Alright, I didn’t create this thread and put it in IMHO to have a debate thread. I put it here because I want this thread to be more of a poll.
In this thread the OP made the statement “I was taught Evolution at school completely brain washed with the stuff from i think 3rd grade all the way to 10th grade off and on” and I was curious because I’ve heard it repeated several times before.
My question is, when do you remember first learning about biological evolution? I remember briefly touching on biology in elementary school, but I don’t recall hearing about evolution until seventh grade.
So my question is, when did you first learn about the theory of evolution?
The first time I remember learning about evolution was when my parents took me to a museum and there was a display of a whole bunch of skulls from early men in a row from earliest to today. I was 9, I remember it being the first I heard about it.
Actually learning it in school? I don’t remember covering it in any sort of depth until grade 11 biology. I may have been mentioned in passing in either grade 9 or 10 but I can’t be sure. In public school we had a religious studies course until grade 3 or 4 where I think creationism was covered at least once. My mother was instrumental in having that removed from the curriculum as we really only learned about one religion.
I don’t remember specifically but fairly early on, I would guess. I remember more about continental drift and that Aftica and South America were once combined than I do about actual evolution though.
I’d guess around third grade. And this was in the middle of the Bible Belt.
We had Biology as a specific class in 7th or 8th grade (I graduated from high school in 1978, so this was in the early - mid '70s), and evolution was taught to us in that. But it was touched on earlier, in science classes in Elementary School. I remember the chart they had in one of the text books – one with a monkey-thing shuffling along and turning into a Hominid, then into a Neanderthal, then into a Cro-Magnon man, then ending as a Modern Man. Remember those charts? Incorrect, we know now, of course. but they were definately teaching evolution as far back as the late '60s in California public schools.
I don’t remember covering it at all in biology (although I’m sure we probably did) - the history of evolution (the history of discoveries, theories, etc) was covered quite extensively in ‘Humanities’ (a conglomeration of geology, geography, history and social science, that got split out into separate classes in higher school years).
However, things have moved on quite rapidly in the twenty plus years since I was at school - I know for a fact that my own kids are encountering stuff in primary school that I never touched until secondary - some of this is because of available technology (i.e. they were programming robots in reception year - age 5), but some of it is because they have further to go than I did, just to get up to speed - some fairly recent (in the last decade or so) scientific discoveries about genetics etc have quite quickly become significant parts of everyday science - the curriculum has been necessarily time-compressed so that pupils can have a hope of leaving school with a set of qualifications that are actually going to be useful and relevant in the world at large.
I remember being in a gifted/enrichment class in about fourth grade where my parents really debated about letting me participate in a recreation of a Neanderthal society. But in science classes, I don’t think I EVER learned about evolution. My high school teachers avoided the subject completely, and I went to a religious college where my science teachers taught ‘creation science’ for the most part. I really only learned about it as an adult, from Dopers and the books they recommended. Once I understood the theory, it sure made a heck of a lot of sense.
I went to a Catholic primary school in Australian from 1986 - 1992. I don’t remember learning about evolution, but neither were we taught creationism (in fact, I think the whole Old Testament went untaught). I remember learning evolution theories in high school science, but at this stage I moved to a state school.
I’d be quite surprised if creationism is being widely taught in Australian school, particularly at a secondary school level.
I don’t actually remember any of the lectures, but I know for sure we talked about evolution at least in 6th grade, because I remember my teacher saying that some people didn’t believe it in, which blew me away. Growing up, I had lots of books about animals and we went to museums and such and my parents, who are atheists, had given me a vague idea about evolution long before. I know we studied it more extensively in 10th grade biology, though.
I graduated high school in 1996 from a public school in an upper middle class suburb in the Bay Area - which studies have shown is the least religious area in the US.
I first read about evolution from a series of science picture books that my mother gave me when I was 5 or 6. Brainwashed from the start, you see. However, I was in the Guinea Pig Generation for Ontario’s new curriculum and we didn’t so much as hear the word “evolution” till grade 12 biology.
5th grade teacher chiming in here…I teach evolution…it’s in our standards for fifth grade. I find it hard to believe that someone would be taught the same thing year after year…How would they ever learn other areas of science?
Any way…the Science Channel has a new series of shows featuring Bill Nye and there is one about evolution. It’s called “100 Greatest Science Discoveries”. It’s not like Bill Nye’s old shows…no comedy. But if there’s anything you don’t understand about science these shows explain it. Sorry for the slight hijack.
They touched on it in 3rd grade geography, which was kind of a catch-all science class (I don’t think we had a genuine science class until 4th grade). But I was a little science nerd, and already knew about it. I don’t think it was dealt with with any rigor until 9th grade biology.
Creationism was not even on the table as something to seriously consider, even in Sunday school.
I’m sure I first learned about evolution from comic books and radio comedians.
People being related to apes is a standard gag line.
Also, things like Alley Oop and other depictions of cavemen showed that people had evolved over time, while Buck Rogers of The Twenty Fifth Century showed how people would continue to evolve and get giant brains.
I went to a Christian school, with required chapel services but not a rigidly dogmatic curriculum. I don’t remember a specific moment we were taught about evolution, but I’m pretty positive we were. Personally, I was really into dinosaurs and prehistoric things when I was a young kid, so my parents bought me lots of dinosaur books that often addressed evolution in some way. I also remember reading through The Origin of Species on my own.
Me too. I learned about dinosaurs and cavemen from books, and Adam and Eve from various places, but I have no specific recollection of formal study in either from church or school.
Somehow I was able to compartmentalize and accept both until maybe my early teens when it occurred to me that somehow they didn’t quite fit together. From then on I was a very ill-informed evolutionist. It wasn’t until the past few years that I’ve actually bothered trying to learn any real science about it.
I learned about it from reading lots of dinosaur books starting in third grade, and frequent trips to the American Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaurs . I knew about Adam and Eve, but never actually heard about creationism until I saw Inherit the Wind on TV one day in high school.
This brings up a good point – did you (any of you) learn the concepts of creationism and evolution before you knew the names? I’m not sure I even heard the word “creationism” until a few years ago.
I believe 5th grade. We didn’t go into too much detail, but we touched on how traits are passed down and natural selection and such. We went more in depth starting around, I’d say, 7th grade and finishing in 10th grade (no biology after that).
Creationism was never mentioned, not even in passing. In 11th grade English we did read a few passages from Genesis as well as Paradise Lost, but it was just treated as literature.
The last year of biology went into how life started on the planet originally, and the various theories and which are more feasible. I do recall it being stressed that the origins of life were more hotly debated than its evolution, but it was never suggested life came into existence simply because some god willed it.
All I know about Creationism is what I’ve learned from TV and the occasional pamphlet handed out by the Grey People.