Thursday, August 7, 2008

Class is out. Off to Tahoe.

Wednesday I submitted the grades for my course and I'm surprised at how happy I am with how the class progressed over the summer. I had a busy time planning and teaching, going out of town/state almost every weekend, and spending the rest of my time with a good guy in Co Springs (alas, he is moving). In the midst of it all I was too busy to reflect much on the course. But two weeks before the end of the class a few students explained to me that their religious backgrounds had biased them against the idea of evolution. They thought that evolution was itself opposed to religion and I had made them see otherwise. I had explained that evolution doesn't really comment on religion and that many of the early prominent biologists (eg, Mendel) were members of the clergy. I think explaining evolution and natural selection without comment on religion is exactly what made them see that there is no need for religion to attack evolution, for evolutionary theory isn't attacking religion. They directly told me "thats not what I thought evolution was" or, paraphrasing, 'my wife doesn't like evolution becuase the church tells her not to, but I can see they're very different.'
I couldn't ask for greater praise from my students. I'm looking forward to the fall when I'll be teaching another section of the same ecology course and two sections of biology for non-majors.