"The evolution wars" in Time [Time Magazine's cover story]

National Center for Science Education ^ | 11 August 2005 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

The cover story of the August 15, 2005, issue of Time magazine is Claudia Wallis's "The evolution wars" -- the first cover story on the creationism/evolution controversy in a major national newsweekly in recent memory.

With "When Bush joined the fray last week, the question grew hotter: Is 'intelligent design' a real science? And should it be taught in schools?" as its subhead, the article, in the space of over 3000 words, reviews the current situation in detail. Highlights of the article include:

• A photomontage -- available only in the print edition -- on p. 26 and half of p. 27, with the elderly Darwin at the center, orbited by images of Pepper Hamilton's Eric Rothschild (a lead litigator in Kitzmiller v. Dover) brandishing a copy of Of Pandas and People, students in a biology classroom in Kansas, President Bush, the Cobb County disclaimer, and so forth.

• A comment from Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, on President Bush's remarks on "intelligent design": "It sends a signal to other countries because they're rushing to gain scientific and technological leadership while we're getting distracted with a pseudoscience issue ... If I were China, I'd be happy."

• A map, compiled from data provided by NCSE, showing antievolution proposals considered by state legislatures and boards of education since 2001 and antievolution proposals considered by local schools or panels in 2005. As members of NCSE and regular visitors to its website will have guessed, the map is crowded.

• A pair of definitions from Kenneth Miller and Joseph Levine's Biology textbook on the one hand and Percival Davis and Dean Kenyon's Of Pandas and People on the other hand. According to the latter, "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact."

• A brief history of the development of creationist tactics from the Scopes era to the post-Edwards era, under the heading "A subtler assault," which quotes NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott as quipping, "You have to hand it to the creationists. They have evolved."

• A paragraph explaining the significance of state science standards as a new venue for creationists. NCSE's Glenn Branch told Time, "The decision-making bodies involved in approving state science standards tend to be small, not particularly knowledgeable and, above all, elected, so it's a good opportunity for political pressure to be applied."

• A recognition of the disparity between President Bush's seeming endorsement of teaching "intelligent design" and the Discovery Institute's recent distancing of itself from such proposals, with Connie Morris (a conservative Republican on the Kansas state board of education), and Senator Rick Santorum seeming "to be reading from the same script."

• A section in which scientists -- primarily the Oxford zoologist and popular expositor Richard Dawkins, as well as the Harvard mathematician and evolutionary biologist Martin Nowak -- castigate "intelligent design" as resting on misconceptions and mischaracterizations of bology.

• A pithy diagnosis of the "teach the controversy" strategy by David Thomas, the president of New Mexicans for Science and Reason: "The intelligent-design people are trying to mislead people into thinking that the reference to science as an ongoing critical inquiry permits them to teach I.D. crap in the schools."

• A sidebar asking four prominent figures -- the National Human Genome Research Institute's Francis Collins, Harvard's Steven Pinker, the Discovery Institute's Michael Behe, and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's Albert Mohler -- "Can you believe in God and evolution?"

While Wallis's article is inevitably not as scientifically detailed as, for example, H. Allen Orr's recent article in The New Yorker, or as politically astute as, for example, Chris Mooney's recent article in The American Prospect, overall it accomplishes the important goal of informing the general reader that antievolutionism -- whether it takes the form of creation science, "intelligent design," or calls to "teach the controversy" -- is scientifically unwarranted, pedagogically irresponsible, and constitutionally problematic.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Has it occurred to you that some theories might be weaker than others, or are you too slow?

[Fester Chugabrew]

. . . toilet cleaners, and squeegee men . . .

Lo and behold, there IS a future for evolutionists!

[aft_lizard]

Very poor comparison, for one thing there is imperical proof the moon landing happened, it is not a THEORY as you would presume for this argument and there fore negates the rest of your argument altogether.

That being said, physics, atomics etc are not in contention and therefore do not need to be argued or disclaimered, and there are for more proven facets of the above fields.

Try again

[b_sharp]

"Obviously, if God had intended for us to use computers, he would have had Noah proficient in fortran.

A just God would never have used Fortran, he would have used "C" or "C++"

[Gumlegs]

What on earth are you thinking?!? God uses A++!

[aft_lizard]

Geez people would think by reading you puritanical evolutionists that by allowing ID you would start a Domino effect of eradicating science altogether, or that Darwinism, neo-darwinism and its forms are the basis of all scientific fields and must be held up without scrutiny by anybody who disagrees with it, even if that somebody is 2/3 of the planet.

[OriginalIntent]

Didn't you know that all those illiterate peasants in the school boards talk about things like someone's problem with the moon landing and the circumference of the earth all the time. By golly, if you do not buy the whole heap of dung being shoveled by the top evolutionists then you must not believe we went to the moon, you must be agin cy-ince.

Didn't you know that those topics like the moon landing are so very important and are the basis used by the practical humanists to ram their religion of secular humanism down the throats of the children. (/sarcasm)

[b_sharp]

"You really don't understand? I doubt it. But do you understand your point is irrelevant to the subject at hand? Do you really think the lunar landing has been as much a subject of controversy as the philosophy of evolution?[emphasis mine]

Are you arguing that the inappropriateness of the analogy is a matter of degree rather than substance? Never heard of that one.

[betty boop]

"Direct observation" is a hallucination courtesy of your brain.

Jeepers, I'd like to see someone try to cash that check at the bank....

Thanks for the head's-up, Chester!

[b_sharp]

"This is a gross oversimplification. The two entities - evolution and atoms - are so disparate by nature as to be incomparable. One is history. The other is present tense. At the same time, neither is fully apprehendable by human observation.

The point of the analogy is the reliance on direct observation. Changing the point of the analogy so you can dismiss it isn't reallymuch of an argument. If both are indirect and if neither is fully apprehensible, then the difference between history and present tense is meaningless.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Are you arguing that the inappropriateness of the analogy is a matter of degree rather than substance?

Well, yes. Substance effects degree and vice versa. I do not count it a problem that certain propositions have more certitude than others. The adherents of evolutionism would like to enjoy a scientific certitude that simply does not exist.

Be that as it may, what makes you absolutely certain the lunar landings were not staged? Is it the number of people who have testified to their veracity?

[Fester Chugabrew]

If both are indirect and if neither is fully apprehensible, then the difference between history and present tense is meaningless.

You place less confidence in intuition and the present moment than do I. To me there is more physical certitude when dealing with the present than when dealing with the past or the future.

[b_sharp]

I'll pick this up at a later time. I have to retire tonight and I have trips scheduled for the next two days.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Okay. God bless and grant safe travels to and fro.

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOL! Thanks for the chuckle!

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed. Thanks for the ping!

[editor-surveyor]

"[T]he essential characteristics of science are:

- (1) It is guided by natural law;

- (2) It has to be explanatory by reference to nature law;

- (3) It is testable against the empirical world;

- (4) Its conclusions are tentative, i.e. are not necessarily the final word; and

- (5) Its is falsifiable."

Is it any surprise to anyone here that PH left out the most important element defining science: It must be OBJECTIVE ??

Any way, even by PH's definition, evolution fails the test. It is emotion, fear, belief, and unyielding devotion, to the point that the ends always justify the means. In other words, evolution is a religion of the same class as Islam.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

I myself believe that evolution works well within the constructs of the bible and even intelligent design.

It is really an inadvertent admission that life in an immaculate conception...

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

The adherents of evolutionism would like to enjoy a scientific certitude that simply does not exist.

A sort of ‘sanctification,’ in other words...

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for the ping!

PatrickHenry, I assert that the problem with your list is in points 1 and 2:

"[T]he essential characteristics of science are:

- (1) It is guided by natural law;

- (2) It has to be explanatory by reference to nature law;

If one views "nature" as only being "matter in all its motions" then he has swept every non-corporeal off the table.

That would include such things as information (successful communications), mathematical structures, geometries, forms, intelligence, etc. In the fields of mathematics and physics which deal with such things, some theories may be beyond direct observation or empirical testing (your point number 3) and may instead have to be supported by indirect observations and tests.