Rebecca Zacks on Evolutionary training.

Rebecca Zacks, October 1997 Scientific American

These days even the pope will tell you that Biological evolution is more than a hypothesis, but nearly half of American still beg to differ. Poll after poll shows a country almost equally
divided between  those who accept and those who reject the theory that all the earth's flora and fauna descend from a common ancestor( in contrast, the scientific community has no doubts). ...Harvard university researcher Brian J. Alters has  long sought to understand  why so many  students complete  high school without coming to comprehend and accept one of biology's central tenets. Alters is particularly interested in pinpointing any non-religious rationales. These, he argues, could appropriately be addressed in a public school setting....

Having identified these [difficulties] and other erroneous beliefs, alters says, the next step is to develop a curriculum that addresses them head-on. Although the purpose of public school education is not to change people's religious beliefs, he notes, students preconceptions about genetics, radiometric dating and statistical probability are certainly fair game.

Philip M. Sadler, the director of  science education at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for astrophysics, has reviewed Alters data and agrees that the type of curriculum that Alters envisions is crucial to the teaching of evolution  and to science in general. Sadler concludes that for children A the process  of learning science is a process of abandoning their own previous views. Until misconceptions are countered with specific evidence, the ideas simply will not change, Sadler says...educators could help students understanding of darwinism evolve as well.