound differences in attitudes toward modernity, how to interpretthe Bible, ideas about progress, and eschatoloty (premillennial vs. postmillennial). The authors draw onexisting taxonomies of denominations and two surveys matching these denominations with opinionsabout evolution to uncover a pattern with significant implications for political mobilization. Only amongJews and people with “no religious affiliation” do we find firm opposition to creationism. Opinion withinmainline Protestant and Catholic denominations is rather diverse, and often evenly split. Leaders of suchreligious formations will likely avoid the topic. Only within traditional Protestant churches is support forcreationism nearly uniform and deeply felt – perfect conditions for political mobilization,notwithstanding repeated legal defeats (p.72). Levels of education do not have a strong impact onopinion, except for the fact that those with postgraduate degrees tend to strongly favor evolution. Asfor geography, the authors point out that anti‐evolutionism is a national movement, although, asexpected, it is strongest in South and the Midwest, where traditional Protestantism is most prevalent.Chapter 3 also goes on to map public opinion in each of the fifty states. Here, the authors draw on ninestudies with 9,533 respondents. Again, we find surprisingly limited support for teaching evolution only.Even in Massachusetts, the state most favorably disposed to evolution, and even taking the evidence inthe light most favorable to support for evolution, no more than 47% support the consensus view amongprofessional scientists (p.85). Support for teaching evolution only falls below 30% in about half thestates. In each state, the authors conclude, public opinion on teaching evolution is strongly associatedwith (1) the percentage of the population holding masters or doctoral degrees, and (2) the percentageof the population affiliated with doctrinally conservative churches (p.87). [*587]Having established what public opinion is, nationally and state‐by‐state, and discussing why it is what itis, Berkman and Plutzer move on to a stepwise examination of whether it matters, and if so, how? InChapter 4, they draw on a thorough review of the quality of each state’s science standards as of 2000.They find a considerable range of different formal standards on the permissive side of the constitutionalboundary. At one end of the spectrum, we have Kansas’s myopic denial of evolution (since reformed) orIowa’s vague and meaningless verbiage (“students can understand relationships and concepts inbiological science”). At the other end, we have states that fully embrace the rigor and elaboration of thescientific consensus. The best single source for this scientific consensus, a gold standard for sciencestandards, the authors note, is the National Research Council’s “National Science Education Standards”(NSES) (1996) (p.100). What explains this wide variation in quality? Berkman and Plutzer compare theexplanatory power of two models, a “technical” one in which science and bureaucratic autonomydetermine policy, and a “responsive” one in which public opinion does. Interestingly, they find that thetechnical model explains variation for subjects in science other than evolution, but the responsive modelholds for evolution (p.110). “In states where a majority of the public are hostile toward evolution,” theauthors write, “the standards tend to be cursory and vague…” (p.113). So public opinion is related tostate standards. But do the state standards determine what happens in the classroom? To answer thatquestion Berkman and Plutzer needed to know what happens in the classroom, and what might explainvariation in what happens in the classroom.In Chapter 5, the authors describe their national survey of biology teachers (with 926 respondents) andreport both quantitative and qualitative data from it. They asked teachers to state how much time theyPage 36 of 154