Students doing what Darwin did

Charles Darwin was so human.

He had questions and he tried to find answers.

Mark Terry teaches his high-school science students they can do that, too, come up with ideas, test them, make adjustments.

That's how science is supposed to be done. Darwin followed the evidence he gathered to conclusions that challenged some of his own beliefs. That still bothers some folks. Science is never isolated from social context in which it's practiced.

I talked about that with Terry yesterday, because he takes that into account.

Terry teaches at The Northwest School on Capitol Hill, where 10th-grade biology students study the 19th century in their humanities classes. Terry and the humanities teachers coordinate their instruction.

Students read about ideas that were swirling around when Darwin was forming his theory of how species develop.

Terry also puts off studying genetics until the spring.

"We want the kids to go through the evolution experience the same way Darwin did, not knowing how things are inherited in detail." They see why Darwin was sometimes baffled.

Then students move on to newer discoveries that support his ideas.

And they talk about continuing opposition to evolution science.

Years ago, Terry said, "We'd say, 'Look what's happening in Louisiana. Look what's happening in Arkansas, because there were actual trials, test cases and things going on." People in those places were still in an uproar, he'd say.

And now, "We're a few blocks away from the Discovery Institute and you have this national push right now to redefine the issue as the intelligent design issue. That's also become part of our studies."

Over the past decade, Terry has become a popular national speaker and writer on the conflict between proponents of evolution and intelligent design, in which a creator made us what we are.

He's one of the speakers tonight at the Burke Museum's Darwin birthday celebration, and this summer he'll speak and lead a session for science teachers at the North American Paleontology Convention.

Intelligent design is a new guise for an old argument, he said.

"We've always introduced early 19th century intelligent design. Natural theology. That's where Darwin was coming from."

In the 19th century, he said, people were doing anatomical descriptions, all thinking what they were describing was part of intelligent design.

Eventually science moved beyond that, he said.

"It's interesting for kids to see a man such as Darwin to go through this change in thought."

Today, scientists are again revising our understanding of how organisms change.

It's still fuzzy, Terry said, but it seems, "the main evolutionary action is in a series of things done to the DNA and the chromosomes that define what the individual cells do."

Maybe one of his students will help figure that out someday.

He wants them to do what Darwin did, to form their own ideas and test them.

He wants them to see Darwin may be an icon, but he is also a person like them.

"We're talking about a very human scientist who made some gigantic errors along with his fabulous discoveries, which is true for every scientist."

Jerry Large's column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.