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When were you taught evolution?

This is a quickie - how old we you when you were first TAUGHT about evolution.

In the UK, it was in advanced biology - an optional class for school leavers and I was about 17 at the time - in 1980. (Oh god, I'm old!)

I didn't understand it: accepted it, yes, but didn't understand it.

Anyone who knows me well might find this surprising, because I didn't bother looking at evolution proper until a couple of decades back - while researching something completely different.

These days, evolution is taught in secondary schools (at least, it should be) which puts it in the age 11-16 or 11-18 depending on when the child started.

Dawkins thinks - and I heartily agree - we should introduce this cornerstone of Biology in primary science - so I wonder, how many people hear came to understand Darwin later in life?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ken Jackson on September 5, 2011 at 3:23pm

I was in the 5th grade, my teacher was this old maid Ms. Rubinek, she was strict but fair and she taught the truth.. I loved her then and love her today. She put me on the straight and narrow and without her I would not have done a tenth of what I have done in my 73 years on this earth... She was an Atheist and A Socialist and we got along fine... I still miss her and there will be no way that I could ever have forgotten the simple truths she handed out in that classroom in 1947. She made learning and Science fun and more than that she set up a values system that I have never changed...

Permalink Reply by Natalie A Sera on September 5, 2011 at 4:21pm

I don't ever remember NOT being aware of evolution. At the time I was educated (50's and 60's) I think everyone took it for granted. I don't EVER remember any "controversy" over it, and I don't remember any intentional religion-based oppression, although there was a lot of thoughtlessness. Seems to me that the current uproar has been manufactured by those who desire a return to the Dark Ages. Only with the Fundie churches ruling the world instead of the Catholic church. Civilization can ascend, and it can DESCEND -- the Middle Ages were a Catholic-inspired descent from the Greek and Roman civilizations -- are we facing another descent?

Permalink Reply by John Donaldson on September 5, 2011 at 5:18pm

I was in my first year at university when Dr. Dixie Pelluet taught a class of first year science students about evolution. I found it the only one of my classes that seemed to both be logical and sensible. I believe I was 16 at the time in 1954.

Permalink Reply by Bob on September 5, 2011 at 5:36pm

My earliest recollection is looking at that progression chart from ape to man in a National Geographic, or maybe it was in the old "TIME-LIFE" Books..1960's to early 1970's I'd say

Permalink Reply by The Secular One on September 5, 2011 at 5:44pm

I was taught evolution first by the television via shows on Discovery channel. My first formal education, sadly, was my Junior year of college...in a biology program! I tested out of the intro evolution course, so I didn't take it. My high school didn't teach it but I taught myself those parts of the book anyways.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on September 5, 2011 at 10:02pm

I picked it up from National Geographic and Time Life children's science books, pre-kindergarten. My parents bought a subscription to those and lots of educational magazines for my brother who's two years older than me, so there was quite a collection by the time I hit kindergarten age.

Permalink Reply by Orson_Zedd on September 6, 2011 at 12:07am

Being from Mississippi and all, I wasn't taught evolution. We completely skipped the chapter and were told to read about it on our own time. So I did. It wasn't a good self education, but my understanding of it got better over the next 10 years.

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on September 6, 2011 at 5:07am

The Catholic schools I went to taught its own "special creation" (not the ism we hear of now). In my third year in college, I saw vertebrate similarities in a museum and concluded "How can we not all be related?"

In 1947, on a trip from Cincinnati to St. Petersburg (the one in Florida), my dad, brother and I stopped for lunch in Dayton, Tennessee, and a waitress, still thrilled after 22 years, told us "Clarence Darrow sat here; William Jennings Bryan sat over there." After 64 years I remember her excitement.

Permalink Reply by Carl Pastor on September 7, 2011 at 2:56am

i learned about it first in public elementary school in california in the 50's. there was no controversy at all. it was a fact. i was also taught a completely wrong geology, pre plate tectonics, but they did try to teach science to us then

Permalink Reply by Ilaria Giovacchini on September 7, 2011 at 4:19am

well, i think i had it mentioned at school for the first time in the elementary school (probably at 8-9 yo). Of course it wasn't explained a lot.

Then again in the middle school (aged 12-13).

The first proper explanation with some details was later... around 16-17 yo.

In Italy, btw. Not sure if it was (or is now) the regular science curriculum in the primary school or if i just had a very clever teacher :)

[edit] sorry, i must add... i went to primary school in the first half of the 80s

Permalink Reply by Madison Burnett on September 7, 2011 at 9:29pm

I was taught evolution in freshman biology in high school back in 2000, but it came with a huge disclaimer from the teacher so students wouldn't get pissy at her and so on. I honestly didn't start to completely understand it (well trying to understand it) until within the past couple of months or so.

Permalink Reply by Doc on September 8, 2011 at 1:03pm

Must have been my 9th or 10th grade biology teacher. At the time, I was living in Montgomery County, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C., ranked #2 in education across the United States. She also added to what we learned in the "health" portion of Physical Education class, regarding sex and sexually transmitted diseases. Mind you, this was some ten years before HIV/AIDS ever hit the news: early-mid 1970s. Boy, best way to teach abstinence is to show pictures of the STDs and describe in gory detail the deadliest and most disfiguring ones. (Gave that lecture to a tutoring student of mine, just a couple weeks ago. His parents appreciated it!) All this teacher told us made sense. Wish I could recall her name. She seemed to dislike me personally, I never knew why, but boy, could she ever teach.