Seattle think tank raises questions about evolution

Charlotte Observer & The Seattle Times ^ | 04/05/2005 | LINDA SHAW

[bedolido]

SEATTLE - (KRT) - Three years ago, the Ohio Board of Education invited a small but influential Seattle think tank to debate the way evolution is taught in Ohio schools.

It was an opportunity for the Discovery Institute to promote its notion of intelligent design, the controversial idea that parts of life are so complex they must have been designed by some intelligent agent.

Instead, leaders of the institute's Center for Science and Culture decided on what they consider a compromise. Forget intelligent design, they argued, with its theological implications. Just require teachers to discuss evidence that refutes Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, as well as what supports it.

They called it "teach the controversy," and that's become the institute's rallying cry as a leader in the latest efforts to raise doubts about Darwin in school. Evolution controversies are brewing in eight school districts, half a dozen state legislatures and three state boards of education, including the one in Kansas, which wrestled with the issue in 1999 as well.

"Why fight when you can have a fun discussion?" asks Stephen Meyer, the center's director. The teach-the-controversy approach, he said, avoids "unnecessary constitutional fights" over the separation of church and state, yet also avoids teaching Darwin's theories as dogma.

But what the center calls a compromise, most scientists call a creationist agenda that's couched in the language of science.

There is no significant controversy to teach, they say.

"You're lying to students if you tell them that scientists are debating whether evolution took place," said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit group that defends teaching of evolution in school.

The Discovery Institute, she said, is leading a public-relations campaign, not a scientific endeavor.

The Discovery Institute is one of the leading organizations working nationally to change how evolution is taught. It works as an adviser, resource and sometimes a critic with those who have similar views.

"There are a hundred ways to get this wrong," said Meyer. "And only a few to get them right."

Ohio got it right, he said, when its state Board of Education voted in 2002 to require students to learn that scientists "continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory."

Scott said it was a small victory at most for intelligent-design supporters, but Meyer considers it a significant one - a model other states should follow. Minnesota has adopted similar language.

The School Board in Dover, Pa., however, got it wrong, Meyer said, when it required instruction in intelligent design. (The matter is now in court.) Intelligent design isn't established enough yet for that, Meyer said.

He also criticizes the Georgia school board that put stickers on biology textbooks with a surgeon-general-like warning that evolution is "a theory not a fact." The stickers were a "dumb idea," he said bluntly. (A Georgia court ruled they were illegal, and the case is under appeal.)

In Wisconsin, the institute hopes it helped the school board in the small town of Grantsburg switch to a teach-the-controversy approach.

In each place, the institute says it responded to requests for help, although it's working to become more proactive, too. Some critics suspect the ties are even closer.

The Center for Science and Culture opened in 1996 as a part of the already-established Discovery Institute, which also studies more earthbound topics such as transportation, economics, technology and bioethics.

Founder Bruce Chapman - who has worked as an official in the Reagan administration, head of the U.S. Census Bureau and Washington's secretary of state - became interested in intelligent design after reading a piece Meyer wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

Meyer, then a philosophy professor at Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash., was defending a California professor in trouble for talking about intelligent design in biology class. To Chapman, it was an issue of academic freedom.

He invited Meyer to come speak at the institute. The more they talked, the more Chapman and others at the institute became interested in offering a home to Meyer and others interested in intelligent design.

Intelligent design appealed to their view that life isn't really as unplanned or unguided as Darwin's theories can make it seem.

"It interested me because it seemed so different than the reductionist science that came out of the 19th century ... that everything could be reduced to chemistry," said John West, a political scientist and center associate director.

The private institute has an annual budget of about $3.2 million, and plans to spend about $1.3 million on the intelligent-design work, Chapman said, mostly to support the work of about three dozen fellows.

The Fieldstead Charitable Trust, run by Christian conservative Henry Ahmanson and his wife, is one of the largest donors to that effort. Chapman declines to name more.

Meyer, the center's director, is a tall, friendly man who has undergraduate degrees in geology and physics and a Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from Cambridge, where he wrote his doctorate on the origins of life.

He says he's no creationist. He doesn't, for example, believe in a literal reading of the Bible, which would mean the Earth is about 6,000 years old.

He doesn't dispute that natural selection played a role in evolution; he just doesn't think it explains everything.

He often points to the Cambrian Period, a time more than 500 million years ago when most of the major groups of animals first appear in the fossil record. Meyer and other Discovery Institute fellows say those groups show up too fast, geologically speaking, to have come about through natural selection. That's one of what they see as controversies they want taught in school.

Scientists, however, say the Cambrian Period may not be completely understood, but that doesn't mean the theory of evolution is in trouble.

"They harp and harp on natural selection, as if natural selection is the only thing that evolutionary biologists deal with," said Scott. "Who knows whether natural selection explains the Cambrian body plans. ... So what?"

Scientists consider Meyer a creationist because he maintains some unnamed intelligence - and Meyer said he personally thinks it is God - has an active hand in creating some complex parts of life.

"I don't know what else to call it other than creationism," said Michael Zimmerman, a critic and dean at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.

Meyer, however, said he's a scientist who starts with scientific evidence, not the Bible. His goal - a big one - is to change the very definition of science so that it doesn't rule out the possibility that an intelligent designer is actively at work.

"Science should be open to whatever cause ... can best explain the data," Meyer said.

That would be a major change for science, which limits itself to the natural world. Scott said it would be a "science stopper."

"Once you allow yourself to say God did it, you stop looking for naturalistic explanations. If you stop looking, you won't find them," she said.

Scott said science isn't an atheistic worldview. In science, she said, "It is equally inappropriate to say God did it, or God had nothing to do with it."

The institute's call to "teach the controversy" meets strong resistance.

"There's no controversy about whether living things have common ancestors," Scott said. "There's no controversy about whether natural selection is very important in creating the variety of organisms we have today."

While the institute touts its list of 370 scientists who have signed a statement saying they have some doubts about Darwin's theory of natural selection, Scott's organization, in a parody of that effort, has a list of 500 names limited to scientists named Steve or Stephanie, in honor of the late Stephen Jay Gould, a well-known biologist who once wrote that evolution is "one of the best documented, most compelling and exciting concepts in all of science."

Public opinion is mixed. Many Christian denominations, including Catholics, see no contradiction between evolution and their faith, but a Gallup Poll last November found that only about a third of the respondents think Darwin's theory of evolution is well supported by scientific evidence.

Meyer hopes the Kansas Board of Education will invite the center to speak at its hearings in May. Speakers will be asked to address the issue the center wants to highlight: whether Kansas' science curriculum helps students understand debate over controversial topics such as evolution.

Kansas Citizens for Science, however, has urged a boycott of the hearings, saying the proposals have been "rejected by the science community at large."

[BeAllYouCanBe]

>>If Adolf Hitler said to you, "Two plus two equals four.",<<

I think that the "Master Race "THEORY"," was somewhat based on Darwinian - survival the fittest logic - Arians being the fittest in Darwinian terms.

So people can take science and distort the "facts" and use science for other purposes or evil ventures.

[dartuser]

Good argument ... except evolutionists do exactly the same thing yet are not criticized for it. Recall the net theory of how birds first took to powered flight. They were better than their ancestors because they could use their wings to catch more bugs. And by flapping to catch the bugs they eventually took off and flew.

Now what empirical evidence was there for this theory of flight? There was none, nor could there be. But enough "scientists" agreed that was a reasonable explanation and that was the prevailing thought until an aerospace engineer disproved it. The final words of the scientist who invented the theory was ... "the theory served its purpose."

It seems that modern evolutionists are not really all that interested in the truth of whether something did or did not happen ... but rather eliminating God as having anything to do with it.

[Quark2005]

The supposition of intervention of a higher power in the workings of nature is indeed a legitimate discussion topic, but one that belongs in the field of philosophy, not natural sciences. Biology, physics, etc. are called NATURAL sciences for a good reason - the assumption of naturalism is required in science to produce any predictable or applicable results.
Intelligent design is not just bad science, it is not science at all. Science deals with predictability and strict consequence; to say we have reduced God (aka the "Designer") to a predictable scientific entity is not only an overextension of science but an insult to religion as well, in my humble opinion.
There is already an appropriate procedure for the introduction of new scientific theories via the peer review process, and despite the "conspiracy" claims of some, traditional theories undergo challenges & adjustments in this forum all the time, within the important constraints of observed results. The problems arise when people try to sidestep the legitimate process through bad websites, inaccurate books and political pandering (this is what universally irks scientists).

[concerned about politics]

Some people just blindly hate anything righteous or God oriented. When they're fearing the demise of their own beliefs, there's no getting through to them.

[RobbyS]

Like most of us, they hate to explain their premises and try to lay them on some foundation other than the authority of others. But evoltuonism, which is not quite the same thing as the idea of evolution, rests upon the notion that matter is somehow self-organizing, more or less in the way that our individual minds organize our nature over time. So they replace the idea of God with a "force."

[RobRoy]

A sharp rock isn't science either. You can still cut yourself with it.

ID could be science. How do you know it is not verifiable unless you scientifically analyze it?

[r9etb]

So, suppose Pixies designed all life. Please define an experiment to support or disprove the Pixie theory. Kinda hard, huh?

Stupid premise -- there's no need to posit "all" -- and thus a stupid challenge.

More reasonable: Suppose the development of life was influenced by intelligent agents. Please define an experiment to prove or disprove the intelligent agent theory.

Experiment 1: Assess the feasibility of the premise by demonstrating the ability to manipulate biological development to achieve specific goals. Status: Done and commonly practiced in real life. Conclusion: It is not reasonable to a priori rule out intelligent agents as a possible cause for at least some biological phenomena.

Experiment 2: Demonstrate that intelligent agents were directly responsible for some observed biological phenomenon that is not a priori known to have resulted from human activity. Status: inconclusive.

The problem with the latter is that, although it follows naturally from the success of the first experiment, some people automatically deride such questions as "non-science." This suggests that a devotion to "good science" may not be the primary reason for their dismissal.

However, the current state of the debate is that even serious proposals cannot make inroads into "real" scientific circles. Again: we need only to buy stock in the local biotech firm to know that a theory of "intelligent agents" is feasible -- so why is the topic kept out of the general debate? In my opinion, it's because the objections are fundamentally based on something other than science -- and that "the mantle of science" in this debate is often used in precisely the same way that other folks use the Bible.

This isn't to say that folks like the Discovery Institute should get a free pass -- they definitely shouldn't. There are a lot of quacks who've latched onto the ID train. The usual rules should apply: if a scientist is going to do an experiment, or propose a theory, related to intelligent agents, he has a responsibility to do it according to common scientific principles. Most importantly, the scientists would need to provide some means to discriminate between "designed" and "non-designed."

We could turn the question around, though -- suppose we have a biological phenomenon (say, dog breeds or certain varieties of wheat) that we know to have resulted from human influence. Could you define an experiment to provide a naturalistic explanation (i.e., one that did not include intelligent agents)? Sure. Would it be right? No. So did you do good science?

[r9etb]

Like that some wolves evolved into dogs. That's proven.

Actually, that particular example happens to strengthen the argument for intelligent design, as the "evolution" from wolf to dog has been guided by human breeders.

[LauraleeBraswell]

"" Here's part you don't grasp about homeshcooling: this is MY school and it will reflect my beliefs.""


I'm sorry but that was a very good line and I just had to repeat it! I'm all for vouchers too.

[Ichneumon]

But neither can we "observe" macro-evolution.

False.

Evolutionary scientists claim to see a link between species yet the fossil record doesn't show these "trans-species"

Very false.

and paleontologist/archeologists base much of their dating on geological strata age assumptions

False again.

but ignore anything that crosses multiple stata.

Again false.

These are HUGE holes in this theory

Such as?

yet because they are adament about not allowing for a "higher power" being involved, they have to ignore them.

Yet again incorrect.

True science doesn't ignore contradictory evidence, it tries to study it and formulate new assumptions.

Correct.

Darwinists gave up on science long ago.

Slanderous lie.

What if I say I DO know that God created humans? I have an historical document that says so (as do all the major religions) and current science that CANNOT disprove it.

How is it preferrable to say "we have no clue what really happened to start everything but if we ignore all the holes in our scientific processes, we can produce a theory that may explain some of this"?

It's not, because that's a grossly inaccurate statement of the scientific position.

Are you teaching your kids these falsehoods?

[concerned about politics]

By-the-way, we have been using the Abeka system exclusively this year. My sister-in-law selects her texts from multiple curriculums. There are any number of ways to do this and being new at it, I need input. Any suggestions for this "newbie" homeschooling dad?

The first thing you want to do is teach the kids to read and comprehend. It's of the utmost importance!!!! If they can understand what they read, they can eventually teach themselves anything just by reading a book.
My kids are now teaching themselves. The only time they come to me is when they can't figure something out alone. This is important when teaching multiple grades, and it teaches the kids good work ethics without saying a word.
They're also very proud of them selves when they kick the public school kids butts on their SAT's! They did it all by themselves!

As far as curriculum, we started with Alpha-Omega, but now we're just using a mixture of books and the net. We just bought a book on every subject from start to finish. The kids go as far as they need to. All ages can use the same books.

[LauraleeBraswell]

There is no way evolution could work without intelligent design.

No one can argue the existence of a higher power. It's proven.

[LauraleeBraswell]

Ask a pure Darwinian Atheist "what came before this, and what came before that, and this and that."


At one point, something came from nothing. And no one knows how.

[DesertSapper]

This will take a while I see . . .

"Domestic dogs are not members of C. lupus."

First, check wikipedia and do a search for both "dog" and "wolf". On the "wolf" page, let your eyes wander down to the right and notice the entry beside "Species:". Now let's read out loud together . . . "C. Lupus". Now, let's complete the lesson by doing the same on the "dog" page . . . Species: . . . what? . . . can it be? C. Lupus.. I'll bet that stands for Canis lupus - just like wolves.

I'll address your other points at my leisure but you do everyone a disservice by making trite "Strike one" comments and then proceed tell me a lie.

[Ichneumon]

I think that the "Master Race "THEORY"," was somewhat based on Darwinian - survival the fittest logic - Arians being the fittest in Darwinian terms.

Actually, as shown in his own notes, Hitler based it specifically on the Bible.

Hitler's own handwritten notes, drawing an outline of his philosophy:

Hitler divided his study into five sections:

1. The Bible
2. The Aryan
3. His Works
4. The Jew
5. His Work

Under the first section, "The Bible -- Monumental History of Mankind", he lists these topics (among others): "2 human types-- Workers and drones-- Builders and destroyers", "Race Law", "First people's history (based on) the race law-- Eternal course of History".

Hitler was actually basing his racial view of mankind on *Biblical* foundations.

"I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

So people can take science and distort the "facts" and use science for other purposes or evil ventures.

Ditto for the Bible. Your point?

[Quark2005]

Interesting cartoon. Cosmology and Norse mythology may sound equally fanciful to you; the distinction between the two "stories" that this cartoon fails to make is that the statements in the left column are supported by a great wealth of evidence and the statements on the right are supported by by no evidence at all. The writer of this silly comic should take some time to learn about the Hubble constant, cosmic microwave background scans, general relativity, stellar evolution, etc. before taking wild stabs at a well-established set of theories.

[LauraleeBraswell]

There are many different versions of Evolution, remember that. And evolution does not and frankly cannot rule out the existance of God. It just doesn't. Evolution is a fact and so is God. Why do we continue to put these two principles at odds is beyond me.

[RadioAstronomer]

Would they be science then? And would any science that a priori excluded them be good science?

Since there is no testable method for proving or disproving ID, it cannot be science. No difference than if I posit elves had a hand in the diversity of the species. That too is not disprovable, however, it certainly is not science.

[RadioAstronomer]

Why does it sound bad to you? Is it a God thing?

God is a faith thing, not a science thing.

[LauraleeBraswell]

Hitlers proclaiming of Christianity was for political reasons.