The evolving Darwin debate

In an effort to influence high-school science curriculum standards, more than 50 Ohio scientists issued a statement this week supporting academic freedom to teach arguments for and against Darwin's theory of evolution.

Released Wednesday, the statement was signed by 52 experts from a wide range of scientific disciplines, including entomology, toxicology, nuclear chemistry, engineering biochemistry and medicine. Some are employed in business, industry and research, but most teach at state and private universities. A third of the signatories are employed by Ohio State University.

To enhance the effectiveness of Ohio science education, as scientists we affirm:

That biological evolution is an important scientific theory that should be taught in the classroom;

That a quality science education should prepare students to distinguish the data and testable theories of science from religious or philosophical claims that are made in the name of science;

That a science curriculum should help students understand why the subject of biological evolution generates controversy;

That where alternative scientific theories exist in any area of inquiry (such as wave vs. particle theories of light, biological evolution vs. intelligent design, etc.), students should be permitted to learn the evidence for and against them;

That a science curriculum should encourage critical thinking and informed participation in public discussions about biological origins.

Religious or anti-religious indoctrination in a class specifically dedicated to teaching within the discipline of science;

The censorship of scientific views that may challenge current theories of origins.

Signatories released the statement as the Ohio State Board of Education works to update its curriculum standards, including those for high-school science classes, in accordance with a demand from the state legislature issued last year. Advocates of inclusion of evolution criticisms believe the Ohio scientists' statement echoes similar language in the recently passed federal education law, the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001." Report language interpreting the act explains that on controversial issues such as biological evolution, "the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist."

As part of its efforts to update the science standards, the Board of Education held a moderated panel discussion on the question, "Should intelligent design be included in Ohio's science academic content standards?" The debate was conducted during the March 11 regular board meeting and included two panelists from each side of the issue, who were given 15 minutes each to present their arguments. One of the panelists in favor of including "intelligent design" arguments (the idea that biological origin was at least initiated by an intelligent force) was Dr. Stephen Meyer, a professor at Whitworth College in Washington state and fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.

Meyer has written extensively on the subject, including a column for WorldNetDaily in which he criticizes the PBS series "Evolution." The series, he wrote, "rejects – even ridicules – traditional theistic religion because [religion] holds that God played an active (even discernible) role in the origin of life on earth."

Additionally, Meyer co-wrote a February 2001 Utah Law Review article defending the legality of presenting evolution criticism in schools. The article states in its conclusion that school boards or biology teachers should "take the initiative to teach, rather than suppress, the controversy as it exists in the scientific world," which is a "more open and more dialectical approach." The article also encourages school boards to defend "efforts to expand student access to evidence and information about this timely and compelling controversy."

Dr. Robert DiSilvestro, a professor at Ohio State and statement signatory, believes many pro-evolution scientists have not given Darwin's theory enough critical thought.

"As a scientist who has been following this debate closely, I think that a valid scientific challenge has been mounted to Darwinian orthodoxy on evolution. There are good scientific reasons to question many currently accepted ideas in this area," he said.

"The more this controversy rages, the more our colleagues start to investigate the scientific issues," commented DiSilvestro. "This has caused more scientists to publicly support our statement." He noted that several of the 52 scientists on the list had signed after last week's Board of Education panel discussion.

However, panelist Dr. Lawrence Krauss, chairman of Case Western Reserve University's physics department, said intelligent design is not science. ID proponents, he explained, are trying to redefine "science" and do not publish their work in peer-reviewed literature. In a January editorial published in The Plain Dealer, Krauss wrote that "the concept of 'intelligent design' is not introduced into science classes because it is not a scientific concept."

Promoters of ID bemoan "the fact that scientists confine their investigation to phenomena and ideas that can be experimentally investigated, and that science assumes that natural phenomena have natural causes," his editorial continues. "This is indeed how science operates, and if we are going to teach science, this is what we should teach." By its very nature, Krauss explains, science has limitations on what it can study, and to prove or disprove the existence of God does not fall into that sphere of study.

Krauss was disappointed in the Board of Education's decision to hold a panel discussion on the subject, saying the debate was not warranted since there is no evolution controversy in scientific circles.

"The debate, itself, was a victory for those promoting intelligent design," he said. "By pretending there's a controversy when there isn't, you're distorting reality."

But Meyer counters that a controversy does exist over the validity of Darwinian evolution, as evidenced by the growing number of scientists publicly acknowledging the theory's flaws. For example, 100 scientists, including professors from institutions such as M.I.T, Yale and Rice, issued a statement in September "questioning the creative power of natural selection," wrote Meyer in his WND column. But such criticism is rarely, if ever, reported by mainstream media outlets and establishment scientific publications, he maintains.

At the Board of Education's panel discussion, he proposed a compromise to mandating ID inclusion in science curriculum: Teach the controversy about Darwinism, including evidence for and against the theory of evolution. Also, he asked the board to make it clear that teachers are permitted to discuss other theories of biological origin, which Meyer believes is already legally established.

But such an agreement would only serve to compromise scientific research, according to Krauss. "It's not that it's inappropriate to discuss these ideas, just not in a science class," he concluded.

And how does he define the church, i wonder?

Certainly not Roman Catholic. They have no official opposition to evolution.

I mean church in a figurative sense. The really odd thing is that physics and chemistry are OK until they comment on the age of the earth or the universe. I presume biology is OK until it talks about the obvious interconnectness of living things.

Reminds me of Bill Clinton's ability to compartmentalize.

So what is the point? As I have pointed out, antibiotic resistance is not necessarily mutation oriented. As was stated in the article, scientists don't know why certain resistance genes exist. Their comments after that about the genes resulting from mutations and evolution are pure speculation, since they admit that they don't really know.

BTW, I believe that there are provable instances where mutation and permutations exist, it's just that it is not proveable, nor likely in all cases. Nor is mutation a good argument for evolution since, to date, it has not been shown definitively as a causation of speciation. Furthermore, evolution assumes that higher lifeforms evolve from lower life forms. I reject that notion on the two-fold score that if it were so, almost all mutations should be benign rather than the opposite (as is the real-world case) and most assuredly Mr. Clinton did not decend from a lower life form.

It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, "mad cow" disease, and many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.

Or malaria, or Hepatitis B, or Islamic Fundamentalism, or...

almost all mutations should be benign rather than the opposite

Do you have proof that they are not. I thought mutations were just as likely to occur in non-functional sequences as otherwise. Since most DNA is dead code, that would mean most mutations have no effect at all.

I have a question for you: where is the proof that

GOD DID IT!!! GOD DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aw c'mon. Be honest and use the standards set up by each school of thought for their own testing.

The Creationists never have claimed that their proof was empirical. Rather it is supernatural. As such, empirical evidence has only an ancilliary bearing on the case.

OTOH, evolutionists have always claimed empiricism and scientific method as their hallmarks.

Of the two, creationism is far more the honest, because they admit that their belief cannot be proven empirically, whereas the evolutionists make, in many cases, greater leaps of faith than they accuse the creationists of doing. An honest assessment of evolutionism readily reveals that scientific method doesn't work and that all experiments in the field ultimately show little more than they were accomplished by intelligent design.

Nor is mutation a good argument for evolution since, to date, it has not been shown definitively as a causation of speciation.

Only because there's not universal agreement on what constitutes a species. We make organisms at work all the time that can no longer interbreed with their original species, only among themselves.

Furthermore, evolution assumes that higher life-forms evolve from lower life-forms.

I've never seen a working statement of this anywhere, except from Creationists and ID'ers. I know what you're trying to say (I think), but if you start with biofilms and anything at all happens, you're bound to get something more capable than slime. (I had to work the "slime" angle in.)

It is not generally said, but it is heavily implied, and is, in fact assumed generally by evolutionists. If you don't believe me, just take a look sometime at any chart showing the evolving of Homo-Sapiens. And this is just one example (charts of almost any type of animal shows the same). Yeah, and apparently procreation is not necessarily a good indicator of speciation. I've heard of cases where cross-species pollination has occured.

As far as the slime is concerned, would that also involve those leaving trails of pre-biotic matter in their wake?

An honest assessment of evolutionism readily reveals that scientific method doesn't work and that all experiments in the field ultimately show little more than they were accomplished by intelligent design.

I can see why you believe that chance always begins at ground zero. It is the way you think. The questions I have raised regarding the ratchet mechanism of variation and selection have been ignored and sidestepped, but not discussed.

I would love, for example, to see someone try to prove, using probability theory, how an electron can't move from a lower energy state to a higher energy state without an energy input and without passing through intermediate states.

There's a lot of really cool properties of "mere matter", and a lot of counterintuitive stuff lurking in materialism. This ain't your granddaddy's universe.

I appreciate the straw man. I find it very amusing, really, I do.

Then you need to thank gore3000. This is really about his tactic of demanding absolute demonstrative proof of evolutionary theory (and of anything relating to it), but accepting arm-waving "atom bombs" prove "relativity" type standards of "proof" for any scientific theory he doesn't happen to disagree with. IOW the real problem is goal post shifting in the service of rank dogmatism.

If you use the term "proof" differently than I do, but use it consistently, then I have no real problem with that.

It is not generally said, but it is heavily implied, and is, in fact assumed generally by evolutionists.

Now that you mention it, I should say that I've heard it said by high school science teachers as well. The folks I work with don't hold that viewpoint. They're mainly PhD's and BS'ers.

As far as the slime is concerned, would that also involve those leaving trails of pre-biotic matter in their wake?

I leave plenty of organic molecules in rest rooms, if that's what you mean. Pre-biotic is a whole another discussion that may, or may not, include prions, viruses and some other stuff that I'm not sure has been formally named yet. The term generally used around here is "crud" or "goop".

That's not saying much, at least in your case, because earlier you explained that no scientific theory logically entails anything.

I certainly never said anything remotely like that. The following are the claims I was trying to make, which apparently were not clear to you, stated as succintly as I can manage:

1) Scientific theories do not, and cannot, logically entail their own truth.

It is precisely the implicit assertion that "this theory is true" which is empirically tested by means of the many implications regarding natural objects, systems and their behavior which can indeed be deduced from good scientific theories.

2) The fact that scientific theories methodologically disregard the supernatural does not entail any metaphysical or ontological conclusion about the existence of a supernatural realm or entities.

In sum I agree that scientific theories do have entailments, but only with respect to the natural world.

O.K., to clarify, I am using following definition of proof: "A theory is proven if it can be demonstrated (however you may choose) that it entails its own truth." It is in this sense that I claim that scientific theories are not and cannot be "proven". I am confident that virtually all reflective scientists and philosphers would agree in this. Indeed you seem to agree in this. You are using a different definition of "proof," which is fine insofar as used consistently.

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