Sex education and science education in faith-based schools
Michael J Reiss
Abstract
The key issue for a faith-based school is the extent to which, if at all, its aims, ethos,
curriculum, pedagogy and assessment should differ from other schools and the
impact this has for its students on their learning, attitudes and dispositions. This
chapter explores these issues with specific reference to the teaching of sex
education and the teaching of science education. I conclude that the role of religion
is somewhat different in science education and in sex education. In science
education, a teacher needs to be sensitive to religious objections to aspects of the
science curriculum for two reasons: first, out of respect for students; secondly,
because not to be sensitive is to make learning in science less likely for some
students. However, it is not the case that a science teacher should alter the science
that is taught because of the religious views of students or anyone else. In sex
education, though, religious views, while they should not have the power that some
religious believers would like, nevertheless can, indeed often should, have a place in
decision making. This is because of the central importance of values in general and
religious views in particular for sex education and because values lack the degree of
objectivity of scientific knowledge.
Context
Faith-based schooling remains controversial. On the one hand those who support it
argue that to ban it is to trample on the rights of parents to frame their children’s
education and, furthermore, that when faith-based schooling is banned, all that
happens is that children are removed from schools and educated at home so that
the last state is worse than the first (Matthew 12:45). On the other hand are those
who argue that faith-based schooling inevitably entails at least a certain amount of
indoctrination and, furthermore, that such schooling is socially divisive. Other
chapters in this Handbook extensively explore such issues (cf. also Parker-Jenkins et
al. 2005, Haydon 2009, MacEoin 2009, Oldfield et al 2013).
The aim of this chapter is somewhat different. I assume the existence of faith-based
schooling and then look at the consequences of this for two contrasting parts of the
school curriculum, namely sex education and science education. However, as I hope
will be clear, nearly all of what I write is equally applicable to schools that are not
faith-based. This is for two main reasons: first, even within faith-based schools,
students differ (often considerably) in their religious beliefs and the centrality of
those beliefs to their lives; secondly, this is true too of schools that are not faithbased. Given that teachers need to respect their students and help them to flourish
both at school and subsequently (Reiss and White 2013), one of my conclusions is
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that whether or not a school is faith-based makes less difference to how sex
education and science education should be taught than is generally presumed.
Sex education
For some people, their religious faith is absolutely the core of their being: they could
no more feel comfortable acting or thinking in a way that conflicted with their
religious values than they could feel comfortable not breathing. Other ways of
expressing this are to say that their worldview is a religious one or that religion plays
a central part in their identity. For other people, religious faith is either an
irrelevancy – an historical anachronism – or positively harmful with many of the ills
that befall humankind being placed at its door (Halstead and Reiss 2003).
Religious believers need no arguments to be voiced in favour of taking religious
values seriously, both generally and with particular reference to sexual ethics and
behaviour. Agnostics and atheists might be tempted to ignore religious values but
this would be a mistake. For a start, it is still the case that even in countries, such as
Denmark, England, Sweden and The Netherlands, where the national significance of
religion has been in decline for many decades, a substantial proportion of people still
report that they have a religious faith when asked in national surveys. Although a
stated belief in God may not translate into much overt religious activity, such as
communal worship, it often connects with what people feel about important issues
in life.
Then there is the fact that most of the world’s religions, while they may not have
anything very direct or clear to say about certain of today’s ethical questions – such
as the legitimacy of genetically modified foods or the use of drones in warfare – do
have a great deal to say about sexual values. Religious values still permeate, for
historical reasons, much of society and need to be understood. Of course, those with
a religious faith also need to understand something of secular reasoning about
sexual ethics: it is still too often the case that those with a religious faith assume that
only they (a) really know what is good sexual behaviour; (b) can put such knowledge
into effect.
Religious values in the context of school sex education
Until fairly recently, relatively little had been written in any detail about religious
values and school sex education. In recent years, though, there has been an
increasing acknowledgement from all sex educators, whether or not they themselves
are members of any particular religious faith, that religious points of view needs to
be taken into account, if only because a significant number of children and their
parents have moral values significantly informed by religious traditions. More
generally, it has been argued that religion is increasingly becoming a means through
which identities are articulated on the public stage (Thomson 1997).
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The first major attempt in the UK among believers from a number of religious
traditions to agree a religious perspective on sex education resulted in an agreed
statement by members of six major UK religions (The Islamic Academy 1991). This
statement provided a critique of contemporary sex education, listed principles which
it was felt ought to govern sex education and provided a moral framework for sex
education. This framework ‘Enjoins chastity and virginity before marriage and
faithfulness and loyalty within marriage and prohibits extramarital sex and
homosexual acts’, ‘Upholds the responsibilities and values of parenthood’,
‘Acknowledges that we owe a duty of respect and obedience to parents and have a
responsibility to care for them in their old age and infirmity’ and ‘Affirms that the
married relationship involves respect and love’ (The Islamic Academy 1991: 8).
Another early UK project to look at the important of religion and ethnicity for sex
education was the Sex Education Forum’s ‘religion and ethnicity project’. A working
group was set up which “was concerned to challenge the view that religions offer
only negative messages around sex, wanting to explore the broader philosophy and
rationale behind specific religious prescriptions” (Thomson 1993: 2). Each participant
was sent a total of 28 questions (e.g. ‘Are there different natural roles for men and
women, if so why?’ and ‘What is the religious attitude towards contraception and/or
‘protection’ for example, safe sex re: STDs, HIV?’) and the project chose to present a
range of views, rather than attempting to reach a consensus. The outcome was a
pack described on its title page as ‘A resource for teachers and others working with
young people’. One apparently minor, though noteworthy, feature of the pack –
which has chapters on Anglican, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Methodist, Roman Catholic,
secular and Sikh perspectives – is its postscript which reads:
We would like to draw readers attention to the absence of a perspective in
this pack that addresses Caribbean or African cultural attitudes to sex and
sexuality. The primary concern of the pack is to explore religious perspectives
on sex and sexuality, which inevitably also involve questions of ethnicity and
culture. The absence of such a perspective that specifically addresses the
cultural beliefs and practices of the large Caribbean and African communities
in the United Kingdom should not be taken to obscure the existence or
relevance of such traditions. It is hoped that schools and others working with
young people will use this pack to initiate dialogue with parents and the
community at a local level. We hope that schools will include Caribbean and
African communities in such consultation. We apologise if the title of the
pack is misleading.
(Thomson 1993: 125)
The postscript indicates a difficulty in writing in the field of religious values. One
steers forever between the Scylla of generalities, emphasising the commonalities
between the outlooks of the world’s various religions, and the Charybdis of
specificities, stressing the particular viewpoints of each religion and acknowledging
the considerable diversity of opinion to be found within each of them too.
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At the same time as Rachel Thomson was compiling her pack, Gill Lenderyou and
Mary Porter of the Family Planning Association were putting together a booklet
arising from the ‘Values, faith and sex education’ project (Lenderyou and Porter
1994). At a four-day residential event in this project, a bill of pupils’ rights was drawn
up by 22 people of different religious faiths, and agreed statements on sex education
were produced under the headings of: Respect and difference, Faith and change in
society, Male and female equality, Relationships and marriages, Homosexuality,
Cohabitation, Disability and sexuality, and Celibacy. The bill of pupils’ rights is more
liberal and the agreed statements are more tentative than the contents of The
Islamic Academy (1991). For example, included in the bill of pupils’ rights are the
assertions that pupils have the right to sex education that ‘Provides full, accurate
and objective information about growth and reproduction on topics including
puberty, parenthood, contraception, child care and responsible parenthood’ and
that pupils have the right ‘To be consulted about the manner in which sex education
is implemented in the classroom in connection with issues such as whether it takes
place in single sex or mixed groups or which topics can be included in the
programme’ (Lenderyou and Porter 1994: 37).
Subsequently, Shaikh Abdul Mabud and I edited an academic book titled Sex
Education and Religion which concentrated on Christian and Muslim views about sex
education (Reiss and Mabud 1998), and publications resulted from projects funded
by the Department of Health’s former Teenage Pregnancy Unit including ‘Supporting
the Development of SRE [sex and relationships education] within a Religious and
Faith Context’ (Blake and Katrak 2002). Since that time, an increasing of publications
have considered the importance of religion for sex education (e.g. Rasmussen 2010,
Smerecnik et al. 2010) while alongside this whole story Revd Richard Kirker was a
perennial presence. He was a founder member and first General Secretary of the
Gay Christian Movement from 1976, with the organization changing its name in 1987
to the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement.
Christian views of sex and sex education
The phrase ‘Christian views’ suggests that there may be more than one Christian
view about this subject. However, the very suggestion that there can be a diversity
of Christian views about sex and sex education, as opposed to a single, definitive
position, causes some Christians to be suspicious. After all, it might be felt, is not the
acceptance of the notion that there may be more than one Christian view about so
important an issue as human sexuality and sex education tantamount to the denial
of a straightforward reading of the Christian scriptures as the word of God? Does it
not amount to the adoption of a relativistic view of morality in which no unified,
objective set of moral principles can be defended (Reiss 1998)?
A full response to this point of view would require me to deal with the whole issue of
conservatism and liberalism in the Christian Church and other religions too. In an
important book James Barr argues that what is generally termed ‘fundamentalism’,
and also known as the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy or literalism, is untenable
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precisely because taking literally the words of the (Christian) scriptures shows that
the scriptures themselves do not take themselves literally (Barr 1984).
At the same time, it needs to be acknowledged that the liberal position can be held
as dogmatically as the conservative one. Religious liberals are sometimes as
dismissive of the conservative position, and those who hold it, as religious
conservatives are of the liberal position, and those who hold it. For some, the advent
of post-modernism offers a resolution to this impasse. Not the form of postmodernism that dismisses all knowledge as wholly subjective and relative, but the
post-modernism that rejects the notion of there only being a single way of
discerning truth. This latter version is not just more tolerant of a diversity of coexisting viewpoints but requires them, generally rejecting the single grand
metanarrative.
Christian views about sex
Christian views about virtually everything derive from perhaps five main sources:
first, the writings of the Bible, containing both the Jewish and New Testament
scriptures; secondly, the teachings of the Church down the ages; thirdly, the
conscience of individuals informed, they believe, by the Holy Spirit; fourthly, their
God-given, though imperfect, powers of reason; fifthly, the particular cultural milieu
they inhabit. This catalogue alone makes it likely that there will be a diversity of
Christian views about almost any important subject.
To illustrate Christian views about sex, I concentrate on marriage and same-sex
sexual relationships. This is partly because both subjects are extremely important
ones, but also because more of a consensus exists among Christians on one than on
the other. Christian teachings about marriage are widespread in the New Testament
and the doctrine of marriage has been very widely debated over the last two
millennia with considerable agreement resulting. On the other hand, the New
Testament teaching about homosexuality is sparser and it is only in recent decades
that it has been analysed in any great depth and there currently exists a wide
diversity of opinion on the subject in Christian circles.
Christian views about marriage
Traditional Christian understandings of marriage are outlined in the marriage
services of the various Christian denominations. In the Church of England the
following, or variants thereof, is currently the form of words proclaimed at a
marriage by the officiating minister to the congregation as the bride and bridegroom
stand near the beginning of the service:
The Bible teaches us that marriage is a gift of God in creation and a means of
his grace, a holy mystery in which man and woman become one flesh. It is
God’s purpose that, as husband and wife give themselves to each other in
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love throughout their lives, they shall be united in that love as Christ is united
with his Church.
Marriage is given, that husband and wife may comfort and help each other,
living faithfully together in need and in plenty, in sorrow and in joy. It is given,
that with delight and tenderness they may know each other in love, and,
through the joy of their bodily union, may strengthen the union of their
hearts and lives. It is given as the foundation of family life in which children
may be born and nurtured in accordance with God’s will, to his praise and
glory.
In marriage husband and wife belong to one another, and they begin a new
life together in the community. It is a way of life that all should honour; and it
must not be undertaken carelessly, lightly, or selfishly, but reverently,
responsibly, and after serious thought.
(Common Worship 2000: 15)
Of course, each sentence in this quotation could be the subject for a chapter in itself.
However, several points can be stressed. Marriage is something that two adults, a
man and a woman, choose to enter. It is life-long, exclusive and the only proper
place for sexual intercourse. Further, it has a mystical element to it, the relationship
between a married couple reflecting the relationship Christ has with his Church.
Indeed, in the Roman Catholic tradition marriage is one of the sacraments.
This is not, of course, to maintain that every Christian marriage lives up to this high
calling. Enough is known of sexual behaviour within and without marriage both in
history (Porter and Hall 1995) and more recently (Natsal 2013) to appreciate that
this is far from the case. Furthermore, issues such as polygamy, divorce, cohabitation
and contraception have been significant sources of tension, both doctrinally and
pastorally, for the Christian Church at different times and in different places. In
recent decades, a variety of feminist perspectives have developed, critiquing
hitherto unquestioned assumptions about the relationships between the sexes. And,
of course, the institution of marriage has been viewed as under threat as fewer
couples choose to get married, as the divorce rate has climbed and as various new
reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilisation and surrogacy pose fresh
ethical dilemmas.
Nevertheless, it is still the case that a considerable consensus about marriage exists
both among theologians and among the public at large, whether or not people
describe themselves as practising Christians. Indeed, many adults still choose, at
some point, to get married (most people still hoping that their marriage will be
permanent), only a minority (albeit a large minority) divorce and most children are
still conceived in the time-honoured manner.
One significant shift in Christian views about marriage, though, is in the attitude
taken towards people who live together (cohabit) before marriage. Although many
Christians still see this as a second-best option, cohabitation is increasingly being
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accepted. An early instance of this was the 1995 report on the family from a Working
Party of the Church of England Board of Social Responsibility which resulted in
furious debate, exemplified by the front-page headline in the Church Times of 9 June
1995 ‘Living together no longer a sin’. The chief offending passage was as follows:
... the widespread practice of cohabitation needs to be attended to with
sympathy and discernment, especially in the light of the enormous changes in
western society that have taken place recently and the effect these have had
on the understanding and practice of personal relationships. Anxiety among
churchgoers about cohabitation is best allayed, not by judgemental attitudes
about ‘fornication’ and ‘living in sin’, but by the confident celebration of
marriage and the affirmation and support of what in cohabiting relationships
corresponds most with the Christian ideal. Being disapproving and hostile
towards people who cohabit only leads to alienation and a breakdown in
communication. Instead, congregations should welcome cohabitees, listen to
them, learn from them and co-operate with them so that all may discover
God’s presence in their lives and in our own, at the same time as bearing
witness to that sharing in God’s love which is also available within marriage.
(Working Party of the Board for Social Responsibility 1995: 118)
Critics of the report argued that it had lost any substantive theological underpinning,
reducing itself, instead, to a sociological commentary on contemporary mores.
Advocates of the report argued that not only had its conclusions on cohabitation
pastoral and historical support (there is no formal marriage ceremony in the Jewish
or Christian scriptures; Jewish law, technically, regards cohabitation as a legitimate
form of marriage; until the Hardwicke Marriage Act of 1753 marriage ‘without
benefit of clergy’ was the practice for most couples in the UK), there is a theological
justification too. The theological justification is that the defining element in a sexual
relationship is arguably not so much the marriage ceremony but the first act of
sexual intercourse. As St Paul wrote “You surely know that anyone who joins himself
to a prostitute becomes physically one with her, for scripture says, ‘The two shall
become one flesh’” (1 Corinthians 6.16). In other words, some would argue that the
distinction between cohabitation and marriage is smaller than generally supposed.
Of course, one logical consequence of this view is that the ending of a relationship
characterised by cohabitation (assuming that both parties are still alive) is closely
analogous from a theological perspective to the ending of a marriage by a divorce.
A different contemporary Christian perspective is offered by those, such as Adrian
Thatcher (2002), who argue that marriage is to be understood not as a sudden event
that starts with a wedding or cohabitation, but rather as a gradual process, so that a
wedding is seen as the authentication of what has gone before. Indeed, as someone
who had conducted dozens of marriage services over the last twenty years, this
position seems widespread with the most frequent reason given, in my experience,
for why two people want to get married being that it is a sign of their commitment
to one another.
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Christian views about same-sex sexual relationships
The relative degree of consensus that exists among Christians about marriage does
not exist among them about same-sex sexual relationships, though in a number of
Western countries positions are shifting rapidly towards what can be described as a
more liberal view. The traditional view is that homosexuality is, at best, a sin that can
be cured by repentance, prayer and Christian counselling; at worst, it is an
abomination, an instance of humankind at its most depraved. While homosexuality
receives relatively little attention in the scriptures, the references to it are, at least
on initial inspection, unambiguously condemnatory – notably the story of Sodom in
Genesis 19:4-11, the prohibition against it in Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13, and Paul’s
recitation of God’s judgement in Romans 1:27.
Over the last few decades, however, a tremendous amount of scholarship has
questioned this traditional view. This re-evaluation has tackled the question from a
range of viewpoints: hermeneutical, scientific, sociological, ethical and pastoral.
The hermeneutical approach has concentrated on a detailed reassessment of the
scriptural position on homosexuality. It has been argued that some of the classic
‘proof’ texts have been over-interpreted. For example, while the story of Sodom in
Genesis 19 does include reference to homosexuality, the chief sin of the men of that
city was their inhospitality and their various religious and social sins (Jeremiah 23:14;
Ezekiel 16:49). This is not to conclude that homosexuality is celebrated or even
condoned in this passage; rather that this locus classicus of the scriptural
condemnation of homosexuality has been seriously over-emphasised. After all, few
commentators conclude from the near parallel account in Judges 19 (in which a
woman is raped to death) that heterosexuality is denounced.
Then there is the argument that much of the repugnance expressed by writers both
in the Jewish scriptures and in the New Testament stems from the importance
attached to Jews and Christians standing aside from certain customs and practices of
Canaanite and Graeco-Roman culture. Further, it can be maintained that the writers
of scripture were probably mostly unable to envisage a state of homosexuality in
which two adults of the same gender freely enter into a monogamous relationship.
The authors of the Jewish scriptures implicitly associated homosexuality with cultprostitution; those of the New Testament mainly with paederasty.
The scientific reassessment of same-sex sexual relationships has failed, as yet, to
produce any very definite conclusions as to the cause of a person’s sexual
orientation, whether gay/lesbian or heterosexual. It is frequently maintained that a
person’s sexual orientation is a result of their upbringing. For example, the classical
Freudian position is that the relationship a child has with its parents in the first few
years of life determines its future sexual orientation. Others hold that genetic and/or
hormonal influences are crucial in the determination of a person’s sexual identity,
orientation and desires.
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On the other hand, many people argue that there is a spectrum of sexual orientation,
with ‘pure’ homosexuality at one pole and ‘pure’ heterosexuality at the other. Some
of us unambiguously find ourselves at one or other pole; others of us, though, sit
between the two extremes. A different point of view is that rather than finding
ourselves somewhere along this spectrum, we position ourselves on it. In other
words, our sexuality is not entirely a ‘given’; it is, at least to some extent, something
we determine for ourselves. Queer theory – with its perspective that none of us fits
securely into a set of objectively defined sexual boundaries – can be seen as an
extension of this analysis. A related point of view is that what we now see as
‘homosexuality’ and ‘heterosexuality’ are social and cultural constructions, terms
whose meanings are contingent on their historicity (Foucault 1990).
Finally, contemporary Christian views about homosexuality have been influenced by
the personal testimonies of many gay and lesbian Christians. Both scripture and
tradition place a high value on what an individual’s conscience tells that person,
while the Bible and Church history contain a number of accounts of people who fail
to act in accordance with tradition or the injunctions of scripture, yet are
subsequently blessed by God (e.g. Peter at Joppa in Acts 10). Listening to people’s
stories about themselves can be an effective way of discerning what God is saying in
a situation.
For all these reasons a consensus among Christians about homosexuality currently
does not exist. Some Christian Churches are moving towards a position in which
mutually faithful homosexual relationships – though typically only among the laity
rather than among the clergy – are considered acceptable. Time alone will tell
whether this is merely a further sign, as some would maintain, of the spiritual
decline of institutionalised Christianity, or the beginnings of a full acceptance of all
people, whatever their sexual identity.
Christian views about sex education
Two extreme, opposite positions with respect to Christian views about sex education
can be rejected. One is that a Christian perspective on sex education is wholly
distinct from a secular one; the other is that a Christian perspective differs only
marginally, if at all, from a secular one. As is so often the case in life, the truth lies
between the extremes.
Of course, precisely what a Christian holds as the Christian position on sex education
differs according to the particular form of their faith. One person, of a conservative
theological persuasion, may hold that the teachings of scripture can
straightforwardly be applied to today’s moral situations. Such a person is not likely
then to be persuaded by a liberal Christian position which argues that the particular
cultural situation in which anyone lives is so significant that laws, however divinely
inspired, of two or more thousand years ago cannot simply be translated directly
into today’s settings.
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Of course, this polarisation between the conservative and liberal positions is not
restricted, in Christian circles, to issues to do with sex and sex education. Related
debates have taken place at different times in Church history over questions as
diverse as usury, slavery, the position of women and our use of the environment.
Science education
For many science educators, whether or not they have any religious beliefs
themselves, the relationships between science and religion, i.e. the ‘science/religion
issue’, appears somewhat outside the scope of science education. However, a range
of factors, including a greater awareness of the benefits of dealing explicitly in the
school classroom with the nature of science and the increasing influence of
creationism in schools, suggests that this perspective may be too narrow (Reiss
2008).
The function of school science education is principally to introduce learners to the
methods that the sciences use and to the different forms of knowledge that the
sciences have produced. While historians tell us that what scientists study changes
over time, there are reasonable consistencies:
(i)
(ii)
Science is concerned with the natural world and with certain elements of the
manufactured world – so that, for example, the laws of gravity apply as much
to aeroplanes as they do to apples and planets.
Science is concerned with how things are rather than with how they should
be. So there is a science of nuclear fission and in vitro fertilisation without
science telling us whether nuclear power and test-tube babies are good or
bad.
The argument in favour of including religion in science education is then a very
specific one: aspects of religion should be included if they help learners better to
learn science. (Precisely the same argument holds, I would argue, for teaching
science students about history: this too should be done if it helps learners better to
learn science.) So, under what circumstances might the learning of science be helped
by a consideration of religious issues? Perhaps the most obvious instance is when
teaching the topic of evolution to students who are creationists or, at any rate, have
creationist sympathies.
The importance of creationism for science education
Creationism exists in a number of different versions, but something like 50% of
adults in Turkey, 40% in the USA and 15% in Norway reject the theory of evolution:
they believe that the Earth came into existence as described by a literal
(fundamentalist) reading of the early parts of the Bible or the Qu’ran and that the
most that evolution has done is to change species into closely related species (Miller
et al. 2006). For a creationist it is possible, for example, that the various species of
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mice had a common ancestor but this is not the case for mice, squirrels and horses –
still less for monkeys and humans, for birds and reptiles or for fish and pine trees.
Until recently, little attention has been paid in the science classroom to creationism.
However, creationism appears to be on the increase, and there are indications that
there are more countries in which schools are becoming battlegrounds for the issue.
For example, while the USA has had several decades of legal battles about the place
of creationism and (more recently) intelligent design in schools (Moore 2007),
school-based conflicts over these issues are becoming more frequent in a range of
other countries (e.g. Graebsch and Schiermeier 2006).
As a result, there has been a growth in the science education literature examining
creationism (e.g. Jones and Reiss 2007, Reiss 2011). Most of the literature on
creationism (and/or intelligent design) and evolutionary theory puts them in stark
opposition. Evolution is consistently presented in creationist books and articles as
illogical (e.g. natural selection cannot, on account of the second law of
thermodynamics, create order out of disorder; mutations are always deleterious and
so cannot lead to improvements), contradicted by scientific evidence (e.g. the fossil
record shows human footprints alongside animals supposed by evolutionists to be
long extinct; the fossil record does not provide evidence for transitional forms) and
the product of non-scientific reasoning (e.g. the early history of life would require
life to arise from inorganic matter – a form of spontaneous generation rejected by
science in the 19th Century. Radioactive dating is said to make assumptions about
the constancy of natural processes over aeons of time whereas we increasingly know
of natural processes that affect the rate of radioactive decay), and evolution in
general is portrayed as the product of those who ridicule the word of God, and a
cause of a whole range of social evils – from eugenics, Marxism, Nazism and racism
to juvenile delinquency, illicit drug use and prostitution (e.g. Watson (1975), Baker
(2003), Parker (2006) and countless articles in the publications of such organisations
as Answers in Genesis, the Biblical Creation Society, the Creation Science Movement
and the Institute for Creation Research).
By and large, creationism has received similarly short shrift from those who accept
the theory of evolution. In an early study the philosopher of science Philip Kitcher
argued that “… in attacking the methods of evolutionary biology, Creationists are
actually criticizing methods that are used throughout science” (Kitcher 1982: 4-5).
Kitcher concluded that the flat-earth theory, the chemistry of the four elements and
mediaeval astrology “… have just as much claim to rival current scientific views as
Creationism does to challenge evolutionary biology” (Kitcher 1982: 5). An even more
trenchant attack on creationism is provided by geologist Ian Plimmer whose book
title Telling lies for God: Reason vs creationism (Plimmer 1994) indicates the line he
takes.
The scientific worldview is materialistic in the sense that it is neither idealistic nor
admits of non-physical explanations (here, ‘physical’ includes, as well as matter, such
‘things’ as energy and the curvature of space). There is much that remains unknown
about evolution. How did the earliest self-replicating molecules arise? What caused
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membranes to exist? How key were the earliest physical conditions – temperature,
the occurrence of water and so forth? But the scientific presumption is either that
these questions will be answered by science or that they will remain unknown.
Although some scientists might (sometimes grudgingly) admit that science cannot
disprove supernatural explanations, scientists do not employ such explanations in
their work (the tiny handful of seeming exceptions only attest to the strength of the
general rule).
Whereas there is only one mainstream scientific understanding of today’s
biodiversity, there are a considerable number of religious ones. Many religious
believers are perfectly comfortable with the scientific understanding, either on its
own or accompanied by a belief that evolution in some sense takes place within
God’s holding (compass or care), whether or not God is presumed to have
intervened or acted providentially at certain key points (e.g. the origin of life or the
evolution of humans). But many other religious believers adopt a more creationist
perspective or that of intelligent design (Reiss 2008).
The response of science education to creationism
Given all this, how might raising the issue of religion in science lessons help? Might it
not just make the situation even worse? The response by science education to the
range of positions held about evolution needs, I believe, to take account of the
following (Reiss 2013):
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Among scientists, the theory of evolution is held to be a robust, well
established and, at its core, a scientifically uncontroversial theory.
Within biology, evolution occupies a central place. There is much in biology
that has been discovered and can be studied without accepting the theory of
evolution but an evolutionary framework is what enables biologists to
provide coherence to the diversity of life that we see around us and to
situate today’s life in an historical context.
In common with many scientific theories, evolution is not easy to understand.
It has contra-intuitive elements and, in addition, is actively rejected by many
people for religious reasons.
Few countries have produced explicit guidance as to how schools might deal with
the issues of creationism or intelligent design in the science classroom. One country
that has is England. In the summer of 2007, after months of behind-the-scenes
meetings and discussions, the then DCSF (Department of Children, Schools and
Families) Guidance on Creationism and Intelligent Design received Ministerial
approval and was published (DCSF 2007). The Guidance points out that the use of
the word ‘theory’ in science (as in ‘the theory of evolution’) can mislead those not
familiar with science as a subject discipline because it is different from the everyday
meaning, when it is used to mean little more than an idea. In science the word
indicates that there is a substantial amount of supporting evidence, underpinned by
principles and explanations accepted by the international scientific community.
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The DCSF Guidance goes on to say: “Creationism and intelligent design are
sometimes claimed to be scientific theories. This is not the case as they have no
underpinning scientific principles, or explanations, and are not accepted by the
science community as a whole” (DCSF 2007) and then states:
Creationism and intelligent design are not part of the science National
Curriculum programmes of study and should not be taught as science.
However, there is a real difference between teaching ‘x’ and teaching about
‘x’. Any questions about creationism and intelligent design which arise in
science lessons, for example as a result of media coverage, could provide the
opportunity to explain or explore why they are not considered to be scientific
theories and, in the right context, why evolution is considered to be a
scientific theory.
(DCSF 2007)
This seems to me a key point and one that is true for all countries, whether a country
permits the teaching of religion (as in the UK) or does not (as in France, Turkey and
the USA). Many scientists, and some science educators, fear that consideration of
creationism or intelligent design in a science classroom legitimises them. For
example, the excellent book Science, evolution, and creationism, published by the US
National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine, asserts “The ideas offered
by intelligent design creationists are not the products of scientific reasoning.
Discussing these ideas in science classes would not be appropriate given their lack of
scientific support” (National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine 2008:
52).
As I have argued (Reiss 2008), I agree with the first sentence of this quotation but
disagree with the second. Just because something lacks scientific support does not
seem to me a sufficient reason to omit it from a science lesson. Indeed, good science
teaching typically requires consideration of students’ ideas when these do not agree
with scientific knowledge. Nancy Brickhouse and Will Letts (1998) have argued that
one of the central problems in science education is that science is often taught
‘dogmatically’. With particular reference to creationism they write:
Should student beliefs about creationism be addressed in the science
curriculum? Is the dictum stated in the California’s Science Frameworks
(California Department of Education, 1990) that any student who brings up
the matter of creationism is to be referred to a family member or member of
the clergy a reasonable policy? We think not. Although we do not believe
that what people call ‘creationist science’ is good science (nor do scientists),
to place a gag order on teachers about the subject entirely seems
counterproductive. Particularly in parts of the country where there are
significant numbers of conservative religious people, ignoring students’ views
about creationism because they do not qualify as good science is insensitive
at best.
(Brickhouse and Letts 1998: 227)
13
It seems to me that school science lessons should present students with the
scientific consensus about evolution and that parents should not have the right to
withdraw their children from such lessons. Part of the purpose of school science
lessons is to introduce students to the main conclusions of science – and the theory
of evolution is one of science’s main conclusions. At the same time, science teachers
should be respectful of any students who do not accept the theory of evolution for
religious (or any other) reasons. Indeed, nothing pedagogically is to be gained by
denigrating or ridiculing students who do not accept the theory of evolution.
My own experience of teaching the theory of evolution for some thirty years to
school students, undergraduate biologists, trainee science teachers, members of the
general public and others is that people who do not accept the theory of evolution
for religious reasons are most unlikely to change their views as a result of one or two
lessons on the topic, and others have concluded similarly (e.g. Long 2011). However,
that is no reason not to teach the theory of evolution to such people. One can gain a
better understanding of something without necessarily accepting it. Furthermore,
recent work suggests that careful and respectful teaching about evolution can
indeed make students considerably more likely to accept at least some aspects of
the theory of evolution (Winslow et al. 2011).
Conclusion
The role of religion is therefore, I would argue, somewhat different in science
education and in sex education. In science education, a teacher needs to be sensitive
to religious objections to aspects of the science curriculum for two reasons: first, out
of respect for students; secondly, because not to be sensitive is to make learning in
science less likely for some students. However, it is not the case that a science
teacher should alter the science that is taught because of the religious views of
students or anyone else. Scientific knowledge is independent of religious views. In
the case of evolution, science teachers may decide not to try to persuade creationist
students that they are mistaken but all students, including creationists ones, should
be introduced to what science teaches about evolution. At the same time, welldesigned examination material should be able to test student knowledge of science
and its methods without expecting students to have to convert, or pretend that they
have converted, to a materialistic set of beliefs. So, for example, it is appropriate to
ask students to explain how the standard neo-Darwinian theory of evolution
attempts to account for today’s biodiversity but it is not appropriate to ask students
to explain how the geological sciences conclusively prove that the Earth is billions of
years old.
In sex education, though, religious views, while they should not have the power that
some religious believers would like, nevertheless can, indeed often should, have a
place in decision making. This is because of the central importance of values in
general and religious views in particular for sex education (Halstead and Reiss 2003)
and because values lack the degree of objectivity of scientific knowledge. A well-
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argued religious viewpoint is neither privileged nor disqualified in the public space
simply by virtue of its being religious. The same point holds equally for agnostic and
atheistic views. In a multicultural society we need to hear a diversity of well-argued
viewpoints. Of course, in a faith-based school, there will be a degree of consensus as
to the importance that religious values play – though even here unanimity should
not be presumed.
It is largely because of the diversity of individual pupil positions about religion that
whether or not a school is faith-based makes less difference to how sex education
and science education should be taught than is generally presumed. All schools,
father-based or not, should prepare their students, in a way that respects human
dignity and rights, for life in school and beyond school, a life that is perhaps
increasingly characterised by a diversity of value standpoints.
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