Posted on 10/06/2005 5:04:43 AM PDT by gobucks
University of Idaho President Tim White has entered the debate pitting Charles Darwin's theories of life against religious-based alternatives by forbidding anything other than evolution from being taught in the Moscow school's life, earth and physical science classes.
White's edict came as a U of I biologist, Scott Minnich, a supporter of the "intelligent design" theory, was set to testify in a Pennsylvania lawsuit brought by eight families trying to have this theory, branded as a new form of creationism, dropped from a school district's biology curriculum. Minnich was asked to testify on behalf of the district.
Hours after White's letter reached students, staff and faculty on Tuesday, the Discovery Institute, a Seattle public policy group that funds research into intelligent design, blasted the order as an unconstitutional assault on academic freedom and free speech.
White said in his letter that teachings of views that differ from evolution may occur in religion, philosophy or similar courses.
Intelligent design is the belief that Darwin's mechanism of natural selection inadequately explains the origins of different life forms. It argues that natural selection fails to fully explain how extremely varied and complex life forms emerged during the past 600 million years. It concludes that guidance from some external intelligence that many interpret as God must be involved.
With Idaho now in the debate, disputes over evolution are unfolding in at least 19 states. In August, President Bush weighed in, saying he thought people should be taught about different ideas — including intelligent design.
Officials at the National Center for Science Education say White is likely the first U.S. university president to come out with an official position. The center advocates against incorporating theories such as intelligent design into science curricula on grounds they introduce religion into the subject matter.
"Departments have issued statements, and scientific groups have issued statements," said Glenn Branch, the Oakland, Calif.-based center's deputy director. "But I can't think of a university president who's issued a statement like this."
White wrote that national media attention on the issue prompted the letter.
"This (evolution) is the only curriculum that is appropriate to be taught in our biophysical sciences," he wrote. "Teaching of views that differ from evolution may occur in faculty-approved curricula in religion, sociology, philosophy, political science or similar courses. However, teaching of such views is inappropriate in our life, earth, and physical science courses."
Harold Gibson, a school spokesman, said the views of Minnich, a tenured professor in the school's College of Agriculture, didn't prompt the letter.
Rather, White was staking out a position on an issue that's emerged as a successor to "creationism" after that Biblical explanation was barred from the nation's schoolhouses in 1987 by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Minnich didn't return Associated Press calls for comment.
But members of the Discovery Institute — founded in 1990 by Bruce Chapman, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Organizations in Vienna under President Reagan — lambasted White's edict as an intrusion into the academic freedom of Idaho professors.
John West, the associate director of the institute's Center for Science and Culture, said White's move restricting science curricula to discussions of evolution broadly restricts teaching anything that contradicts Darwin's ideas on the role of mutation and natural selection in the development of life — even by scientists not advocating intelligent design.
In addition, limiting classes where evolution alternatives can be discussed violates free speech protections, he said.
"He (White) is saying, 'If you're a teacher in philosophy, we may allow you to do this. But in science, it just doesn't cut it,' West said. "In any other area, this would be preposterous."
White's letter came just a week before Eugenie C. Scott, an activist who's fought to segregate creationism and intelligent design from science classes, is due to speak at the University of Idaho on Oct. 12.
Scott said the school's science faculty, who invited her, haven't explicitly mentioned Minnich as motivation for bringing her for a lecture titled "Why Scientists Reject Intelligent Design."
Still, "the elephant in the living room is: there is a proponent of intelligent design on the faculty of the University of Idaho," said Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education. "Biologists across the country have examined intelligent design as a scientific model, and found it seriously lacking."
Wow, Tim. This is what being a President of a University is all about - telling what will and will not ever be spoken about within science classrooms. Re-education camps ... does anyone recall what those were?
> Re-education camps ... does anyone recall what those were?
Yup. Places where superstition was taught instead of science. Thus Tim is fighting agaisnt turning his school into such a camp.
Go Tim!
Is there and unfortunate pun in "... forbidding anything other than evolution from being taught in the Moscow school's life, earth and physical science classes."? Or have I pushed the definition of 'pun' too far?
It's interesting that "academic freedom" only seems to apply to the leftist agenda. I wonder what the University President could do if a tenured science professor told him to go fish?
"Professor, please explain the evolution of sight and how the eye, optic nerve, and sight center of the brain all conveniently developed at the same time, even though none of them had any use without the other two."
"Yup. Places where superstition was taught instead of science."
Nope. They were places that leftists operated, and if you failed to rethink according to the reeducation you were killed.
It started, however, with edicts like Tim's.
This is no surprise, one minute on the evolution threads make it clear who reigns supreme over origin of the species.
Funny it came from Moscow .... and now, it isn't too far at all.
'go fish'
there is a pun in there! LOL!!
Higher Learning in America mired in dogma....
Funny, I don't recall anyone proposing to teach ID or creationism as an established fact.
To humanists, any suggestion of uncertainty in any element of evolution is unforgivable.
That is a creationist red herring. If you learn about evolution, you will learn why your question doesn't make sense.
From PH's list of links:
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/eye.html
Or "pound sand" :-).
ping time?
I back this university professor whole heartedly. It's about time univeristies start standing up for the integrity of their science departments and to keep the ID nonsense out of places it does not belong. It is philosophy at best, but has absolutely no credibilty as science. If it is taught as science, it will only confuse what is the meaning of science and will denigrate all scientific disciplines. The bar has to be lowered to accept ID as science and creationists are trying to do it through intellectual affermative action. The creatisonsts and IDer's only want to keep people ignorant.
"I back this university professor whole heartedly."
In this case - and it is a step up in the profile of this conflict don't you think? - it is a University President.
Do you think administrators should have the authority to determine content for every course in every discipline, or just this individual instance?
That link is full of lies and distortions. And to think Christians would deliberately lie to people! Here is an example from the very first parapgraph:
"Creationists have often pointed out that evolution is unscientific because it can never be proved by science to be true. It is not happening at present and without a time machine, they can never be sure that it happened in the past."
This is a classic example of creationist nonsense. Scientific theories are never proved, ever. This shows creationists are so ignorant of science that they can't even talk about it up front. They also say evolution is not happeneing now. Even when they get sick from the next avian flue pandemic, they will still not believe this new virus evolved right in front of them! And the last sentence is nonsense, too. Evolution does not require a time machine to be validated. There are millions of testable predictions made by evolution and evolution has been sustained by every one.
This administrator is expressing the philosophy of the university. He is not setting specific course requirements. That comes from the faculty of the various departments and schools. I'm sure the various science departments prompted the administration to take this needed stand. It is an embarrassment than a crationsist would be on the science faculty, even if it is in the Dept. of Agriculture and not Biology.
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