Anti-scientific attitudes can impose substantial costs on societies. Can schools be an important agent in mitigating the propagation of such attitudes? This paper investigates the effect of the content of science education on anti-scientific attitudes, knowledge, and choices. The analysis exploits staggered reforms that reduce or expand the coverage of evolution theory in US state science education standards. I compare adjacent student cohorts in models with state and cohort fixed effects. There are three main results. First, expanded evolution coverage increases students’ knowledge about evolution. Second, the reforms translate into greater evolution belief in adulthood, but do not crowd out religiosity or affect political attitudes. Third, the reforms affect high-stakes life decisions, namely the probability of working in life sciences.

中文翻译：

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课堂上的进化论与神创论：科学教育的持久影响


反科学态度会给社会带来巨大成本。学校能否成为减少这种态度蔓延的重要推动者？本文研究了科学教育内容对反科学态度、知识和选择的影响。该分析利用了减少或扩大美国国家科学教育标准中进化论覆盖范围的交错改革。我将模型中的相邻学生群体与状态和群体固定效应进行比较。主要结果有三个。首先，扩大进化论的覆盖面增加了学生对进化论的了解。其次，改革转化为成年后更大的进化论信仰，但不会排除宗教信仰或影响政治态度。第三，改革影响高风险的人生决策，即从事生命科学工作的可能性。