One of my favorite moments of CSICon came during Richard Dawkins’s onstage conversation with Jamy Ian Swiss. An audience member asked Dawkins to consider the three most important aspects of his career—evolutionary biologist, defender of atheism, and science educator—and identify which one made him most proud. Dawkins said science educator. A man whose book The Selfish Gene has just come out in a fortieth anniversary edition (see book excerpt in this issue) and whose The God Delusion was a huge bestseller considered science education his most important activity.
Science education is a central concern of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and science educators and communicators were prominently featured in the CSICon schedule. Eugenie Scott, former executive director of the National Center for Science Education and a CSI fellow, spoke about the current state of evolutionary science in schools in the United States. Although she pointed to some positive trends, the overall picture is one of poor quality teaching of evolution and large pockets of resistance. Many teachers take what Scott called the cautious approach to evolution by “teaching the controversy”—as if there were a controversy. She reported that science teachers face numerous obstacles as they approach this topic, including lack of knowledge of the subject, lack of time in the curriculum, and negative pressure from students and parents.