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DR. AMANDA GLAZE: The theory of evolution by natural selection
is a controversial theory that is included in this textbook.
It is controversial because it states
that natural selection provides the basis
for the modern scientific explanation for the diversity
of living things.
It is assumed that it produces large changes, even though this
has not been directly observed.
INTERVIEWER: What's the problem with that?
DR. AMANDA GLAZE: Well, it's points out to students,
and it makes them think, hmm, maybe I
shouldn't be learning this.
Maybe I should see this is not being, you know, good for me.
Or maybe this isn't legitimate.
Whereas most of the world has no issue with the concept
of scientific evolution.
In the southeastern United States,
the conflict is a very real thing.
Lends such a unique cultural underpinning
that studies done in other parts of the country
don't necessarily apply.
DR. AMANDA GLAZE: My name is Dr. Amanda Glaze,
and I am a wife, mother, scientist, teacher, pot
stirrer.
I researched the evolution conflict
in the southeastern United States.
I was born and reared Southern Baptist, very devote family.
Started out in applied sciences, and some really interesting lab
conversations kind of got me interested in understanding
some of the conflict between why so many of us
have no problem at all with evolution,
and yet it was something I couldn't even come
home and talk to people about.
JOHNNY LEE: Well, were in the Bible belt, OK?
We're the heart of the Bible belt. This is what we know,
what we've been taught.
It's been taught, or not taught for generations,
or not talked about.
It's been taboo.
DR. AMANDA GLAZE: They tolerate me.
[LAUGHING] They love me, and they tolerate what I do.
VICKIE BOOZER: Maybe just make sure God is
proud of what you're writing.
You know.
Make sure God, you know, is in agreement with you
because it's important.
NORMA BOOZER: I prayed for her a lot.
VICKIE BOOZER: Yeah.
Just because of the topic.
It's just ingrained.
She just can't help it.
DR. AMANDA GLAZE: She was terrified.
She's to this day terrified because evolution
is in complete contradiction with the literal interpretation
of Genesis, which says that God created man in his own image,
and we were taught that to believe otherwise
was basically to throw out the entire Bible.
BECKY NESMITH: People hear the word evolution,
and they just turn off.
They think they know what evolution is.
They have the idea that evolution is about people
coming from monkeys.
I have had students tell me that because dinosaurs are not
in the Bible, they don't exist.
That they are hoax planted by scientists to throw us off.
ROBIN SPOON: Everyone's kind of got their minds made up
on what they believe, and no amount of talking to them
really is going to change it unless you can sit down
and really detail things out.
DR. AMANDA GLAZE: As scientists, if we really
want to change the general public's
opinion about a topic such as evolution,
we have to focus on our teaching and our approach
and how we deal with them.
That is really the place where the rubber meets the road,
so to speak, because these are people
that are going to impact thousands of students
when we get out there.
A lot of times we see things like a teacher coming
into a classroom, and telling students
I'm not comfortable with this.
This does not agree with what I believe in,
and they might teach it for a day or two,
but it sends conflicting messages,
much like having disclaimers in textbooks.
ROBIN SPOON: I was one of those teachers that
hoped that we didn't get to evolution because I
didn't want to step on toes.
Some kid's going to run home and say,
they're telling me I came from a monkey.
And that's not what we're telling them.
DR. AMANDA GLAZE: There was already research done
that said teachers who accept evolution
are more likely to teach it.
Those who reject evolution are more likely not to teach it.
So, OK.
Well, what factors impact acceptance or rejection?
Easy.
It started out as a simple quantitative study.
ROBIN SPOON: She told me that she
was doing her doctoral thesis on teaching evolution
in public schools, and she was surveying
several different teachers that she knew.
To make any scientific determinations
about historic occurrences in nature
there must be direct human observation.
The theory of evolution is incapable of being
scientifically tested.
I remember feeling undecided on some of them.
DR. AMANDA GLAZE: You would think
that the more people in someone's
life who were in science, technology, engineering,
and math, you would expect them to have
a positive impact on a person's acceptance of evolution,
and that didn't happen.
We expected that the more someone understood the concepts
of evolution that it would have a bigger
impact on their acceptance of evolution.
That didn't happen.
Their religious background explains
a lot, 14% unique impact.
We only got a moderate acceptance level,
and these are biology majors and future teachers.
We're well behind the world when it
comes to a lot of these scientific concepts,
and a lot of that has to do with this perceived
conflict between religiosity and science,
that you have to be either religious or scientific.
And it's really a false dichotomy.
TORI GADDY: I know what we've taught our children.
I know what my children believe as far as Jesus,
and if they want to add some scientific theory to that
as long as it does not contradict
our religious beliefs then I can accept that.
CRAIG GADDY: I think I have to defer
to scripture that says if you teach a child the way
that it should go, it will not depart from it.
COLE CADDY: Evolution to me is adaptation
in humans and animals and not on the scale of let's say
monkeys and humans.
More on the scale of fish flying, you know.
CRAIG GADDY: He talks about Doctor Glaze a lot
at home, which is different for him
to talk about teachers instead of coaches.
COLE CADDY: I mean, I believed as soon
as I walked in that Dr. Glaze respected my beliefs.
And if a Muslim or somebody else or an atheist walked in there,
she'd respect that too.
There's no doubt about it.
DR. AMANDA GLAZE: You're free to believe
what you want to believe.
Here's the science.
Let's look at it, OK.
Let's talk this through.
Let's look at what's going on here.
The ability to take off that belief hat
and set it aside for a minute and weigh the evidence
without it.
It's opening the door to them being OK with sidelining
those beliefs later.
That's a journey that's very hard especially
people coming from a literalist, fundamentalist position.
I know because I've made that journey myself.
BECKY NESMITH: We're never going to get any better as a people,
as a state, as a country, as a world,
if we're not open to change.
DR. AMANDA GLAZE: You can't make everyone except evolution.
That's true.
But if you look at things from a perspective of you
know a lot of those people were in the very high,
high acceptance.
There were a good deal in the low, very low levels.
But a majority of those people fall in the middle
when you look at the bell curve, so they
could fall in either direction.
That's the target.
ROBIN SPOON: As a teacher, I'm hopeful that her research will
help us present the material in a non-confrontational manner
that students could look at and evaluate for themselves.
DR. AMANDA GLAZE: This is not a war
of evolution versus religion.
This is, to me, this is a war for science literacy.
And you know what?
If it cost me my job somewhere, it cost me my job somewhere,
but I'm still going to teach evolution.
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