The challenge with teaching evolution in 2025 is the same each semester, said Elizabeth Barnes, now approaching her fifth year on the biology faculty at Middle Tennessee State University.
“I would say one of the biggest things that we face when we go to teach evolution is this perception that in order to accept evolution, to actually believe that evolution is a real thing, that you have to be an atheist or reject religious belief,” Barnes said.
A national survey of biology students conducted by Barnes and other researchers in 2022 showed that 50% of the respondents believed acceptance of evolution was a rejection of God.
“That’s just a misunderstanding of the nature of science,” Barnes said.