Schooling the Teachers

Most observers agree that education in the sciences in the United States is not where it should be. Commentators like Richard Dawkins think that the lion’s share of the blame must go to that tireless agent of premodern darkness, the religious right. Since the test of intellectual seriousness is acceptance of Darwinism, Exhibit A in their case is the campaign to have Intelligent Design taught in public schools. Is it not self-evident, they say, that a country this hopped-up on theism has gone woolly-minded and is bound to fall behind in serious intellectual achievements?

But the far more credible view, in my mind, is admirably presented by Peter Wood in the Chronicle of Higher Education . The main problem, he thinks, is not the militant obscurantism of the Religious Right but (paradoxically to some) the pedagogical methods embraced by the cultural left.