Home Schoolers Are Shielded from Evolution Facts
by Dylan Lovan
Associated Press
Louisville, Ky. » Home-school mom Susan Mule wishes she hadn’t taken a friend’s advice and tried a textbook from a popular Christian publisher for her 10-year-old’s biology lessons.
Mule’s precocious daughter Elizabeth excels at science and has been studying tarantulas since she was 5. But she watched Elizabeth’s excitement turn to confusion when they reached the evolution section of the book from Apologia Educational Ministries, which disputed Charles Darwin’s theory.
“I thought she was going to have a coronary,” Mule said of her daughter, who is now 16 and taking college courses in Houston. “She’s like, ‘This is not true!’ ”
Christian-based materials dominate a growing home-school education market that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. And for most home-school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth’s creation is exactly what they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show 83 percent of home-schooling parents want to give their children “religious or moral instruction.”
“The majority of home-schoolers self-identify as evangelical Christians,” said Ian Slatter, a spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association. “Most home-schoolers will definitely have a sort of creationist component to their home-school program.”
Those who don’t, however, often feel isolated and frustrated from trying to find a textbook that fits their beliefs.
Two of the best-selling biology textbooks stack the deck against evolution, said some science educators who reviewed sections of the books at the request of The Associated Press.
“I feel fairly strongly about this. These books are promulgating lies to kids,” said Jerry Coyne, an ecology and evolution professor at the University of Chicago.
The textbook publishers defend their books as well-rounded lessons on evolution and its shortcomings. One of the books doesn’t attempt to mask disdain for Darwin and evolutionary science.
Parents who shield their children from a modern education so as to protect their religious beliefs are not much different than parents who won’t let modern medicine treat their sick children. When taken to an extreme it is sad and serious and borders on child abuse. Parental rights have limits.
What can be done about it? Probably very little, except that we should do everything we can to inform the public about the lack of academic merit these schools have—a warning label so to speak.
“Those who do not believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God will find many points in this book puzzling,” says the introduction to Biology: Third Edition from Bob Jones University Press. “This book was not written for them.”
The textbook delivers a religious ultimatum to young readers and parents, warning in its “History of Life” chapter that a “Christian worldview … is the only correct view of reality; anyone who rejects it will not only fail to reach heaven but also fail to see the world as it truly is.”
When the AP asked about that passage, university spokesman Brian Scoles said the sentence made it into the book because of an editing error and will be removed from future editions.
The size of the business of home-school texts isn’t clear because the textbook industry is fragmented and privately held publishers don’t give out sales numbers. Slatter said home-school material sales reach about $1 billion annually in the U.S.
Publishers are well aware of the market, said Jay Wile, a former chemistry professor in Indianapolis who helped launch the Apologia curriculum in the early 1990s.
“If I’m planning to write a curriculum, and I want to write it in a way that will appeal to home-schoolers, I’m going to at least find out what my demographic is,” Wile said.
In Kentucky, Lexington home-schooler Mia Perry remembers feeling disheartened while flipping through a home-school curriculum catalog and finding so many religious-themed textbooks.
“We’re not religious home-schoolers, and there’s somewhat of a feeling of being outnumbered,” said Perry, who has home-schooled three of her four children after removing her oldest child from a public school because of a health condition.
Perry said she cobbled together her own curriculum after some mainstream publishers told her they would not sell directly to home-schooling parents.
Wendy Womack, another Lexington home-school mother, said the only scientifically credible curriculum she’s found is from the Maryland-based Calvert School, which has been selling study-at-home materials for more than 100 years.
Apologia and Bob Jones University Press say their science books sell well. Apologia’s Exploring Creation biology textbook retails for $65, while Bob Jones’ Biology: Third Edition lists at $52.
Coyne and Virginia Tech biology professor Duncan Porter reviewed excerpts from the Apologia and Bob Jones biology textbooks, which are equivalent to ninth- and 10th-grade biology lessons. Porter said he would give the books an F.
“If this is the way kids are home-schooled, then they’re being shortchanged, both rationally and in terms of biology,” Coyne said. He argued that the books may steer students away from careers in biology or the study of the history of the earth.
Wile countered that Coyne “feels compelled to lie in order to prop up a failing hypothesis [evolution]. We definitely do not lie to the students. We tell them the facts that people like Dr. Coyne would prefer to cover up.”
Adam Brown’s parents say their 16-year-old son’s belief in the Bible’s creation story isn’t deterring him from pursuing a career in marine biology. His parents, Ken and Polly Brown, taught him at their Cedar Grove, Ind., home using the Apologia curriculum and other science texts.
Polly Brown said her son would gladly take college courses that include evolution, and he’ll be able to provide the expected answers even though he disagrees.
“He probably knows it better than the kids who have been taught evolution all through public school,” Polly Brown said. “But that is in order for him to understand both sides of that argument because he will face it throughout his higher education.”
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On the Web
For more insight and analysis
Apologia Educational Ministries » www.apologia.com
Bob Jones University Press » http://www.bjupress.com/page/HS+Home
Jerry Coyne’s blog, “Why Evolution is True” » http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/
May 5th, 2011 at 11:26 am
Reply to: Home Schoolers Are Shielded from Evolution Facts
Evolution as taught in the public arena is a theory and not a fact, so the title itself is wrong. Apologia gives you the opportunity to look at both views and exposes the “so called” facts that the scientific world doesn’t want the everyday public to know about. The evolutionary scientist, themselves, can’t agree on what happened, meaning they can’t agree on how everything came from nothing.
One good example of an “evolution lie” is that they hide the fact that many different sites have been found in which the geological layers of rocks have simple and more complex life forms in every layer dispelling the theory that the first organisms were very simple life forms and that the layers would get more complex as you go higher up. When a new discovery is made they either hide it for a long time hoping no one will notice or they make up a new theory to explain or support their old theory, rather than admitting that they were wrong.
Simple questions like: if there was nothing in the beginning where did oxygen come from? If oxygen came about by say, the growth of algae, then how did the algae get the carbon dioxide to breathe in, in order to produce oxygen? How did the algae survive without any form of water, including moisture, since all forms of water need oxygen to formulate so water could not have existed before oxygen? Life cannot exist without water food oxygen and some form of shelter. It’s the classic case of which came first the chicken or the egg? Simple god created the chicken and the chicken laid the egg.
How did the Big bang happen when there was no oxygen, CO2, nitrogen, fuel, heat, combustible material or atoms of anything. Just because somebody wrote down something over and over again and then other people did the same thing over and over again, that doesn’t make it a fact.
Micro-evolution can happen over time but macro-evolution is a fallacy, made up in the mind of those whom want to deny God.
If macro-evolution is true then why isn’t there any evidence of transitional life forms? Where is the evidence showing one type of animal turning into another? There should be thousands of animals in their various stages of change in these layers of rock, yet none exist! Why are the gemological rock layers absent of these life forms? Why did the changing of one animal to another animal stop when written history came about? Where are the various stages of ape turning into man today?
Everyone should go one YouTube and watch the seven part series “Darwin’s Deadly legacy.” They should also order a cheap used copy of Apologia Biology from the internet and read the section on evolution to see for themselves. How open-minded of the Christian company to present both views. You will never find that in a secular book, where micro-evolution is always presented as fact without evidence.
May 14th, 2011 at 7:28 am
I see that only people with your view gets posted? Why am i still waiting for moderation; and people say Christians aren’t open minded. I know, you probably wish I would just go away so that you can keep your one sided blog going. I am going to post it on other sites and report to open minded people what it is that you are doing.
May 14th, 2011 at 7:30 am
Reply to: Home Schoolers Are Shielded from Evolution Facts
Evolution as taught in the public arena is a theory and not a fact, so the title itself is wrong. Apologia gives you the opportunity to look at both views and exposes the “so called” facts that the scientific world doesn’t want the everyday public to know about. The evolutionary scientist, themselves, can’t agree on what happened, meaning they can’t agree on how everything came from nothing.
One good example of an “evolution lie” is that they hide the fact that many different sites have been found in which the geological layers of rocks have simple and more complex life forms in every layer dispelling the theory that the first organisms were very simple life forms and that the layers would get more complex as you go higher up. When a new discovery is made they either hide it for a long time hoping no one will notice or they make up a new theory to explain or support their old theory, rather than admitting that they were wrong.
May 14th, 2011 at 7:30 am
Simple questions like: if there was nothing in the beginning where did oxygen come from? If oxygen came about by say, the growth of algae, then how did the algae get the carbon dioxide to breathe in, in order to produce oxygen? How did the algae survive without any form of water, including moisture, since all forms of water need oxygen to formulate so water could not have existed before oxygen? Life cannot exist without water food oxygen and some form of shelter. It’s the classic case of which came first the chicken or the egg? Simple god created the chicken and the chicken laid the egg.
How did the Big bang happen when there was no oxygen, CO2, nitrogen, fuel, heat, combustible material or atoms of anything. Just because somebody wrote down something over and over again and then other people did the same thing over and over again, that doesn’t make it a fact.
Micro-evolution can happen over time but macro-evolution is a fallacy, made up in the mind of those whom want to deny God.
If macro-evolution is true then why isn’t there any evidence of transitional life forms? Where is the evidence showing one type of animal turning into another? There should be thousands of animals in their various stages of change in these layers of rock, yet none exist! Why are the gemological rock layers absent of these life forms? Why did the changing of one animal to another animal stop when written history came about? Where are the various stages of ape turning into man today?
Everyone should go one YouTube and watch the seven part series “Darwin’s Deadly legacy.” They should also order a cheap used copy of Apologia Biology from the internet and read the section on evolution to see for themselves. How open-minded of the Christian company to present both views. You will never find that in a secular book, where micro-evolution is always presented as fact without evidence.
May 14th, 2011 at 7:31 am
Evolution as taught in the public arena is a theory and not a fact, so the title itself is wrong. Apologia gives you the opportunity to look at both views and exposes the “so called” facts that the scientific world doesn’t want the everyday public to know about. The evolutionary scientist, themselves, can’t agree on what happened, meaning they can’t agree on how everything came from nothing.
One good example of an “evolution lie” is that they hide the fact that many different sites have been found in which the geological layers of rocks have simple and more complex life forms in every layer dispelling the theory that the first organisms were very simple life forms and that the layers would get more complex as you go higher up. When a new discovery is made they either hide it for a long time hoping no one will notice or they make up a new theory to explain or support their old theory, rather than admitting that they were wrong.