The Crafty Attacks on Evolution

The New York Slimes ^ | 23 January 2005 | EDITORIAL

[rdb3]

January 23, 2005

EDITORIAL

The Crafty Attacks on Evolution

ritics of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution become more wily with each passing year. Creationists who believe that God made the world and everything in it pretty much as described in the Bible were frustrated when their efforts to ban the teaching of evolution in the public schools or inject the teaching of creationism were judged unconstitutional by the courts. But over the past decade or more a new generation of critics has emerged with a softer, more roundabout approach that they hope can pass constitutional muster.

One line of attack - on display in Cobb County, Ga., in recent weeks - is to discredit evolution as little more than a theory that is open to question. Another strategy - now playing out in Dover, Pa. - is to make students aware of an alternative theory called "intelligent design," which infers the existence of an intelligent agent without any specific reference to God. These new approaches may seem harmless to a casual observer, but they still constitute an improper effort by religious advocates to impose their own slant on the teaching of evolution.•

The Cobb County fight centers on a sticker that the board inserted into a new biology textbook to placate opponents of evolution. The school board, to its credit, was trying to strengthen the teaching of evolution after years in which it banned study of human origins in the elementary and middle schools and sidelined the topic as an elective in high school, in apparent violation of state curriculum standards. When the new course of study raised hackles among parents and citizens (more than 2,300 signed a petition), the board sought to quiet the controversy by placing a three-sentence sticker in the textbooks:

"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."

Although the board clearly thought this was a reasonable compromise, and many readers might think it unexceptional, it is actually an insidious effort to undermine the science curriculum. The first sentence sounds like a warning to parents that the film they are about to watch with their children contains pornography. Evolution is so awful that the reader must be warned that it is discussed inside the textbook. The second sentence makes it sound as though evolution is little more than a hunch, the popular understanding of the word "theory," whereas theories in science are carefully constructed frameworks for understanding a vast array of facts. The National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific organization, has declared evolution "one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have" and says it is supported by an overwhelming scientific consensus.

The third sentence, urging that evolution be studied carefully and critically, seems like a fine idea. The only problem is, it singles out evolution as the only subject so shaky it needs critical judgment. Every subject in the curriculum should be studied carefully and critically. Indeed, the interpretations taught in history, economics, sociology, political science, literature and other fields of study are far less grounded in fact and professional consensus than is evolutionary biology.

A more honest sticker would describe evolution as the dominant theory in the field and an extremely fruitful scientific tool. The sad fact is, the school board, in its zeal to be accommodating, swallowed the language of the anti-evolution crowd. Although the sticker makes no mention of religion and the school board as a whole was not trying to advance religion, a federal judge in Georgia ruled that the sticker amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of religion because it was rooted in long-running religious challenges to evolution. In particular, the sticker's assertion that "evolution is a theory, not a fact" adopted the latest tactical language used by anti-evolutionists to dilute Darwinism, thereby putting the school board on the side of religious critics of evolution. That court decision is being appealed. Supporters of sound science education can only hope that the courts, and school districts, find a way to repel this latest assault on the most well-grounded theory in modern biology.•

In the Pennsylvania case, the school board went further and became the first in the nation to require, albeit somewhat circuitously, that attention be paid in school to "intelligent design." This is the notion that some things in nature, such as the workings of the cell and intricate organs like the eye, are so complex that they could not have developed gradually through the force of Darwinian natural selection acting on genetic variations. Instead, it is argued, they must have been designed by some sort of higher intelligence. Leading expositors of intelligent design accept that the theory of evolution can explain what they consider small changes in a species over time, but they infer a designer's hand at work in what they consider big evolutionary jumps.

The Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania became the first in the country to place intelligent design before its students, albeit mostly one step removed from the classroom. Last week school administrators read a brief statement to ninth-grade biology classes (the teachers refused to do it) asserting that evolution was a theory, not a fact, that it had gaps for which there was no evidence, that intelligent design was a differing explanation of the origin of life, and that a book on intelligent design was available for interested students, who were, of course, encouraged to keep an open mind. That policy, which is being challenged in the courts, suffers from some of the same defects found in the Georgia sticker. It denigrates evolution as a theory, not a fact, and adds weight to that message by having administrators deliver it aloud. •

Districts around the country are pondering whether to inject intelligent design into science classes, and the constitutional problems are underscored by practical issues. There is little enough time to discuss mainstream evolution in most schools; the Dover students get two 90-minute classes devoted to the subject. Before installing intelligent design in the already jam-packed science curriculum, school boards and citizens need to be aware that it is not a recognized field of science. There is no body of research to support its claims nor even a real plan to conduct such research. In 2002, more than a decade after the movement began, a pioneer of intelligent design lamented that the movement had many sympathizers but few research workers, no biology texts and no sustained curriculum to offer educators. Another leading expositor told a Christian magazine last year that the field had no theory of biological design to guide research, just "a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions." If evolution is derided as "only a theory," intelligent design needs to be recognized as "not even a theory" or "not yet a theory." It should not be taught or even described as a scientific alternative to one of the crowning theories of modern science.

That said, in districts where evolution is a burning issue, there ought to be some place in school where the religious and cultural criticisms of evolution can be discussed, perhaps in a comparative religion class or a history or current events course. But school boards need to recognize that neither creationism nor intelligent design is an alternative to Darwinism as a scientific explanation of the evolution of life.

[gobucks]

Shades of mediocrity ... they all sound alike...

[Junior]

Shades of mediocrity ...

Thank you. Now I have Simon and Garfunkle going through my head.

[Dimensio]

Sorry to hear. I am pleased to report that all that I hear in my head is the Sound of Silence.

[narby]

The point is, an evolutionist has no rational or logical basis for morality.

You have it so stuck in your head that Evolution is some kind of satanic plot, and no one who believes in Evolution could possibly be a good Christian, that you're just way out to lunch.

If the conservative base gets itself wound up in this anti-evolutionism, then I hope you're happy when Bush is forced to nominate a squishy moderate or full blown lefty to the court, just because you have wasted our political capital on this useless issue.

And I doubt you will ever understand how much damage you will do to faithful people who will reject their religion because they will refuse to disbelieve the evidence of Evolution they know exists.

All this, because you're convinced that God is too impotent to have thought up and created Evolution.

[Modernman]

The point is, an evolutionist has no rational or logical basis for morality.

Well at least you got something right. The theory of evolution is, like any other scientific theory, completely amoral.

Tell me, what kind of moral teachings do you take away from the theory of gravity?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[WildTurkey]

What a crock. There are plenty of scientists who have produced works supporting creationism. Here's one of my favorites:

Interesting. Your author supports evolution.

[WildTurkey]

There are far more non-scientists that are homosexual than scientists.

We could probably say the same about the Church based on recent happenings ...

[Dimensio]

Perhaps she wasn't speaking on the impossibility of one, but rather on the possibility of another.

[WildTurkey]

The last thread is almost stopped at 681 posts. The thread that was repeatedly referenced in that thread stopped at 685 posts. I think there is a plot by someone (name withheld to protect the guilty) to get to make the 666 post!

[AndrewC]

That was illogic trumping data.

That makes data a marshmallow to good logic.

[longshadow]

"Festival of Satanic Plots" placemarker

[AndrewC]

It is not false at all. A human skeleton found beside a dinosaur would be a serious problem for evolution

"Serious problem" does not look like falsify to me nor even you, as you have just argued that .... Just because a problem arises in genetics that we don't understand just means that... well, we don't understand it yet! It happens in every theory, not just evolution. and I said that the explanation would be .... The faithful would cry out, that it is just an anomaly. Look at all the other evidence. Just ignore the skeleton as something curious and unexplainable for the moment.. You still haven't shown how my statement can be twisted into the pretzel you have tried to invent. ---According to your logic, sicne the theory of flight didn't warn them about it before hand, planes can't fly?

Life goes on without 'vital' DNA

• 16:30 03 June 2004
• Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
• Sylvia Pagán Westphal, Boston

It is not often that the audience at a scientific meeting gasps in amazement during a talk. But that is what happened recently when researchers revealed that they had deleted huge chunks of the genome of mice without it making any discernable difference to the animals.

The result is totally unexpected because the deleted sequences included so-called "conserved regions" thought to have important functions.

All DNA tends to acquire random mutations, but if these occur in a region that has an important function, individuals will not survive. Key sequences should thus remain virtually unchanged, even between species. So by comparing the genomes of different species and looking for regions that are conserved, geneticists hope to pick out those that have an important function.

It was assumed that most conserved sequences would consist of genes coding for proteins. But an unexpected finding when the human and mouse genomes were compared was that there are actually more conserved sequences within the deserts of junk DNA, which does not code for proteins.

[AndrewC]

I'm curious. Is there a nice curve published somewhere of preserved sequence lengths?

We've gone over this before. Look at Blast and use the numbers it gives you to your hearts content.

[bondserv]

I have been studying Genesis in the Hebrew for many years.

It does not mean what the creationists say it means.

For instance the word translated day, clearly is an indefinite period of time, as Gen 2:4 confirms. Since the Sun was not created until the fourth day, it is absurd to think the first 3 days were of a fixed 24 hr period.

I always wondered why good created all of the plants on the day before He placed the sun. It all makes sense now. It was to make so-called Hebrew Scholars look goofy for saying the Hebrew YOM means billions of indeterminate years.

Gen 1:11-13
11 God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, [and] the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed [is] in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, [and] herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed [was] in itself, after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Sounds like a day of terraforming for the Lord to me. He is awesome eh?

P.S. God makes a one for one connection for the days of our week with the days in the creation week.

Exd 20:8-11
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day [is] the sabbath of the LORD thy God: [in it] thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that [is] within thy gates:
11 For [in] six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them [is], and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

[bondserv]

good=>God

[furball4paws]

... an evolutionist has no rational or logical basis for morality.
This may be one of the crazier objections to evolution. (But then, are there any sane ones?)"

I think you slipped over this one. I believe the implication is that evolutionists are atheists and therefore cannot be moral. Of course, most evolutionists are not atheists and an atheist can certainly be moral. So, more gibberish from the lunatic center of fundamentalist conservatism. Can't call them a fringe - there seems to be a lot of them. New ones on every crevo thread.

[DennisR]

"ID has no place in science class. Those of you that advocate its value are hurting science education and turning intelligent people away from Christ."

Huh?

"ID is a money making con by people who prey on the scientifically ignorant."

Huh?

[narby]

"ID has no place in science class. Those of you that advocate its value are hurting science education and turning intelligent people away from Christ."

Huh?

Because people who have been educated about how Evolution works, and have seen the proof, will be pressed by their religious leaders to acknowledge a non-scientific 6 day creation. I'm convinced that many of them will instead reject their faith, and that is a tragedy.

This is completly unnessary, as a reasonable interpretation of Genesis would allow for Evolution to fit. ID will damage the countries faith. I speak from experience, as I've been labeled by the hard core anti-evolutionists around here as an evil athiest and co-conspirator with Michael Newdow. I am virtually forced to argue as if I'm "against" the Bible, when that is not true in any way.

"ID is a money making con by people who prey on the scientifically ignorant."

Huh?

The Discovery Institute that invented the promotional gimik called Intellegent Design, was founded by some folks who are obviously more concerned with their own career than with truth. They have managed to convince a great number of the scientifically ignorant (which is the vast majority) that ID is "science" and Evolution is being rejected by scientific researchers. That is a complete falsehood. There's not even any real controversy about Evolution within the groups that actually do the science. The Discovery Institute has promoted this illegitimate "news", knowing that it is false.

The Discovery Institute is a con. It operates quite a bit like the lefty non profits, like PETA, where they find an emotional issue and make a profession out of stiring people up. The PETA people stir people up over fur, and the Discovery Institute stirs people up over Evolution. It's two sides of the same con job.