Creationism in Queensland - A Personal View

I was a teacher of Biology and Science at a State High School in North Queensland throughout 1983 and 1984. In this article I wish to briefly present the successful creationist campaign there as 1 personally saw it, and to point out trends and other factors which were conducive to this success, with comparative references to the New Zealand education system.

A Departmental circular was sent to all State secondary schools in 1983 which directed science teachers to present the "special creation" and "catastrophism" theories as alternatives to the established biological and geological evolutionary theories. Not a great deal of heat was generated by that directive as many HOD's apparently filed it away with little fuss. There were of course eager collaborators, like the HGD Science at one Brisbane college who immediately rewrote the syllabuses involved with creation and "flood geology" at their cores.

Widespread noncompliance led to the Queensland Minister of Education, Mr Lynn Powell, issuing a stronger directive in 19384 following a flurry of fundamentalist activity as witnessed by mailbags full of letters to newspapers and periodicals, including the Queensland Teachers Union journal. The message was that he now "insisted" on creationism being incorporated into the syllabus. The protests of academicians and university biologists were ineffectual. As Mr Powell said: "Scientists have a theory about origins and that is evolution. Christians have another theory about origins and that is creation. This is a Christian society so we must present both views as equally valid." (paraphrased)

As I refused to comply or even distribute creationist literature to my seniors, I was taken off Urade 12 biology, a 2-year-trained Home Economics teacher was brought in to take Grade 11 biology as well, and I resigned from teaching and left Australia at the end of 1984. Since then I have kept in touch with some ex-colleagues, one of them a history teacher who informs me he is being hassled about ancient history where it contradicts fundamentalist interpretation of the bible, and have found out that the debate is actually heating up, and that there has been a lot of doubletalk from Powell about "not forcing any teacher to teach creation" - a very sick joke from my perspective.

With such impressive victories in the USA and, uncomfortably close to home in Australia, rumbles along creationist lines must be anticipated here; and are occurring, as one of the first "New Zealand Times" I read upon coming back to New Zealand in June last year indicated, I would now like to list a number of observations which in my opinion were instrumental in securing creationism' s status in Queensland, and speculate on their possible application to New Zealand.

Political Influence: Many readers will be aware that the National Party government in Queensland is an ultra-rightist one in Western terms. It is not out of place to point out here that Queensland has Victorian laws on homosexuality, abortion, and mental disease, and is fighting the sill of Rights and Aboriginal Land Rights tooth and nail. With an overtly "Christian" platform, especially in rural areas like the "Deep North", it is not surprising that this gestalt is supplemented by fierce fundamentalism with regard to scientific knowledge and the Christian holy book.

To be politically conservative does not equate with being fundamentalistic per se. the New Zealand Opposition does however have its share of Christian right-wingers, and there is an increasing fundamentalist voting sector for such rightists to woo. In my opinion it is only a matter of time before some rightist decides that the creationist bandwagon will be a vote-puller.

Structure of the Teaching Profession: The Queensland Teachers Union is a primary/secondary composite body. Teachers are a heterogeneous lot at the best of times, but the range of opinions in the QU is all the more spread across the spectrum because of this. Judging by the addresses given, many hotly anti-evolution letters stemmed from primary teachers.

More important is the qualification structure of the Queensland secondary profession. Until very recently, and still applicable to many areas, the modal secondary teacher was/is 3-year-trained: content subjects to Stage 1 at CAE level only, Education Theory to Stage 1, and a year's on-section training. Graduates are becoming more common now, but mostly with the 4-year Bachelor of Education: the above 3-year prescription with some Stage 4 content and Education papers added. In terms of content knowledge one can quite objectively state that these teachers are quite inferior to the modal New Zealand secondary teacher with a university degree in his/her content subject plus a teachers college diploma.

It is therefore hardly surprising that creationist pseudo-science should run into relatively little hard academic opposition in Queensland secondary science teaching circles. With a virtually all-graduate secondary profession not affiliated with the primary sector as we have in New Zealand, I foresee a much tougher nut for the creationists to crack here compared with the soft touch they had in Queensland. At the same time, fundamentalist strategists will regard this as all the more reason for making creationism a quasi-political public issue.

Syllabus and Assessment: Queensland abandoned external assessment at the turn of this decade and starting experimenting with school-based internal assessment. The initial Radcliff system drew enough criticism for a revised system to be implemented in a number of schools in 1982, "ROSBA" (Review of School-Based Assessment) allowing far greater syllabus flexibility, each school virtually designing its own courses, and being wholly criterion-referenced, With zero functional syllabus input from the universities, and no State-wide academic criteria to be met or externally monitored, creationism could be legitimised at individual-school level by a few strokes of a pen.

The New Zealand system compares favourably with this laissez-faire state of affairs. Although the Universities Entrance Board has relinquished its tight hold over the sixth-form syllabus, its continuing control of the seventh-form ones ensures quality control by downward filtration to Sixth Form Certificate and even School Certificate courses. There is a strong trend away from external examinations occurring in New Zealand, but with continuing emphasis on standardisation and moderation. Although there are educationally sound reasons for the Post-Primary Teachers Association's continuing attempts to remove direct university control from the secondary arena, I do harbour fears about fundamentalist drives at syllabus level should the universities lose all say in what is taught in schools, and am in favour of their continuing direct involvement for that reason.

Denigration of Biology as a Science: Probably after lessons learned during the 1932 Arkansas "monkey trials", when the Supreme Court overturned an earlier pro-creationist ruling there, the creationist lobby in Queensland went to great pains to avoid scientific argument about evolution. As the above paraphrased quote from Powell indicates, the official Departmental line had nothing to do with Science per se; on the contrary, the right to hold a belief was the most heavily emphasised ploy.

In Departmental circulars as well as most pro-creationist letters in the teachers' journal, creation and evolution were portrayed as opposing belief-systems. Everyone has a right to his/her own opinion; we must respect the opinions and beliefs of others; creation and evolution are two opposing beliefs; hence both must be treated equally- quod erat demonstratum'! The one thing I never heard discussed was in fact the good old scientific method; though brought up by protesting academics, fundamentalists and their Departmental lackeys steered clear of this uncomfortable aspect with notable determination and consistency. As the "flood geology" school showed, however, this is largely a case of "do as I say, not as I do."

I have included this final subheading because I think it convincingly shows what does happen when the previously discussed factors come into play, as an inevitable matter of course; given a poorly-qualified staff, the removal of quality-controls over education by the abolition of external eXaminations and university syllabus input, and the hijacking of a scientific issue by ultra-right politicians. In summary, I hope that I have given readers an insight into much-publicised but often poorly informed happenings across the Tasman, and have placed the issue in a wider educational scope than is often done, with a view to raising our consciousness of fundamentalist tactics: to close with an old truism, "to be forewarned is to be forearmed."