When I taught high school biology I told my students point blank that I didn't care what their opinion was, if they planned on passing the class and the state test they needed to learn evolution. While I wouldn't use this exact tactic with college students, you might need some version of it for students like this. Perhaps you could use the guideline that if they can't find it on pubmed (or something of similar caliber) that they can't use the article as a resource.
Oh boy, I empathize with you on this. While not exactly in an academic setting, my boyfriend (who is mostly moderately conservative, and identifies as a "child of God" rather than specifically Christian) said that he believes evolution is a religion, and that its adherents (READ: scientists) "preach" evolution and won't accept other views. His words.
So.... no help from me, as I probably could have handled it better myself, but trust me, you're not alone.
I was in CCD in a town where most people's parents worked as scientists at a large ivy league research institution and evolution was discussed in the following fashion: God created the world in 7 days. But perhaps the "days" of creation are a more flexible timetable than the one in which we currently live. Measurement of time throughout history is flexible, so just think of it as "creationism" with a much longer chronology. Personally I thought it was a little stupid, but it's sort of an interesting way of looking at it and explaining it. i had friends who didn't believe in evolution and they could deal with this explanation.
Wow. I love how the article states that U.Chicago scientists found something, then quotes this other person without noting that he (she?) is NOT one of the U.Chicago scientists. You don't know they work for a Christian think tank unless you read the stuff at the bottom of the page.
These students do worse on even assignments that have no connection to their beliefs because they don't know how and in many cases, don't want to know how to think critically. If they did, they wouldn't have these unfounded beliefs to begin with, and they'd have some idea of how to complete an assignment appropriately. If you've encouraged these students to be more rigorous and offered to help them determine what a good source is, and they still don't listen, just give them the grades they deserve and move on.
They're not unfounded, they're just founded in something that isn't recognised by the scientific method. Understanding that there are particular types of knowledge which depend on particular sources analysed in particular ways is exactly what you want these students to learn.
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Perhaps you could use the guideline that if they can't find it on pubmed (or something of similar caliber) that they can't use the article as a resource.
I do empathize.
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So.... no help from me, as I probably could have handled it better myself, but trust me, you're not alone.
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God created the world in 7 days. But perhaps the "days" of creation are a more flexible timetable than the one in which we currently live. Measurement of time throughout history is flexible, so just think of it as "creationism" with a much longer chronology.
Personally I thought it was a little stupid, but it's sort of an interesting way of looking at it and explaining it. i had friends who didn't believe in evolution and they could deal with this explanation.
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They're not unfounded, they're just founded in something that isn't recognised by the scientific method. Understanding that there are particular types of knowledge which depend on particular sources analysed in particular ways is exactly what you want these students to learn.
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