THE VIEW FROM ONE SCIENCE TEACHER

There's been a lot of discussion about the gaffe in which new View co-host Sherri Shepherd, in the middle of expressing her disbelief of evolution, made it sound as if she didn't know whether or not the Earth is, um, flat:

The following day, the panelists all made nice-nice and hugged each other. "I had a brain fart," Sherri said. "I made a bad face," said Whoopi. All is forgiven, apparently.

Well….here’s the thing. The View is supposed to connect with a wide audience, mostly female, many of them wives and mothers. It’s primary reason for being is to provide an alternative to the highly-competitive, male-dominated ‘talking heads’ on the other networks who usually talk past each other with scripted positions rather than listen. So far, so good.

But facts are fact. Evolution happened, and to say otherwise is to invite questions about basic matters of fact. If you aren’t prepared to address basic matters of fact, you shouldn’t expect to get a ‘do-over’ and hugs of support from the scientific community. Her ignorance on this topic is unsurprising, but the willingness of her fellow panelists and the program’s View-ership to accept ignorance as a matter of personal belief is insulting to those of us who actually care about science education.