I excerpt here two contiguous paragraphs, finding the "indeed" comment most
interesting, treating "the chance origin of life" as apparently more obvious
than the reliability of radioactive and other forms of dating. Either weakly
sloppy or strongly naturalistically ideological, in my view, though the article
also makes some other points that are stronger.
--John
http://www.sciam.com/1097issue/1097scicit5.html
....
With educational psychologist William B. Michael of the University of Southern
California, Alters conducted interviews and administered surveys to pick the
brains of more than 1,200 college freshmen at 10 different schools. In this
unpublished study, he found that those who reject evolution (approximately 45
percent) tend more than their counterparts to hold specific misconceptions
about evolutionary science. They are more likely to agree with statements such
as "mutations are never beneficial to animals" and "the methods used to
determine the age of fossils and rocks are not accurate." Indeed, nearly 40
percent of those skeptical of evolution believe the chance origin of life to be
a statistical impossibility.
Having identified these and other erroneous beliefs, Alters says, the next step
is to develop a curriculum that addresses them head-on. Although "the purpose
of public school education is not to change people's religious beliefs," he
notes, students' preconceptions about genetics, radiometric dating and
statistical probability are certainly fair game.
....