The Link Between Darwinism and America's Economic Competitiveness

Yesterday, while stumbling around the Internet, I found this 10-year old article: “The Church of Darwin,” by Phillip Johnson, published in The Wall Street Journal.

The piece begins…

A Chinese paleontologist lectures around the world saying that recent fossil finds in his country are inconsistent with the Darwinian theory of evolution. His reason: The major animal groups appear abruptly in the rocks over a relatively short time, rather than evolving gradually from a common ancestor as Darwin's theory predicts. When this conclusion upsets American scientists, he wryly comments: "In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but not Darwin."

After reading that fascinating quote, I made a connection to another hot-button political issue: the decline of science education in the United States (in contrast to the rise of China).

According to this webpage (which is based on Tom Friedman’s monumental best-seller The World is Flat)...

Science and engineering degrees now represent 60 percent of all bachelor's degrees earned in China… By contrast, the percentage of those taking a bachelor's degree in science and engineering in the United States remains at roughly 31 percent...

The number of 18-24 -year-olds who receive science degrees has fallen to 17th in the world, whereas we ranked 3rd three decades ago...

The shrinking of the pool of young people with the knowledge skills to innovate won't shrink our standard of living overnight. It will be felt only in 15 or 20 years, when we discover we have a critical shortage of scientists and engineers capable of doing innovations or even just high-value-added technology work.

For the past 3 years, I’ve worked for a pair of U.S. Senators who say this is one of the most dangerous trends for the future of America’s economy. And to some extent, I agree with them. But, inevitably, their policy prescriptions are stale and dry – throw more money at the problem. More teachers. More classrooms. More scholarships. More of everything.

There’s been very little thought to the basic, fundamental issue (which is expressed in the statistics above): Young Americans today are not interested in science. And since we live in a free country, you can’t make a kid who wants to be, say, a journalist into a molecular engineer. If we’re serious about expanding the number of scientists and engineers in America, we have to get more young people interested in science – and at an earlier age.

What does this have to do with Darwin and The Mustard Seed?

Well, I think it’s interested that there’s colloquial evidence that America leads the world in “Darwinist dogma,” while other countries have used their science curriculums to…wait for it!...study real science!

Apparently, rising economic powers (like China and India) recruit students to study science as a career by getting them to study applied science (i.e., research and technology) in contrast to immersing them in atheist propaganda (like in America). I can only speak from experience: When I was a teenager, I was very good at science, but I also found it quite alienating (because of the insistence that “real science” is atheist).

In fairness, I was never going to make science as a career. But I wonder how many other young people might have become scientists, but chose to become something else, because they didn’t want to abandon their faith, or even their basic humanity.

Of course, I don’t want to insist that the deterioration in America’s science education is because of Darwinism (I don’t have enough information to offer a firm opinion either way). But I think it’s an intriguing concept that merits further study.

-Todd

**UPDATE, MAY 5, 2009**

A relevant quote from producer Matt Mathis...

"Young people going into the physical and biological sciences are greeted with an atmosphere of great hostility toward the design proposition; not just by their professors but by fellow students, so many students choose to change what it is that they’re going to do—who wants to live their life working in an area where they are going to be a pariah if they actually speak their mind? And so you’ve got a lot of students who are choosing to do other things, and not go into the sciences."

**UPDATE, MAY 27, 2009**

Today, I was reminded of this post while reading about an I.D. controversy at UC San Diego.

Let’s start from the beginning...

At UCSD, which is known for its strength in science and engineering, faculty members are realizing they need to pay more attention to the controversy. Two years ago [in 2004], a UCSD survey found that 40 percent of incoming freshmen to the university's Sixth College – geared toward educating students for a high-tech 21st century – do not believe in evolution, said the college's provost, Gabriele Wienhausen.

The university now requires students who major in biology to complete a course in biological evolution, Kohn said. The policy became effective with freshmen who enrolled last fall. Professors had discussed the change for years, he said, but the Sixth College poll made it more urgent.

As a commenter at Uncommon Descent observed:

Why is it that all of the sudden Darwinism is a requirement for biology majors at UCSD to graduate? Does it have anything to do with their science education? If Darwinism was so fundamental to biology, why wasn’t it a requirement for the last several decades in the first place?

Ah, but that’s just foreplay compared to the next part…

Later, in 2006, all first-quarter freshmen were required to attend a speech by anti-ID philosopher of science Robert Pennock.

At her blog, Denyse O’Leary mused about how college administrators warn “against ID via a compulsory lecture the way they used to warn against sex, drugs, and rock n' roll in my day.”

But UCSD's dramatic requirement STILL isn't good enough for Larry Moran, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Toronto.

At his blog, Dr. Moran wrote…

“Apparently, the university has become alarmed at the stupidity of its freshman class and has offered remedial instruction for those who believe in Intelligent Design Creationism… They should never have admitted them in the first place… The University should just flunk the lot of them and make room for smart students who have a chance of benefiting from a high quality education.”

In my original blog post, I wrote, “I don’t want to insist that the deterioration in America’s science education is because of Darwinism (I don’t have enough information to offer a firm opinion either way). But I think it’s an intriguing concept that merits further study.”

Indeed. While I hate to advocate for that position (because it sounds a bit far-fetched), it’s hard to see how the efforts of college and university officials to stamp out even the slightest trace of faith in their science and engineering students doesn’t have a negative impact on the long-term quality of America’s science and prosperity.

After all, if some of America’s best and brightest students can no longer feel comfortable in a field in which faith is treated like an unhealthy habit to be eradicated (such as smoking or unprotected sex), and they move into other fields accordingly, how is that helpful to the future of our great nation?

-Todd

**UPDATE, JUL. 17, 2009**



In the August 8, 2008 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education [subscription only], Peter Wood (who is the Executive Director of the National Association of Scholars) wrote a thoughtful article, How Our Culture Keeps Students Out of Science.

In his piece, Wood begins...

"In March, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, testified before the House Committee on Science and Technology about the abject failure of American schools, colleges, and universities to prepare students for advanced study in the sciences."

So what's the problem?

"Students respond more profoundly to cultural imperatives than to market forces. In the United States, students are insulated from the commercial market's demand for their knowledge and skills. That market lies a long way off -- often too far to see. But they are not insulated one bit from the worldview promoted by their teachers, textbooks, and entertainment. From those sources, students pick up attitudes, motivations, and a lively sense of what life is about."

"A century ago, Max Weber wrote of 'Science as a Vocation,' and, indeed, students need to feel something like a calling for science to surmount the numerous obstacles on the way to an advanced degree."

True enough. But then Mr. Wood blames the problem on what he calls the "self-esteem movement." As a culture, he says, "we rank the manufacture of 'self-esteem' above hard-won achievement.

"Contemporary American education...begins by treating children as psychologically fragile beings who will fail to learn -- and worse, fail to develop as 'whole persons' -- if not constantly praised."

"The antiscience agenda is visible as early as kindergarten, with its infantile versions of the diversity agenda and its early budding of self-esteem lessons. But it complicates and propagates all the way up through grade school and high school."

"What the movement most commonly yields is a surfeit of college freshmen who "feel good" about themselves for no discernible reason and who grossly overrate their meager attainments."

This is flat-out wrong, because Mr. Wood buries this critical statistic...

"Our record on high-school math and science education is particularly troubling. International tests indicate that American fourth graders rank among the top students in the world in science and above average in math. By eighth grade, they have moved closer to the middle of the pack. By 12th grade, our students score near the bottom of all industrialized nations."

Catch that? When it comes to science, 4th Graders are "among the best in the world." Then, by the time they reach 12th Grade, those SAME students are "near the bottom of all industrialized nations."

Gee, I wonder what could've happened???

If Mr. Wood is correct that students respond profoundly to "cultural imperatives" - and I think he is correct - than maybe the "cultural imperative of science" (for lack of a better word) (hint: hard-core materialism) becomes unappealing to young people once they associate it with reductionist philosophy.

Just sayin.'

-Todd