Intelligent Design and Evolution at the White House

On August 1, 2005, a group of reporters from Texas met with President Bush in the Roosevelt room for a roundtable interview. The President’s remarks suggest that he believes that both intelligent design and evolution should be taught so that “people are exposed to different schools of thought.” There have been so many articles since his remarks that it’s useful to read the relevant portion of published interview:

Dr. John Marburger III, Presidential Science Advisor, tried to dispel the impact of the President’s comments. On Aug. 2, The New York Times quoted a telephone interview with Marburger in which he said, “evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology” and “intelligent design is not a scientific concept.” Certainly, no one doubts where Marburger stands. One might question whether the President takes Marbuger’s scientific advice seriously, or is simply more concerned about pleasing a portion of the electorate.

Marburger also spoke with Dr. Marvin Cohen, President of the American Physical Society, and recipient of the National Medal of Science from President Bush in 2002. In an Aug. 4 release, Cohen explains that the APS is “…happy that the President’s recent comments on the theory of intelligent design have been clarified. As Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger has explained, President Bush does not regard intelligent design as science. If such things are to be taught in the public schools, they belong in a course on comparative religion, which is a particularly appropriate subject for our children given the present state of the world.” It would be better to hear this directly from the President. Likely, the intelligent design advocates will ignore Marburger’s explanation. Like the fabled little Dutch boy, Marburger, stuck his finger in the dike in hopes of saving the day.

Unlike the brave boy, Marburger did not prevent the flood of print and electronic coverage that ensued. From August 2 to the present, Google-News tracked more than 1,800 articles, commentaries, and letters to the editor on intelligent design. That’s about 120 per day since the President’s remarks.

In the days following the interview, major educational and scientific organizations issued statements that criticized the President for considering intelligent design as a viable alternative to evolution, for confusing religion with science, and for advocating that intelligent design be taught in schools.

“President Bush, in advocating that the concept of ‘intelligent design’ be taught alongside the theory of evolution, puts America’s schoolchildren at risk,” says Fred Spilhaus, Executive Director of the American Geophysical Union. “Americans will need basic understanding of science in order to participate effectively in the 21 st century world. It is essential that students on every level learn what science is and how scientific knowledge progresses.” (AGU, Aug. 2, 2005) AGU is a scientific society comprising 43,000 Earth and space scientists.

Likewise, the American Institute of Biological Sciences criticized the President: “Intelligent design is not a scientific theory and must not be taught in science classes,” said AIBS president Dr. Marvalee Wake. “If we want our students to be able to compete in the global economy, if we want to attract the next generation into the sciences, we must make sure that we are teaching them science. We simply cannot begin to introduce non-scientific concepts into the science curriculum.” (AIBS, Aug. 5, 2005) The American Institute of Biological Sciences was established as a national umbrella organization for the biological sciences in 1947 by 11 scientific societies as part of the National Academy of Sciences. An independent non-profit organization since 1954, it has grown to represent more than 80 professional societies and organizations with a combined membership exceeding 240,000 scientists and educators. (AIBS website)

Science educators are equally dismayed. “The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the world’s largest organization of science educators, is stunned and disappointed that President Bush is endorsing the teaching of intelligent design – effectively opening the door for nonscientific ideas to be taught in the nation’s K-12 science classrooms. We stand with the nation’s leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president’s top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science. Intelligent design has no place in the science classroom, said Gerry Wheeler, NSTA Executive Director.” (NSTA, Aug. 3, 2005) NSTA has 55,000 members who teach science in elementary, middle and high schools as well as college and universities.

The American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.3 million pre-K through 12 th grade teachers, was even harsher. “President Bush’s misinformed comments on ‘intelligent design’ signal a huge step backward for science education in the United States. The president’s endorsement of such a discredited, nonscientific view is akin to suggesting that students be taught the ‘alternative theory’ that the earth is flat or that the sun revolves around the earth. Intelligent design does not belong in the science classroom because it is not science.” (AFT, Aug. 4, 2005)

There is a problem here. Obviously, scientists and educators understand that intelligent design has no place in the classroom. Intelligent design is, simply, one of several varieties of creationism that offer religious explanations for the origin and current condition of the natural world. As such, it does not merit being taught alongside evolution as a “school of thought.” There’s significant legal precedent from US Supreme Court that creationism - in any clothing - does not belong in the American classrooms. Teaching creationism is in violation of the separation of church and state, and has been ruled illegal by the US Supreme Court in several cases. It’s unfortunate that the President apparently does not understand that science is not equivalent to a belief system but is description of how the natural world works. Creationism, including intelligent design, is a religious point of view, not science.

At a time when industrial, academic, and business leaders are calling for more American students to train in engineering, mathematics, science and technology, we need to teach science in science classrooms. Let’s teach the scientific ideas that are supported by overwhelming evidence such as gravitation, relativity, quantum mechanics, and evolution. Creationist ideas/beliefs, such as intelligent design, don’t belong in science classrooms. In our haste to leave no child behind, let’s not leave science behind either.

Well, my correction was precipitated because of this ring species business...please correct me if I am using inappropriate terms:

... All of the variation occuring within the warblers (or whatever) is expressed by the offspring of breeding pairs of warblers. Individuals are found grouped together in populations (due mainly to geographic factors - though I'm sure you could tell me if there are other factors that determine populations). The individuals may breed within their population or with individuals of other populations. Variation continues to be expressed through the offspring. At some point, individuals found in some populations will not breed with individuals in other populations. I am saying that this is due to a genetic predisposition - that individuals are predisposed to breed only with "like" individuals. I suppose this is reasoning from a creationist viewpoint in that I am presupposing that alleles are subject to being compatible with some original template, in order to be successfully activated or added to the genetic mix. From an evolutionist viewpoint, I suppose one would say that there are no limits (or different limits) regarding which alleles may be successfully activated or added into the genetic mix.

I agree with you that this example shows that variation occurs without resorting to hopeful monsters or great mutations...indeed

... unless I am not really seeing this clearly (and that is a real possibility) I think the ring species example demonstrates that hopeful monsters and mutations are NOT likely AT ALL. The disparate variations, which would seem to have the best chance at successfully breeding a "new species" seem not willing to do so.

This seems to me to point to the aforementioned "genetic predisposition" - otherwise why would these disparate, yet obviously related, variations be incompatible?

"By Jove, I have been using "interbreeding" when referring to breeding across populations. Perhaps I should have just used "breeding across populations"...my apologies for any confusion due to this word choice.

Your change of terminology just confuses things more. Termination of 'breeding between populations' (also called interbreeding - 'inter' means between), will not cause extinction, because breeding within the population will continue.

If you have a species that is considered a ring species that has a population of say 5 million and the arbitrarily chosen morphology of the species defines 5 separate groups we have 5 subspecies - A, B, C, D, E. We will designate subspecies 'C' as the original population the other 4 evolved from.

In our imaginary ring species, because of some reason, whatever that might be, no member of the subspecies 'A' ever breeds with any member of subspecies 'E'. However, members of 'A' will on occasion, but infrequently, breed with some members of subspecies 'B'. In the same way, 'B' will share a small portion of genes with 'C', 'C' with 'D', and 'D' with 'E'. This defines a 'gene flow' between members of 'A' and members of 'B'.

Now let's be cruel and kill off all members of 'C'. We now have two groups, with two subspecies each, group I with 'A' and 'B', and group II with 'D' and 'E', that are genetically isolated. The two groups are now considered different species, whether they can physically interbreed of not. Of course there is no longer any interbreeding between group I and group II because of physical isolation. However there can still be interbreeding between subspecies 'A' and subspecies 'B'. There can also be interbreeding between subspecies 'D' and subspecies 'E'. By your logic both groups will still experience variation because the subspecies are still interbreeding.

Now let's be cruel again, just because it's fun. We'll kill off all members of subspecies 'B' and all members of subspecies 'E'. We now have two different species that do not interbreed. No member of 'A' will ever produce progeny with any member of 'D'.

According to what you've said in your posts, group 'A' will no longer experience any variation because
1) it is at the far left of the possible range of variance for that particular species and
2) There is no other population that 'A' can interbreed with.

However species 'D' is not on the far right end of the variation because subspecies 'E' was, which of course we caused the extinction of. This means that the limit 1) in the paragraph above does not apply to species 'D'. This leaves limit 2). The problem with this is that the original population (the parent population) that the 4 other subspecies evolved from, varied even though it had no subspecies to interbreed with. This means that limit 2) is not a limit or there is something else that limits daughter populations like 'D' but not parent populations like 'C'.

Lets take a closer look at the limit to variation within a species when there is no outside population to interbreed with, simply because it is the only limit of yours that still applies to both 'A' and 'D'.

Unless we suppose all the males or all the females in the population are sterile, there will be births within the population. From observation of species in the wild, including humans, we know that any offspring's DNA will be a more or less random combination of alleles from the two parents. This by itself, given a limited number of different alleles at any given loci within the population, will limit potential variation of the population. In fact in this case, as the population size is reduced, specific alleles will have a better chance of spreading throughout the population and others will be reduced or disappear all together. If this were the case, then it would be necessary for this population to interbreed with another population to reintroduce variation. I suspect this is where you get the idea that the cessation of interbreeding between two populations will result in a cessation of variation within both populations. If the sharing of a limited number of alleles, combined with no way of introducing different alleles into the population was the end of the story, then your beliefs would be correct (more or less)

Throughout the history of human observation of the offspring of animals, it has been known that mutations occur. In most cases these mutations have resulted in grossly deleterious and/or disfiguring changes. From this it would be easy to conclude that mutations are few and far between and are almost always bad for the organism.

However during the 20^th century we discovered that there are two overlapping ranges of mutations that can be labeled micro-mutation and macro-mutation. Macro-mutations are those mutations that result in morphological changes that are easily observed (the bad ones above), micro-mutation are those mutations that result in morphological changes that are difficult or impossible to observe. We also discovered that micro-mutations are far more prevalent than macro-mutations and are primarily neutral. There is also a non-trivial number of deleterious mutations and a smaller number of beneficial mutations that occur. In fact, it has been suggested that each and every one of us have 6 or 7 mutations we acquired from our parents gametes. I mention gametes because in organisms as complex as birds, or reptiles, or mammals or even humans, the only mutations that can be passed on to the next generation are those in the gametes.

I won't go in to all the possible ways that genes can be modified (which I've called mutation), but I will suggest that the majority of deleterious mutations will not be passed on because in most cases, the organism never lives long enough to reproduce. However, both neutral and beneficial mutations are passed on to offspring, as long as the gene containing the mutation is included in the gamete. On a side note, it is possible for neutral mutations to become either beneficial or detrimental in later generations.

The point of all this is to show that the introduction of allele variation from an external population is not necessary because mutations can and do introduce needed allele variation within a population. As long as the population is above the point (it is actually a range) where the founder effect changes the balance of recessive/dominant genes, variation will continue in the population. In fact, because alleles can become fixed more quickly in a small population, even though the number of beneficial mutations drops, variation of the population increases as the population size is reduced. It becomes a numerical balancing game.

I'm getting tired and it is late, so I'm going to end here, but I hope you can see that isolated populations do not stop changing. Interbreeding between populations is not necessary.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.