I don’t understand-evolution provides the best explanation of the fossil record of life on this planet. If divine creation provided a better explanation, it would be accepted. Since is does not, evolution wins out. What is so hard to accept about that? Of course, if you believe the earth is only 8000 years old, divine creation is the most logical explanation.
But actually, evolution is irrelevent to most people-it explains the past, but most people have no interest in that.
I don’t understand why science should tippy-toe around religion. Just put it in the course summary at the start of the course:
“This is a science course. Your religious beliefs are your own, but in this course we will only be discussing science. We will NOT entertain discussions about afterlife, prophets, demonic possession, holy books, creationism, spirit worlds, or whether or not God Hates Fags. This is a science class. Keep any of those other things to yourself.”
I don’t think a person could be considered “well-educated” if they did not understand evolution. Also musical theory, some world history, a bit more history of their country, have at least working knowledge of two sports and car repair, and art appreciation.
What they “believe” may be irrelevant but they should know what it is they don’t believe in.
It’s tautologically important for a well-educated person to understand evolution: If you don’t understand evolution, then you aren’t well-educated. Nothing in biology makes any sense outside of the context of evolution.
And I don’t think it’s possible to understand evolution and yet not recognize its truth, because evolution is so incredibly simple. The only two things you need to accept are that organisms are not exactly like their parents, and some organisms are better at producing descendants than others. If you accept both of those facts, then you accept evolution.
Despite what I posted above, I do agree with that. The OP, however, is a bit confused. The title asks about a “well educated” person, but in the body of the OP he asks how “important” it is to understand evolution. For the vast majority of people, it’s not important at all.
I can agree there. For most people it doesn’t matter if they understand evolution, electronics, mechanics, astronomy, art history, math, logic or esthetics. It does not impact their daily lives in the least.
I don’t think I would want to associate with people with such little curiosity about how things work or why we are where we are today, but they probably wouldn’t want to hang out with me either.
How important is it that a specific non-scientific viewpoint geared to a stridently vocal segment of the public be artificially inserted into a class that is supposed to be teaching science?
Human beings and apes descended from primitive lemur-like species. True / False?
According to the theory of evolution, human beings and apes descended from primitive lemur-like species. True / False?
1+1=2. True / False?
According to the theory of mathematics, 1+1=2. True / False?
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet True / False?
According to the theory of some literary historians, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. True / False?
Federal Income tax is legal. True / False?
According to the theory of the federal government, federal income tax is legal. True / False?
Vaccinations have eradicated naturally occurring smallpox. True / False?
According to the big-pharma theory, vaccinations have eradicated naturally occurring smallpox. True / False?
Pandering to ignorance promotes ignorance. True / False?
Personally, I believe primitive lemur-like creatures wrote Hamlet.
I’m sure it’s just run-of-the-mill non-compliance due to forgetfullness, laziness, side effects, and/or fear of side effects.
This is how I think too. If someone just doesn’t quite understand evolution, that’s not so bad. It’s like someone not being able to do calculus, it means that they could be better educated and that there are certain fields they probably shouldn’t go into, but it’s not inherently bad. But if they don’t believe that the theory of evolution is a real thing, then that is harmful.
Also it’s not a belief in a vacuum. Someone who believes in Young Earth Creationism is likely anti-science in other ways, and doesn’t see the great need for funding for schools and research. And if they are against evolution because they believe in a literal version of the Bible, they probably have other harmful beliefs stemming from that, like in the sinfulness of homosexuality and how it should be punished.
I don’t know how individual teachers could combat that. I would stay as focused on the real things that need to be taught, I’m afraid that spending much time comparing evolution and YEC might make it look like there is a debate to be had, when there isn’t.
What’s so hard to accept is that, in many people’s minds, accepting evolution means rejecting, not just YEC, but God/religion altogether. They think these two are inherently hostile to one another, thanks both to their co-religionists who have given them this idea and to people like Richard Dawkins who are very publicly both pro-evolution and anti-God/religion, to where it might look to the casual observer like these are two sides to the same coin.
I’ll add that, while it doesn’t seem as prevalent nowadays, historically there have been plenty of people who didn’t want to “accept evolution” because it was conflated with Social Darwinism, and so “accepting evolution” meant accepting ideas of Social Darwinism that they found morally repellent.
I agree with all these points. There’s not a whole lot of science at play in the day-to-day of most people, even though science underpins all the tools we use and most activities. The same could be said of math, literature, history, art, computer programmming, etc, etc, etc. Yet we teach these subjects and expect people to learn them. Part of it is we (I think rightly) believe that a well educated society is a better society for a bunch of reasons. Part of it is we don’t know where our next Newtons and Einsteins (and Picassos, Carnegies, etc, etc, etc) are coming from, and often nor do the “destined” kids or their parents. And part of it is that our democratically elected leaders have to make decisions, many which ought to be based on science- they will have no shortage of people willing to advise them on scientific, pseudo-scientific, and unscientific bases.
Lastly, I have to echo the comments by Chronos and marshmallow. How do you make sense of anything in biology without a theory of evolution? Otherwise you are left with lists of creatures and features and biochemical processes, without any fundamental relationship. And just as social injustices cannot be redressed without some understanding of common humanity, I believe that some deep understanding of how we fit into the natural scheme of the world will be absolutely needed if we hope to avoid ecological catastophe. (Yes you can do it with naked self interest, BUT only if you buy into science to help you. Otherwise, you’ll just leave it up to your Creator to solve the world’s problems. That is, assuming you are not among those actually looking forward to Rapture and Armageddon.)
I’d also add, that just as atheists should be expected to (and mostly do) shut up and be respectful when religeous people are having their spiritual moments, science class is a good time for fundamentalists to suck it up.
That’s part of living in a civil society.
If someone is in denial about evolution, to me it signifies a gross defect in cognition or pandering that disqualifies them from gaining my trust when it comes to certain fields (like microbiology, aspiring to elective office etc.).
For more mechanically-minded tasks (toilet repair, tree removal, performing knee replacement surgery etc.) an acceptance of evolution is less important.
A lot of religious folks pull their kids out of school and home-school them or put them in private religious schools because they think that pretty much ALL modern education is too secular or outright anti-religious. Big deal. Let them. They have that right.
A public school system shouldn’t be altering their curriculum to coddle the religious prejudices of the local church, be it Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Muslim, or whatever. Nor should a school system be aggressively and actively anti-church in order to appease local agnostics/atheists. Instead of all that, just tell the kids to seek those kinds of answers at home and stick to teaching the basics (especially when it comes to STEM).
The basics include evolution; without a basic understanding of evolution, then biology, geology, astronomy, and a number of other scientific disciplines become largely meaningless. If the locals can’t handle evolution, refer back to the first paragraph of this post.
Anyway, that’s pretty much how it’s done in the US already. Because the alternative is chaos.
I agree and it is explained better than I could.
I have to add that while I’m all thumbs in Calculus I’m however aware of who to consult when the need arises for it, just like I do consult my editor friend when good grammar is important. (note to self: consult her more 
)
Point being that yes, calculus is not needed for one to go about their lives, but one should be aware enough to appreciate its importance, and to gain at least the knowledge of why one should defer to experts when the need arises.
Which of the two wordings of your question is more intellectually honest?
“Human beings and apes descended from primitive lemur-like species: True / False ?”
The sub-text of this is that it is evolution is proven in as far as any theory can be proven.
“According to the theory of evolution, human beings and apes descended from primitive lemur-like species: True / False ?”
The sub-text of this is that evolution is not proven, which to Christian nutters validates their anti-science beliefs.
Look, if you want to teach science, then teach science. If you want to teach comparative religions/belief systems, then teach comparative religions/belief systems. Keep the comparative religions/belief systems out of science class.
Let’s develop critical inquiry rather than promote stupid questions that encourage woo.
As several people have pointed out, this focus on Evolution somewhat misses the point: The problem isn’t that there are people who don’t understand or believe in Evolution. The problem is that there are people who are rejecting science and scientific thinking. And there are a lot of them.
And they don’t quietly reject science in the privacy of their own homes. They share their magical thinking widely, they vote based on it, and they influence policy. They want public schools to teach my kids to believe in magic.
How important is it for well-educated people to understand that science works and magic doesn’t? The answer is that it is axiomatic: By definition, someone who believes in magic over science is NOT well-educated.
How important is it for people to do smart things and not do stupid things? The answer depends on how much we value good outcomes, right? We can try to take a scientific approach to addressing global warming or we can pray for things to get better. The outcomes of these two approaches will be quite different.
The value of science is not in establishing a shared belief system. The value of science lies in what we can do (or be smart enough not to do) with it.
Evolution vs Creationism is a small battle. Science vs Magic is the war. And in many parts of the U.S., Science is not really winning. The fact that we have college professors who are changing how they teach and test in order not to upset the Magic-Thinkers is a pretty good indication of how this war is going.
The fact that I have to HUNT for soap that isn’t anti-bacterial shows how this war is going: More people believe in evil hand cooties than believe in scientific “theories”.
-VM