“Real Science” Education: A Right or a Privilege?

This project inquiries middle and secondary school students’ civil and human rights when exploring science-based topics. For some, this presents a contradiction to religious texts studied, primarily when taught in classrooms situated within the state of Utah and the Bible Belt. The Bible Belt consists of the group of states within the southern region of the United States where Christianity heavily influences this region’s socially conservative culture and morality – and schools in these communities. Due to this context, there is an assumption that everyone residing in these heavily religious states belongs to the Baptist Christian or the Mormon faith. In particular, the assumed universality of Christianity and Abrahamic/Judeo-Christian faiths has indoctrinated American and Western European academia, specifically in the middle and secondary science curriculum.

As a nation ostensibly founded on Christianity, U.S. laws have been passed in many states allowing pseudo-science curriculum such as creationism and intelligent design, and in areas such as human development (sex education), global climate change, and public health, school science has become tainted with politics and public opinion through legal and policy changes. Much of these pseudo-science concepts are presented and sanctioned within the curriculum as a means to gain legitimacy as credible science. For example, from 1925 to as recently as 2021, leadership in highly religious states has reached into middle and secondary curriculum and banned teaching evolution. Earth’s geological history and human developmental history find itself a controversial topic in science classrooms within the American Bible Belt and Utah. Nearly a century ago, in the case The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes (1925), a substitute biology teacher sued the state of Tennessee for the enforcement of the Butler Act, legislation that banned the teaching of evolution in all schools across the state (ACLU History: The Scopes’ Monkey Trial,’ 2010). The teachings of evolutionary theory in a science classroom were on trial again in the landmark Supreme Court case Epperson v. Arkansas (1968), and later again in cases Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), Freiler v. Tangipahoa (2000), Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005), and more locally Selman v. Cobb County School District (2006). These cases represent only a selection of challenges dealing with evolutionary theory. Despite the verdicts of these cases, many other local school boards have been sued as their anti-evolution teaching legislation had violated the 1^st Amendment Establishment Clause (U.S. Const. amend. I, §1.12) and the 14^th Amendment Equal Protection Acts (U.S. Const. amend. XIV, §1.4)

Although the theory of evolution is accepted by 97% of scientists, one-third of Americans reject evolution. Specifically, nearly 40% of biology teachers in heavily religious/Judeo-Christian states deny the theory of evolution (Berkman & Plutzer, 2011). These science educators spend little instructional time on the theory of evolution and spend more time questioning its validity and undermining the process of the scientific method. In addition to overreach by legislatures and school boards, when these science educators insert their personal religious beliefs into the science curriculum, they deny their students their religious freedom and violate Article 18 of the United States Constitution, which guarantees every citizen’s right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. These students’ civil rights and religious beliefs are being dismissed. Promoting less scientifically accurate curricula and the denial of science-based theories due to their contradiction to creationism and intelligent design fail students because it undermines science inquiry via the scientific method and promotes misinformation. Furthermore, the distrust of the scientific method tends to be faith-driven and has led to a decline in public health, clearly demonstrated most recently in many instances of federal and state government level policies of the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, highly religious states within the United States correlate to low income, poverty, and the prevalence of less-educated adults (Newport, 2021).

As proclaimed by Article 26, Section 1 of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is the obligation of governments to ensure every person’s right to free education (United Nations, 1948, art. 26). Section 2 of this same article affirms that the free education provided should promote the understanding, tolerance and friendship among all identity groups, including racial and religious groups as means to maintain peace amongst the United Nations (United Nations, 1948, art. 26). Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights also asserts the freedoms of participation in the advancement and benefits of science (United Nations, 1948, art. 27). Founded in 1945, United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was organized as a United Nations agency to promote world peace through the implications of many programs, including science education (United Nations, n.d.).  

Therefore, it is the civil and human right of all students attending schools not only within the Bible Belt and the state of Utah but throughout the United States, to receive a legitimate and thorough science education. Teaching creationism and intelligent design in schools within the Bible Belt, Utah, and other regions in the U.S. will continue to leave many marginalized students and their communities in the dark. It will result in a new generation of scientists and citizens that do not trust the scientific method. Therefore, biological science standards and science teacher certification requirements should be revised to guarantee students’ civil and human rights to scientifically accurate or scientifically based education.