Some college classes questioning evolution take hold

Pittsburgh Post Gazette ^ | 11/14/2005 | Daniel Golden

[SirLinksalot]

By Daniel Golden, The Wall Street Journal

AMES, Iowa -- With a magician's flourish, Thomas Ingebritsen pulled six mousetraps from a shopping bag and handed them out to students in his "God and Science" seminar. At his instruction, they removed one component -- either the spring, hammer or holding bar -- from each mousetrap. They then tested the traps, which all failed to snap.

"Is the mousetrap irreducibly complex?" the Iowa State University molecular biologist asked the class.

"Yes, definitely," said Jason Mueller, a junior biochemistry major wearing a cross around his neck.

That's the answer Mr. Ingebritsen was looking for. He was using the mousetrap to support the antievolution doctrine known as intelligent design. Like a mousetrap, the associate professor suggested, living cells are "irreducibly complex" -- they can't fulfill their functions without all of their parts. Hence, they could not have evolved bit by bit through natural selection but must have been devised by a creator.

"This is the closest to a science class on campus where anybody's going to talk about intelligent design," the fatherly looking associate professor told his class.

Overshadowed by attacks on evolution in high-school science curricula, intelligent design is gaining precarious and hotly contested foothold in American higher education. Intelligent-design courses have cropped up at the state universities of Minnesota, Georgia and New Mexico, as well as Iowa State, and at private institutions such as Wake Forest and Carnegie Mellon. Most of the courses, like Mr. Ingebritsen's, are small seminars that don't count for science credit. Many colleges have also hosted lectures by advocates of the doctrine.

The spread of these courses reflects the growing influence of evangelical Christianity in academia, as in other aspects of American culture. Last week, the Kansas state board of education adopted new science guidelines that question evolution.

[SirLinksalot]

This news is a year old, but still worth posting FYI.

[cripplecreek]

Questions are good but shutting evolutionary theory out is bad.

[Coyoteman]

Most of the courses, like Mr. Ingebritsen's, are small seminars that don't count for science credit.

I should hope not. There's no science there! ===> Placemarker <===

[Mrs.Z]

Now watch the EVO crowd go bonkers.

[dmz]

I guess I would consider myself part of the evo crowd, and I'll not go bonkers, and I'd wager most others won't either, for one very specific reason.

This is not being taught in a science class, it is an honors seminar. Nearly every evo thread discussing ID has numerous posts indicating that there is no interest in cutting off the discussion, just vehemently opposed to teaching ID in science class.

[Realism]

one-third of ISU freshmen planning to major in biology agree with the statement that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years."

Pretty much, at one time? Huh, kind of vague, sounds like this guy doesn't have the imagination to fill in the blanks.

[stands2reason]

Well, the guy did prove that mousetraps didn't evolve.