Last weekend, the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NEScent), in Durham, North Carolina (not far from the infamous Victory Baptist Church) sent some biology Ph.D.s out to schools in rural America, teaching them about evolution for Darwin Day. The New York Times reports that pairs of scientists went to schools in Virginia, Nebraska, Montana, and Iowa. And it sounds as if they did a good job, although I’m curious about this:
Nineteen schools agreed to host the scientists, but negotiating the terms of the visit was sometimes a delicate process: The goal, they assured a principal who worried about their ideological agenda, was simply to tell students why science was “cool” and perhaps interest them in a career. Still, if questions about religion and science arose, they reserved the right to answer them.
I wonder if the questions came up, and what the answers were. Perhaps someone involved in this project will tell us.
Still, I was glad to hear that the students were receptive. And P.Z. will surely like this:
Poised for conflict, the traveling scientists found mostly curiosity. “Why did Darwin say that humans evolved from monkeys?” one Virginia student asked. (He did not, the scientist said. Darwin said humans and monkeys shared a common ancestor, like all living things.)
Dr. McClain, who wrapped up his Nebraska-Montana tour at a middle school on Monday, found himself explaining how giant squid evolved.
“Smaller squids get eaten by everything,” he said. “It’s not a very good lifestyle to have.”
Shae Carter, 16, a 10th grader at Muscatine High School in Muscatine, Iowa, was pleasantly surprised by the visiting biologists who, she wrote on her blog, “told it like it is.”
When students recoiled and said “Ewww!” watching pictures of large jungle cats devouring their prey, the scientists told them: “This is what happens, people. Get professional.”
“I had imagined that these periods in the auditorium would be cold and boring,” Shae said in an interview. “But I liked it.”
I like that: “Get professional”!
h/t: Greg Mayer
That “we share a common ancestor with monkeys” response was probably the best answer to give, but I still like the observation that, if we are to agree that we are apes and primates and mammals and vertebrates and so on, then we are also monkeys. We have ancestors who would undoubtedly be classified as monkeys, just as we have ancestors who would be classified as hominids, primates, and so on.
It is also true that we are fish.
I’d also hope that Dr. McClain put some effort into explaining the success of smaller squids; otherwise, the question is left open of why they so vastly outnumber the giant ones. Done right, it should have been an opportunity to explain biological niches.
Cheers,
b&
Ah yes – niches! [I don’t mean the philosopher!]
HA!
Sounds like a good day was had by all. I think there’s really a lot more curiosity out there than we realize. Here’s a comment from a high school student who reads my blog on the Tenacious DNA video:
(first she says “wow! O_O)
“I think that question mark at the end meant “What do you think we’re in for next”
We watch a lot of movies like this in Biology class, especially the stuff about evolution. No matter how many times i think about it evolution doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Something interesting about evolution:
If you look at any animal (including humans)in the embryo’s first stage we all look the same. ”
I told her I thought it was fascinating, too, and referred her to pages 82-84 of WEIT, and recommended it as the best book out there for help understanding evolution :-))
Point her to Haeckel as well…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel
And what an artist!
Yes, point her to Haeckel, but don’t forget to include a prominent caveat to not pay much attention to the whole phylogenetic recapitulation bit. Use it as a teaching moment: Haeckel got lots of things beautifully right, but he also got some things spectacularly worng. It’s why science itself is constantly evolving, and why there are neither saints nor absolute authorities.
Cheers,
b&
I am humbled by your reply Ben!
We came from invertebrates. Therefore, we are invertebrates.
“Invertebrates” is specifically defined (obviously) to exclude vertebrates. Is there a similar formal paraphyletic definition for “monkeys”? I.e. simians minus hominoids? If so, my cursory search failed to find it.
Okay, a non-paraphyletic example:
Galapagos’ Hawks evolved from Swainson’s Hawks. Therefore, a Galapagos’ Hawk is a Swainson’s Hawk.
Ben is right, and I have also always felt uncomfortable with this blatant “don’t be offended, you are not really a monkey” excuse. Yes, we all are, because there is no way of defining monkey as a natural group if humans are excluded.
We are lifeforms, animals, vertebrates, bony fish, amphibians, reptilians, mammals, primates, monkeys, apes and humans. All at the same time. Nested relationships, just like a lot of Babushka dolls inside each other. It is weird how people readily accept being a mammal, but balk at the monkey or fish part. It is the same concept, really, only some of it is accepted based on being said aloud often enough, while the rest is rejected for the relative novelty of the insight.
Invertebrates are a non-group, just like the group of things that are not cars. They have no place in a formal classification.
‘Fish’ is not a taxonomical group either (Ben Goren said “It is also true that we are fish.”)
I also don’t think there’s a taxonomical group called ‘Monkeys’.
On the other hand, there are taxons called ‘Reptilia’ and ‘Amphibia’, but they don’t include mammals. So we wouldn’t be reptilians or amphibians in your book. And reptilians wouldn’t be amphibians either, even though they came from amphibians.
Mixing up “evolved from” and “is” can be fun sometimes.
Actually, as far as I can make out on Wikipedia, reptiles did not come from amphibians, but from a different branch of the Tetrapoda. That is, the common ancestor of living amphibians was more recent than the common ancestor of amphibians and reptiles.
There also seems to be some difference of opinion on whether Reptilia is a coherent taxon distinct from Sauropsida (which includes birds).
Okay, thanks, I must admit that I know my plants way better than vertebrate evolution. I was talking about the traditional reptilia including the dinos, though.
Either way, it becomes more problematic if we want to classify ancestors in the same system.
Jose, I do not quite know what to make of that. Just out of curiosity, and no offense meant, do you know what “cladistic”, “monophyletic group” and “phylogenetic systematics” mean?
Just because there is a traditional formal name like Reptilia does not necessarily mean that it still makes sense with our current knowledge. And when there is no taxonomical group with “monkeys” or “fish” as the formal Latin name, we still all know what taxa are meant with those identifiers, and they cannot be coherently defined to exclude humans. Not in a better way than “the group of humans who are not Greek”, anyway.
I don’t think ‘monkeys’ and ‘fish’ mean any taxa. I think they are vernacular words without meaning in a taxonomic classification. If you personally want to equate those words with certain clades, that’s alright. In my opinion it just adds another layer of confusion when you try to explain things.
– So evolution says we came from monkeys?
– Oh no no no, we share a common ancestor with them.
– Oh. So none of my ancestors were monkeys?
– Well, yes, some of your ancestors were monkeys indeed.
– So we come from monkeys then.
– Well, actually you are a monkey, too!
– …Right.
– And you are also a fish.
– …Right.
I think the most clear and simple thing to say is simply that we evolved from monkeys, though monkeys that are now extinct, not the ones that live today. It is true, and it is easy to understand.
“Mixing up “evolved from” and “is” can be fun sometimes.”
Maybe – but it might be a good idea not to do it too much within sight of Creationists, or those currently influenced by Creationists. The scientists at the school gave the only sensible response to the “humans evolved from monkeys” question: that humans and monkeys share a common ancestor. If Creationists think that That Claim That Darwin Never Made is evidence of the ridiculousness of evolutionary theory, just think what fun they’d have with you guys saying “actually we are fish”.
Technical scientific definitions aside, we are clearly *not* fish – and any Creationists stumbling across a blog full of “so-called scientists” cheerfully talking how humans are actually fish, reptiles and monkeys are going to think all their Christmases have come at once.
Tread carefully, is all I’m saying.
The report say “Few of the nation’s biology teachers, the study found, directly tell students that evolution forms the foundation of modern biology.”
What a desperately sad piece of information. Those children are being deprived of a great opportunity to see the world as it is & not as others want it to be seen.
If one is not a science teacher, one is not “blessed” with the “privilege” of having to deal with pressure and invective from provincial and obstreperous evolution-deniers. As The Old Marine put it to me, “Everybody rides the bucking horse better than the guy riding it.”
Only 19 schools. 🙁
I guess the school districts don’t want to ‘teach the controversy’ after all. Curriculum by Christoterrorism.
On the other hand, this outreach program sounds wonderful. Every school in the country could likely benefit by a boffo presentation by real biologists who understand evolution and can communicate well with the kids.
Given the dismal results from polls on the state of instructor attitudes and evolution education in the U.S., I’ll bet a a very strong case could be made to State officials that presentations like those by NEScent should be mandatory in every school.
I’d love to see some data on just what and how often outside parties come into public schools and give presentations, and how decisions are made about content and frequency.
I didn’t really like the “get professional” response. The aversion to seeing an animal get eaten is based on empathy for the victim. Why teach kids to repress their empathy for animals? Given the perilous status of so much of the planet’s wildlife, the last thing we need is to teach that scientific understanding and empathy are somehow mutually exclusive.
It is? “Ewww” doesn’t sound like an empathy response to me. It sounds like the kind of thing one might say if shown graphic pictures of open-heart surgery, or of Mark Sanchez picking his nose and wiping the dried mucus on Mark Brunell. It’s gross-out aversion, not empathy.
Which makes “get professional” an apt admonition, it seems to me. (I think it would work well directed at accommodationists, too—even though I suspect they do consider a fair proportion of the outbursts they direct at Gnus to be empathy responses.)
Yes, I think its an empathy response. Note how much more “eww” reaction people have to a gory horror movie when the person getting splattered is a character they relate to than when the serial killer gets it at the end.
From several years of full-time substitute teaching, my observation is that “eww” is the monopoly of grades K through 6. They love to say “eww” at the least provocation and the vast majority of the time I detect no underlying empathy. If they can embarrass and humiliate at least one person as a result, so much the better. Many times, like a duck on a June bug, they follow it up with, “That’s naaaasssty!” They jest luv to say “naaaaaaaasssty”!
Perhaps in addition to watching on video predators catch prey in the wild, if middle school and older students eat meat, perhaps it’s reasonable and appropriate that they go to a slaughterhouse and watch the butcher apply that air gun to the steer’s cranium and hook to its hoof, sharpen his knife, and proceed to the business at hand. Or maybe hear the pig’s almost human squeal. Too, perhaps go out in the country on a “field trip,” watch a local farmer reach into the chicken coop and, without warning, wring the head off of a pullet and, yea, verily, experience the appaling fascination of those most peculiar bobbing and weaving movements of a chicken with its head cut off, just as my grandfather gave no warning to six-year-old me. That was certainly a jolt and shock.
…And I would say “eww!” if Sanchez picked his nose and wiped it on Mark Brunel, but not if he wiped it on Michael Vick. Then I’d be like, “yeah!”. LOL
Which just goes to show it’s about empathy for the victim.
I directly and entirely disagree with you. I don’t think “eww” has to do with empathy at all; I’m mystified at each of your examples. I think you’re flat wrong about horror movies, and I think your Vick statement is bizarre, if not disturbing.
LOL. You’re welcome. 🙂
I vote for empathy, too.
“I think your Vick statement is bizarre, if not disturbing.”
You do? You are serious. I thought it was comedy.
Whether or not ‘ewww’ is down to empathy I’m not sure, but it is certainly down to feelings and emotions: something that certain scientists seem to have no truck with. The bull-at-a-gate approach employed by some (‘some’, that is) towards anything softer than their hardest of hard science risks putting a lot of people off science. Like it or not, it has a cold, unfeeling image in some quarters. Yes, nature is cruel and people studying it must deal with that, but scientists don’t have to be machines, and I’m not sure snapping “get professional” (to people who may have been seeing the process for the first time) was entirely the best way to get that message across.
I agree with you–but do read further down thread and find that that remark was actually taken from a student’s blog and was a misquote.
My view from outside the profession is the “professional” view should be that the animal doing the eating needs to eat to live and there is room for empathy for both sides of the predator/prey dynamic. Nature is sometimes extremely cruel and we need to be aware and honest about that.
Seeing a leopard eating a fawn might make one sad to see the fate of the fawn, but the leopard is an obligate carnivore and can’t become a vegan, so some animal or other has to die for it to live. Predators starve to death for lack of prey all the time.
And the absence/removal of predators creates havoc for the prey spp.
If you’re talking to a group of (potential) future scientists, then “Get professional” is spot on. It’s comparable to saying “Oh, grow up,” but somewhat less trite (or condescending).
But for the average high school class…guess I’d have preferred, “yeah, it’s hard to watch, but predators are critically important,” and gone on from there…
I think scientists should use a car analogy for the “monkey-people” explanation of evolution…to wit:
The Ford Pinto and the Ford Mustang were contemporary (living at the same time) cars in the 1970s, but the Pinto did not evolve from the Mustang. But both did evolve from the Ford Model T. The Model T was produced from 1909 to 1927 and some of its features live on (cast iron engine block, four wheels) but some (a pedal to push for reverse) did not.
I always very carefully avoid using manmade examples like that, lest the listener draw an unwarranted connection to “Intelligent Design.”
Well, the connection is unwarranted, but one can always decide, if they are so disposed, that a supernatural power orchestrated evolution.
There is no single, omniscient designer within the auto industry. Designs (such as tailfins, wind wings) come and go, and none are infallible (the evolution of the engine starter systems and starter motors is very interesting.
I prefer to dismiss “intelligent design” about humans with the “Who (if “intelligent”) would design a pleasure center mixed in with a sewage system??!!”
I think a more accurate analogy would be with Fords and Lincolns. Continentals clearly did not evolve from Pintos, but they did evolve from Fords and could therefore legitimately be considered a species of Ford.
“Ewww!” watching pictures of large jungle cats devouring their prey
Take it away, Randall. The Nasty and Disgusting World of Vampire Bats:
Wake UP pig!
Re:”Get Professional” Ok, I am going to dispel this controversy once and for all.
I am the scientist that was showing the kids pictures of cheetahs chasing impalas, and animals getting eaten. When the kids said, “Eeewww!” What I actually replied in response was, “I know this is disturbing, but this is how this animal makes its living. It has to catch and eat other animals to live”. The student (taking her own deserved creative license) paraphrased me in her blog, and the reporter, who decided not to do her homework (and did not interview me), quoted the student’s blog as something I said (which I did not).
Wait – something reported in a newspaper article wasn’t completely accurate?!? I’m shocked!
Good to hear, Julie. 😀
Now I’m especially intrigued by the thought processes of the student who wrote the blog. An upcoming biologist?
As one of the “visiting biologists” on the NESCent Darwin Day Road Show, I want to add a few comments. First of all the tone of the NYT article is off. Our visit was incredibly positive and not at all covert. The “get professional” quote in the NYT piece is a paraphrase (taken from the student’s blog) of something my colleague, Dr. Julie Meachen-Samuels, said. (I see that Julie has already clarified..)
John Logsdon,
John and Julie… Congratulations on your work, you are performing a very valuable service.
I have been doing classroom chemistry demos for quite a few years, and every once in a while I hear from a student who says something to the effect of “You opened my eyes, you made me think differently…”
I hope your employer/schoolallows you to continue.
I’m sure science/biology teachers greatly appreciate it. University types, presumably secure with tenure, can come in, tell it like it is, then beat feet back to campus and avoid confrontation with flakes, or at least greatly minimize it. The school teacher does not have that option. As Lyndon Johnson described being president, so it surely is with a public school teacher who stands her/his ground and “tells it like it is” about evolution: “It’s like being a mule out in a hailstorm; you just have to stand there and take it.” Speaking realistically – and reasonably – such sturn und drang is not a “carrot” to pursue a teaching career.
Sounds like fun. Hopefully the kids will remember it for more than the fact that they got out of their usual classes.
I’m not very impressed with the squid explanation, though. Rabbits get eaten by everything. Mice, too. But there aren’t giant versions roaming the land. And plenty of small fish nonetheless make a good living. There are all kinds of, uhh, nadir prey species. The explanation doesn’t allow you to predict gigantism in any species, not even squid. I suspect that in fact nobody knows why giant squid evolved, anymore than they know why guppies haven’t evolved gigantism.
These kinds of just-so stories are what I most often hear people criticize about evolution. (Although most of the time they’re coming from evolutionary psychology.)