Evolution in College

I wanted to write based on a science point of view this week. The topic this week is spirituality on a secular campus, and I really wasn’t sure what to write on. So I think I am twisting the topic a little but I think this is interesting. I know in high school in the past couple of years, there has been a huge debate on science subjects such as the theory of evolution and the big bang theory. These theories are taught in many classes all over the United States within college biology departments as well. I was just curious to see if these courses are also offered on smaller religious campuses. I asked some of my friends that attend some smaller religious schools if they took a biology course and within that course if these theories were taught. All of them said that they were covered in class but briefly. I wanted to compare these courses to college biology courses that are taught in secular colleges. When I describe a college as secular, I am referring to colleges that just don’t associate to a religion.

I found this clip on youtube.com that was taken from the View. I don’t watch the View at all so I really thought this was interesting. Here they are talking about whether these theories should be taught in college. During this argument, Whoppie makes a great point. She says that college courses are elective which means students are choosing which classes they take. However, I think that in order to obtain a degree in biology a student must take a class in evolution. There is huge evidence in evolution right now that is happening all over the world in research studies. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that humans evolved from apes! I do believe that evolution occurs when it comes to natural selection within a species population. I think that species evolve based upon features that help individuals survive better than other individuals within that same population. I think this is an important aspect for college students to understand and learn about if they are pursuing a degree in biology. This theory is present today in many different ways.

However, on these religious campuses, evolution might not be stressed as much as on secular college campuses. I think that evolution courses should be offered at religious campuses just like I think that different religious study classes should be offered on secular campuses. I think that since college is full of elective courses then there should be no problem with offering these courses.

I think that higher education administrators need to be aware that some courses might offend students and how to deal with these students who do not believe in what is being taught in a specific course. I think that these courses that are borderline opinions and deep emotional courses need to be sturtured a certain way. I don’t think that they way in which this material is taught should be presented as a wrong or right way. The teacher needs to present the material in a non bias way as best as they can. I think that once teachers start pressing a “right” way is when some of these courses can get out of hand. Education administrators need to be prepared to deal with teachers that do this as well. Let these teachers be aware of how they need to teach the material that can be borderline or “ify” subjects when it comes to religion and theories.

In conclusion, I think that depending on the campus (secular or religious) that each course could be offending the students. So the spirituality on college campuses should be handled differently depending on the college campus the problem is on. Here is the link of the video that I was talking about earlier: