A few questions about education as relating to faith...?

Question

I'm just really curious based on what I see here. Please answer honestly:

1. Are you a high school graduate, still in high school or did you not finish high school?
2. Was your high school public or private, and what country was it in?
3. Did you take biology in high school?
4. If you did take biology, was the topic of evolution taught?
5. If so, was it taught in much detail?
6. Did your biology teacher ever say any of these sentences to you: 'evolution states that we come from monkeys', 'evolution means that there is no God', 'evolution has never been scientifically observed', 'evolution is connected to the theory of the Big Bang'?
7. As far as you know, did your biology teacher believe in evolution?
8. Do you believe in evolution?

Sorry for so many questions. I'm really honestly not trying to 'prove' anything - I'm just surprised by the different levels of knowledge here concerning evolution and am curious about their origins. Sorry if my question takes so much time...

By request:

1. Graduate.
2. Public. Canada.
3. Yes.
4. Yes.
5. Moderately.
6. None of the above.
7. Yes.
8. Yes.

Answer 1

1. Yes, finished.
2. Public, USA
3. Yes
4. Yes
5. Yes
6. No, no, yes, no.
7. Don't know about teacher's personal beliefs.
8. I believe that it is a valid THEORY only (but I'm not Creationist).

Furthermore, I am in grad school now. I also hold a minor in Biology from my undergrad years at a state university. Whilst all of my professors entertained the theory of evolution, not a single one of them claimed religious expertise, or said that there "was no God". Furthermore, we were even taught about theistic evolution as a bit of a compromise in THEORY. Ditto for my major--Psychology (yes, there are specific evolutionary theories in the field of psychology as well).

People need to realize that science is all about puporting theories for better understanding. A whole lot of scientific theories are OPEN-ENDED, so that scientists can study them and can consequently produce evidence FOR or AGAINST them. This is what keeps scientists busy.

Similar theories are Creationism, and the Alien theory. Why do people get so worked up over THEORIES??

Answer 2

1) Not only am I a high school graduate, I also have a bachelors and a masters degree.

2) My high school education was public. It was in the U.S.

3) I took biology in high school and in college.

4) The topic of evolution was taught.

5) It was taught in some level of detail. I read more about it on my own through the years to augment what I had missed in school. I have read The Origin of the Species; The Lopsided Ape; some of Stephen Jay Gould's books; and others I'm forgetting, not to mention dozens of articles in magazines.

6) My biology teachers didn't say that evolution states that we come from monkeys. They showed the theory as it's laid out--with missing links and all that. They didn't say that evolution means there is no God. They have said in one way or another that evolution is an incomplete theory, as with most scientific theories. Any scientist will claim theories as theories and truths as truths. They did conjecture about how the BIg Bang and evolution were connected.

7) Yes, my biology teachers believed in evolution.

8) I am suspending judgment. I believe that it is a theory, and I believe that it certainly has its merits. I also believe that it has its holes. As with any theory.

You didn't ask any questions about faith, so just so you know, I am a Christian.

Answer 3

1. High school graduate
2. Public. Canada.
3. Yes
4. Yes
5. Just the basics, I think.
6. Not that I recall. (And, funny thing: our biology teacher was also an active member of a local evangelical church. I happen to know this because I once took a year of piano lessons from him.)
7. He never gave any indication that he didn't.
8. It's not a question of belief, exactly. The theory of evolution seems to be the best explanation that fits the facts we've got.

Answer 4

Hey Ed. Good question.

Without going down the list, question by question, I can tell you that I took both biology and advanced biology in high school. Looking back I realize that this experience had a profound impact on me. My teacher talked some about evolution but for me, personally, the greatest lesson in evolution was in doing dissections.

When we started to dissect various dissections or looking at specimens that had already been dissected, you could see that there was such a common theme throughout the species. It was actually very easy to see the remarkable similarities that existed between let's say, humans and pigs. No offense to the pigs! You could also see that even fish had very similar internal structures and that the fins were often placed right where legs would be on land animals.

It just made sense to me that we have common ancestors, and that evolution is an active process that has been going on since the beginning and continues today. The teacher wasn't out to prove anything. Most of us just came to that conclusion to accept evolution as a fact, not a theory.

Answer 5

1. I graduated Technical HS in 1987. Graduated college in 1991 with a BS in Human Services Management but also have strong background in engineering and chemistry.
2. Public - one of 17 Tech HS's in the state of Connecticut in the US
3. Yes I took Biology.
4. Yes Evolution was taught.
5. As much details as they had facts for 1983/84 which is less than there is today.
6. No my biology teacher said that all species including man evolved. God as never brought into it. The Big Bang was covered as a theory that may have created the impetus to evolution but was stressed as a theory.
7. Yes as far as I knew he did.. he never stated otherwise.
8. Yes I believe in evolution.

Answer 6

1) I finished high-school early, hated every minute...
2) I attended a private University grade-school, and studied at the SIU while I was in Public High School. We were lab rats (I was Algernon).
3) My first assigned task in biology, was to define life.
4) Evolution was taught.
5) Evolution could not be demonstrated very well, lacking a good model of DNA.
6) Scientists were more sensitive to religious beliefs in our pluralistic community. So no, no moral statements were made.
7) My biology teacher was a frog butchering atheist, with no regard for my definition of life...
8) I believe Evolution works well in the world, and am striving to live better than my pond scum ancestors...

Answer 7

i finished 2 studies at a Dutch University, which was public education like all education in Holland is. I had biology-classes untill the 4rth grade of the Gymnasium,which means untill i was 15 years old. It bored me like hell, so it was the first class i dropped when given the chance. Evolution was taught in biology-classes but never in combination with any creation-story or BigBang theory. Of course my biology-teacher believed in evolution and of course I believe in it as well. I'm not sure if evolution is the key-answer to where we all came from though. I think to answer that question it will take humans millions and millions of years.

Even in 2000 years more people will probably laugh about our educational system, we will be mocked like we mock the people who believed in a flat earth. It's good to know that another 2000 years later the people who will have mocked us, will be mocked for the same reason.

Answer 8

1. Yes
2. public in US
3. yes
4. yes
5. moderately
6. No, he never stated this, though it's possible it could have been indirectly
7. As far as I know yes
8. Yes. I believe in evolution, however I don't believe we are direct descendants of monkeys. I believe we were created from God, but I highly doubt that it was in the same manner as we are today. The Quran says that if He willed, God could replace us with a better people, and it's highly possible that this was done through evolution. In my opinion, if a scientific theory rejects the idea of God, well, it's only a theory and hasn't been proven. If a religious element contradicts proven science, then it certainly wasn't from God. Religion and science co-exist in matters where both are true to form and are neither corrupted beliefs nor blemished theory.

Answer 9

1. Yes I graduated a little early.
2.Public and in the U.S.A.
3. Yes I took Biology
4. Yes evolution was taught as a theory
5. not in depth but yes later in college
6.No, of course not.
7.Not sure and not important but probably not.
8. I am not sure one way or the other and it does not matter to me.

Answer 10

1. High school and college graduate... entering grad school next year
2. Public- California, USA
3. Yes - sophomore and advanced bio senior year
4. Yes
5. Not in great detail in high school
6. None of the above. All of my bio teachers (I also majored in bio in college) allowed students to learn about evolution without challenging their religious beliefs
7. Yes- they all have
8. Yes- It's hard not to. Especially after reading "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins.

Actually, all of my biology major friends in college believed in evolution and believed in God.