Evolution and the Empty Nest Syndrome

Michael Shermer publishes Skeptic magazine, teaches at Claremont Graduate University, and writes a regular column for Scientific American. He is an ardent defender of evolutionary theory and a well-known critic of all supernatural claims. In today’s edition of USA Today, Shermer writes about the “empty nest syndrome” — the difficulty many parents face when their offspring go off to college.

While this has always been a difficult time for parents, in recent years many parents seem to be having a more difficult time than usual. Some colleges report that parents have to be told to go home. One college reported about a mother who slept in her daughter’s dorm room for a couple of nights until the girl’s roommate complained to school authorities.

Shermer has now experienced the “empty nest syndrome” for himself, as his daughter began her college studies just over a month ago. He clearly misses his daughter. And yet, how does he explain this experience?

He writes: “Why does it hurt so bad? Science has an answer: We are social mammals who experience deep attachment to our fellow friends and family, an evolutionary throwback to our Paleolithic hunter-gatherer days of living in small bands.”

You read that right. Shermer reduces the love of a parent for a child to “an evolutionary throwback.” He adds to this a physiological theory:

We parents can’t help feeling this way, and neuroscience explains why. Addictive chemicals such as dopamine and oxytocin surge through the brain and body during positive social interactions (especially touch). This causes us to feel closer to one another. Between parents and offspring, it cements a bond so solid that it is broken only under the most unusual (and usually pathological) circumstances.

He concludes with words that can hardly be described as sentimental. “Each of us parents makes one small contribution to the evolutionary imperative of life’s continuity from one generation to the next,” he suggests.

Rarely is the sterility and bleakness of the evolutionary worldview displayed with such candor. The love of a parent for a child is reduced to an evolutionary factor that works through a physiological process of chemical interactions in the brain.

If evolution is true, it must explain everything. Michael Shermer’s article demonstrates just how unsatisfying that explanation is.

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Michael Shermer, “Making Sense of the Empty Nest Syndrome,” USA Today, Wednesday, October 13, 2010.

“And Then They Are All Mine” — The Real Agenda of Some College Professors

There is nothing quite like the start of a new academic year on a college or university campus. Streams of students and faculty return to the timeless patterns of academic life, summoned by the desire for learning and a commitment to teaching. Among the thousands of college students arriving on campuses at this time of year are freshmen, representing the most eager and excited new members of the academic community. The transition from high school to college is one of the most significant seasons of a young person’s life, and the energy and youthfulness they add to the campus is immeasurable and invaluable.

The faculty also return to their calling, and most begin the new year with a sense of satisfaction and eagerness that can almost match that of the incoming freshmen. There is exhilaration in the experience of teaching. One of the greatest privileges offered to a college or university professor is the stewardship of learning and teaching, as well as having influence over the minds and worldviews of young people at one of the most formative periods of life. Most new professors find the experience to be nearly intoxicating, and even the most seasoned professors find the experience of teaching to be both deeply satisfying and personally challenging. The power of a professor in a classroom is immense, and most teachers are deeply committed to their disciplines and their calling. The classroom and the campus are where so many lives are shaped and where minds come alive. What could possibly go wrong? A great deal, as it turns out.

Even as most professors see themselves as stewards of the teaching profession and fellow learners with their students, others see their role in very different terms — as agents of ideological indoctrination. All teaching involves ideology and intellectual commitments. There is no position of authentic objectivity. Every teacher, as well as every student, comes into the classroom with certain intellectual commitments. Some professors set as their aim the indoctrination of students into their own worldview, and many of these worldviews are both noxious and deeply troubling. A professor who acts as such an agent of indoctrination abuses the stewardship of teaching and the professorial calling, but this abuse is more widespread and dangerous than many students and their parents understand.

For Christian parents and students, this should be a matter of deep concern and active awareness. The secularization of most educational institutions is an accomplished fact. Indeed, many college and university campuses are deeply antagonistic to Christian truth claims and the beliefs held by millions of students and their families. Furthermore, the leftist bent of most faculty is well-documented, especially in elite institutions and within the liberal arts faculties. On many campuses, a significant number of faculty members are representatives of what has been called the “adversary culture.” They see their role as political and ideological, and they define their teaching role in these terms. Their agenda is nothing less than to separate students from their Christian beliefs and their intellectual and moral commitments.

A good many of these professors deny this agenda, but from time to time the mask is removed. Writing at the “University Diaries” column at the site InsideHigherEd.com, a professor of English revealed this agenda with amazing candor. Responding to an argument about the power of intellectual elites, this professor dropped any effort to hide the real agenda:

“We need to encourage everyone to be in college for as many years as they possibly can,” this professor wrote, “in the hope that somewhere along the line they might get some exposure to the world outside their town, and to moral ideas not exclusively derived from their parents’ religion. If they don’t get this in college, they’re not going to get it anywhere else.”

This professor minces no words. The college experience, the argument goes, is the best (and perhaps last) opportunity for someone to break students’ commitments to the moral convictions “derived from their parents’ religion.”

Similarly, writing in a Seattle newspaper, a teacher of English and college adviser at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois reveals this ideological agenda in even more shocking terms. Bill Savage reacts to the fact that the so-called conservative “red” states are “outbreeding” the “blue” states, which are more liberal in voting patterns. Identifying himself as a political liberal with no children of his own, Savage acknowledges that he and his fellow liberals have a lower fertility rate than conservatives. Nevertheless, he insists that educated urban liberals need not despair. He expresses confidence “that blue America’s Urban Archipelago can grow larger, more contiguous, and more politically powerful even without my offspring.” How?

“The children of red states will seek a higher education,” he explains, “and that education will very often happen in blue states or blue islands in red states. For the foreseeable future, loyal dittoheads will continue to drop off their children at the dorms. After a teary-eyed hug, Mom and Dad will drive their SUV off toward the nearest gas station, leaving their beloved progeny behind.”

Then what? He proudly claims: “And then they are all mine.”

And then they are all mine. That’s right, a significant number of professors are happy to have parents spend 18 years raising children, only to drop them off on the campus and head back home. These professors are confident that the four or so years of the college experience will be ample time to separate students from the beliefs, convictions, moral commitments, and faith of their parents.

Even after expressing these truly breathtaking agendas, these professors go on to claim that they do not seek to indoctrinate their students into their own beliefs and worldviews, but no one can believe them now.

The college experience is, of necessity, a time for the development of critical thinking. It is a season of tremendous intellectual formation that produces lasting effects. Students should learn the disciplines of critical thinking and analysis, and in this transitional period of life, they will determine whether they will hold to the beliefs and commitments of their parents.

But they should not be subjected to the ideological indoctrination and intellectual condescension that is found in far too many classrooms and on far too many campuses. If nothing else, these remarkable statements of professorial intention should awaken both students and parents to what passes for education within much of higher education. The open hostility and contempt toward Christianity and Christian convictions is truly horrifying.

And then they are mine. It is hard to imagine words more alarming than those.

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I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

“Charles Murray on Elites,” written by professor Margaret Soltan in her “University Diaries” column, InsideHigherEd.com, September 2, 2008.

Bill Savage, “Lessons Learned,” The Stranger [Seattle, Washington], June 9-15, 2005.

College: Are Parents Getting Their Money’s Worth? Are They Getting More Than They Bargained For?

College: Are Parents Getting Their Money’s Worth? Are They Getting More Than They Bargained For?
by Guest Blogger Dr. Jeff Myers

This fall, nearly two million American students will leave for college for the very first time. Their education will cost $12,000 a year for a public university and up to $50,000 for a private one. Scholarships and grants reduce the cost for most families, but still, the Wall Street Journal reports that the average student leaves college with $23,186 in debt.

Nationwide, the total cost for this transaction is somewhere between 25 and 40 billion dollars per year.

At least families are getting their money’s worth.

Or not.

A recent study confirms what many parents have long suspected: going to college can make kids forget what’s important and embrace values that are counter to what they learned growing up.

Before I share this study’s results, let me say this to parents: leftist professors don’t feel sorry for you. As far as they’re concerned, you’ve been oppressing the masses to get that money anyway, so it’s deliciously ironic that you not only turn your children over to the indoctrinators, but that you fork over 50k to 200k and for the privilege of doing so.

Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what the late Richard Rorty, one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century, said on the subject:

“… I, like most Americans who teach humanities or social science in colleges and universities … try to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic, religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own …  The fundamentalist parents of our fundamentalist students think that the entire ‘American liberal establishment’ is engaged in a conspiracy. The parents have a point … we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable. We are not so inclusivist as to tolerate intolerance such as yours … I think those students are lucky to find themselves under the benevolent Herrschaft [domination] of people like me, and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents …”* [editor's note: sorry for all the ellipses, but it's hard to summarize Rorty's windblown rhetoric].

When it comes to reshaping values, liberal universities know precisely what they’re doing. And the reality is that about four out of five students walk away from their Christian faith by the time they are in their twenties.**

The Indoctrination Plan:
What Your Child Will and Will Not Learn

What your child won’t learn at college: a sense of citizenship. In February, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute released its annual report entitled, “The Shaping of the American Mind.” ISI researchers studied students’ knowledge of basic citizenship questions, along with 39 issue-based propositions and found that college graduates are dangerously ignorant of basic civics.

For example, fewer than one in two college graduates know that the phrase “We hold these truths to be self evident…” is from the Declaration of Independence (10% actually think it is from the Communist Manifesto).

What your child will learn at college: liberal radicalism. According to ISI, college graduates are significantly MORE likely to believe in abortion on demand and same sex marriage, and significantly LESS likely to believe that the Bible is the word of God, that prayer should be allowed in schools, and that anyone can succeed in America with hard work and perseverance.

The Transformation Plan:
Being Confidently Prepared Rather than Caught Off Guard

Obviously not all colleges are destructive. There are even a handful of great ones (I would humbly suggest that the one I teach at — Bryan College — is one of the excellent few).

But most Christian parents feel hamstrung. They are concerned for their kids but also realize that, with few exceptions, young people have little chance of becoming leaders without a college degree. They want their children to prepare for positively influencing the culture, but to not have their faith shredded in the process.

There is a solution and it is available now. Please, if you have a college-bound student, listen carefully to what I’m about to tell you. This is important even if your child is going to a “safe” college (some so-called “Christian” colleges are actually better at convincing kids to walk away from their faith than some secular colleges).

A two-week Summit Ministries course is a must. This summer. Find out more here.

At Summit, students ages 16-21 gain the confidence they need to understand and defend an intelligent biblical worldview. They join a vast network of mentors whose books, writings and personal encouragement sharpen them for life-long leadership. Shoulder to shoulder they and their new-found friends stand strong together.

The 12-day experience for your son or daughter is $895 for the tuition, room, board and activities. That’s far less than most private camps because it is heavily subsidized by donors. And when you consider that the Summit protects against a destructive influence on campus, it’s a small price to pay. Considering the value of your child’s soul, it’s priceless.

Now Is Not the Time for Shortcuts

There is much at stake. Having your child read an apologetics book or go to a weekend conference is great, but it’s not the same as a two-week Summit experience, and here’s why:

1. Summit helps students “own” what they learn.
Over the course of 12 days, students are able to form questions and interact with top Christian professors, mentors, and classmates. As they become comfortable, they open up in small groups, around the meal tables and in open forums with speakers.

2. Summit prepares students to think through issues as adults.
Summit asks students to forsake adolescence and step up into mature adulthood. Over the course of 12 days students come to believe that it can actually be done.

3. Summit breaks the stranglehold of negative peer pressure.
Young adults seldom attempt to rise above what their peers think they can be. Summit students learn how to reverse this pressure and support one another in successfully thinking and living Christianly.

4. Summit helps students form relationships with expert mentors.
At Summit, students spend 12 days with experts who have the depth of experience needed to delve deeply into the complex challenges those students face. These experts are specially selected based on their ability to communicate effectively with students.

5. Summit affirms and supports parents’ roles and Christian values.
Kids are always asking, “Who else says so besides Mom and Dad?” At Summit, students are encouraged to honor their parents and be reconciled to them. This helps moms and dads strengthen their relationship before their sons and daughters leave for college, which is crucial.

Where Christian Leaders Send Their Own Children for Training

Summit is not a miracle cure. But for 47 years it’s been a trusted source for preparing students to be the kind of leaders who shape culture, rather than who are shaped by it. That’s why evangelical leaders such as James Dobson and Josh McDowell endorse it so enthusiastically — and why they sent their children to Summit before college; there simply is no substitute for the excellent training and mentoring Dr. Noebel and his staff provide.

I believe in the Summit. In fact I am planning to speak at every Summit Ministries session in the U.S. this summer in Colorado, Virginia, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

Summit enrollment is limited by space. Most sessions do fill up, but you can download an application at www.summit.org. Scholarships are available for those in financial need.

Remember: before college, Summit. Please forward this to any parent who may benefit from knowing about it.

Dr. Jeff Myers is founder and president of Passing the Baton International. Jeff speaks to tens of thousands each year on worldview and leadership issues. This article was taken by permission from Jeff’s E-Newsletter “Get Ready to Lead.” To subscribe, please visit www.passingthebaton.org. For more information on Summit Ministries, please visit www.summit.org.

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*Richard Rorty, “Universality and Truth,” in Robert B. Brandom (ed.), Rorty and His Critics (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 21-22.
**George Barna, “Twentysomethings struggle to find their place in Christian churches“; Ken Ham and Britt Beemer, Already Gone: Why Your Kids Will Quit Church and What You Can Do to Stop It (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2009), p. 24.

Where are the Young Men?

A visit to your local college or university campus is likely to reveal that a revolution has taken place. On many campuses, young women now outnumber young men, and a gender gap of momentous importance is staring us in the face.

This gender gap has been growing for some time now, as successive generations of young women have entered the world of higher education. Yet, no one seemed to see a gap of this magnitude coming — until it had already happened.

The disparity of enrollment by gender varies by institution, but it is now estimated that almost 60% of all undergraduate students enrolled in American colleges and universities are women. This represents something altogether new in human experience since the rise of the university model as the dominant learning environment for young adults.  For the first time, a generation of young women will be markedly more educated than their male generational cohort.

Is this a bad thing . . . a negative development? Yes — and profoundly so. The problem is not the larger enrollment of young women in colleges and universities. The problem is the phenomenon of missing young men, whose absence spells big trouble for the future.

The numbers point to the problem, but do not explain it. Explanations for the phenomenon of missing young men point to the fact that girls out-perform boys at every grade level in grades K-12, and are thus more ready for the college experience than the boys. Other factors include economic and cultural patterns. Among some ethnic groups, the disparity between men and women entering college is far greater than 60% to 40%. Many young men consider the educational environment to be frustrating, constricting, and overly feminized. Others have lost confidence that an undergraduate education will lead to a job with adequate income and stability. Whatever the reason, their absence makes a big difference on the college campus today — and will make an even bigger difference in the larger society in years ahead.

The New York Times offered an unusually candid portrait of this gender disparity in “The New Math on Campus,” published in its February 5, 2010 edition. Reporter Alex Williams described a radically transformed social scene on some of today’s largest and most historic state universities.

The University of North Carolina, for example:

North Carolina, with a student body that is nearly 60 percent female, is just one of many large universities that at times feel eerily like women’s colleges. Women have represented about 57 percent of enrollments at American colleges since at least 2000, according to a recent report by the American Council on Education. Researchers there cite several reasons: women tend to have higher grades; men tend to drop out in disproportionate numbers; and female enrollment skews higher among older students, low-income students, and black and Hispanic students.

Williams described a campus filled with young women who socialize with each other out of necessity — there are just not enough young men on campus. As Williams notes, this makes some college campuses resemble retirement communities, where women also generally outnumber men.

On the secular university campus, the gender imbalance has forced adjustments in the “hooking up” culture of sexual negotiation.  As Williams reports:

“If a guy is not getting what he wants, he can quickly and abruptly go to the next one, because there are so many of us,” said Katie Deray, a senior at the University of Georgia, who said that it is common to see six provocatively clad women hovering around one or two guys at a party or a bar.

This is a portrait of demographic disaster, and the imbalance is not limited to secular campuses or students. Even as women now outnumber men in baccalaureate programs, they also indicate a desire to marry a man with equal or greater educational attainments. As the numbers now make clear, many of these young women will be disappointed.

Christian parents and all concerned with the coming generation should look closely at this phenomenon and ask the hard question — why is it that so many young men are falling behind in educational attainment? What are we doing that allows or encourages boys to exit formal education at their earliest opportunity? Why do we accept at face value the fact that boys fall behind girls of the same age in maturity and educational level? Why is college now an aspiration for far more young women than young men?

These are hard questions, but the answers will be even harder. We have allowed the development of an elongated boyhood and delayed adulthood. We frustrate them in school and then wonder why they bolt at the first exit from the classroom. We allow boys and young men to forfeit their futures.

All this might be different if the missing young men on our college and university campuses were missing for some good reason — such as military service or similar deployment. But, even as young men are more likely to join the military, the numbers do not explain the differential on campus.

Biblical manhood requires that a young man grow up, assume adult responsibilities, and prepare for leadership and service in the home, in the church, and in the larger society.

This much is clear — if this trend is not reversed, the college campus will not be the only place these young men are found missing.

The Life and Times of a Tenured Christian Professor at a Secular University

Podcast: Download (8.7MB)

Guest: Dr. Mike Adams, professor, University of North Carolina at Wilmington

TRANSCRIPT

Higher education in America today almost exclusively adheres to a radically humanistic worldview. The “tenured radicals” who teach your sons and daughters in college want nothing more than to undermine the Christian faith you’ve taught them.

In Hour 1 of The Christian Worldview this weekend, we’re going to get an inside perspective from a tenured professor at a major university, Read more

College Can Be a Faith Killer: How to Overcome It

Podcast: Download (8.7MB)

LISTEN NOW:

Guest: Alex McFarland, President, Southern Evangelical Seminary

As many as 50% or more of students who say they are born again Christians as they enter college will say they no longer consider themselves born again Christians as they leave college.

Truly, students aren’t going off to Universities of Instruction every fall but rather Universities of Destruction.

Why do so many “lose their faith” at both secular AND Christian colleges?  What are the major obstacles students face?  Are Christian colleges always a better choice than secular colleges?  What makes the difference between thriving spiritually and becoming spiritually shipwrecked?  What should parents be doing to prepare their sons and daughters?

We’ll answer all these questions and more this weekend Read more