Category : Publications

I am pleased that SEPM has decided to put out a statement about evolution. It is long, long overdue; other societies, such as the Paleontological Society, posted such statements decades ago Unfortunately, the proposed statement fails on many fronts and should be rethought. The issues involve both structure and content. In terms of structure, it is too long, pedagogic, and academic. There is a huge literature on why evolution is correct and creationism is wrong; a policy statement is not the place to repeat such details. Keep it simple!! Related to this, it is not clear what the intended audience will be. The public? Students? SEPM members? What do you want them to know? As for content: it takes far too simplistic a view of the opposition to the teaching of evolution and the age of the Earth. Eugenie Scott, of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), wrote an excellent essay on the spectrum of creationist beliefs (https://ncse.ngo/antievolutionism-and-creationism-united-states). Young Earth Creationists are only a fringe part of this. The statement misses all of the current tactics used by the creationist community, such as “teach the controversy,” which is also used a method against teaching climate change (https://ncse.ngo/teach-controversy-comes-climate-science). Also, why give the YEC people any credibility by talking about them at all? What would make this much stronger is it focused on topics that are the particular purview of the members of SEPM. For example, why not say that sedimentary geology documents that the history of the Earth shows the joint evolution of its atmosphere, oceans, surface, and life? That dealing with future environmental issues requires understanding this history and that doing so is what members of SEPM work on every day.