[asa] Teach the controversy ['lawsuit-proof' balanced approach to teaching evolution]

Another item of interest to some here. ~ Janice

Teach the controversy ['lawsuit-proof' balanced approach to teaching
evolution]
WORLD ^ | July 21, 2007 | Mark Bergin
Posted on 07/13/2007 5:28:17 PM EDT by Zender500
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1865613/posts [refresh browser]

For 15 years Doug Cowan has taught the scientific evidence for and
against Darwinism to biology students at Curtis High, a large public
school several miles southwest of Tacoma, Wash. Over that time, the
popular teacher and athletic coach has drawn periodic criticisms from
community activists and local media. But he has faced no lawsuits and
never worried over losing his job.

Students in Cowan's classes praise his balanced presentation. And
parents rarely, if ever, raise objections. "I haven't heard a thing,"
he told WORLD. "Parents think it's really neat that I'm allowing kids
to weigh the evidence from both sides and make their own informed
conclusions."

Throughout the country, many other attempts to teach evolution
critically have faced stiff opposition. Educators and school board
members have lost legal battles and even their jobs. What makes Cowan
so different?

"I don't teach alternative theories, because that's not part of the
curriculum," he explained. "There aren't a whole lot of alternative
theories other than design theory, but that's not in our curriculum.
So unless a kid asks specifically about it, I don't deal with it."

Instead, Cowan deals more thoroughly with Darwinism than most
existing biology textbooks, adding reading materials from outside the
standard evolutionary syllabus: Darwin on Trial, Icons of Evolution,
Darwin's Black Box, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. Cowan says these
extra texts engage his students, challenging their ability to analyze
and discern truth from competing sides of a controversial issue.

This fall, the 34-year teaching veteran will restructure his
evenhanded presentation around a new textbook from the Seattle-based
Discovery Institute. Explore Evolution: The Arguments for and Against
Neo-Darwinism (Hill House Publishers, 2007) does not address
alternative theories of origins but succinctly lays out the
scientific strengths and weaknesses of the most critical elements of
Darwinism. "It's made my work a lot easier," Cowan said.

Explore Evolution encapsulates a "teach the controversy" paradigm
that the Discovery Institute has advocated for the better part of the
past decade. Over that time, the institute has advised school boards
against the inclusion of Intelligent Design in their science
standards. Some boards have heeded that counsel; others have not.

In 2005, a now famous board in Dover, Pa., attempted to mandate the
inclusion of ID in ninth-grade biology classes. Backed by the ACLU,
parents sued and won a landmark decision in which a federal judge
ruled that ID was religion, not science. The shockwaves of that
decision reverberated nationwide and have quieted other efforts to
push ID into schools.

But the Dover lawsuit also highlighted the effectiveness of the
Discovery Institute's approach. State school boards in Pennsylvania,
South Carolina, New Mexico, and Minnesota along with local boards in
Wisconsin and Louisiana have adopted science standards that encourage
critical analysis of Darwinian Theory. To date, not a single lawsuit
has challenged such standards.

"This is an approach that if I were a Darwinist I would be
particularly frightened of," said John West, associate director of
the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. "The policy
that we've recommended turns out to be the precise common-ground
approach we said it would be. It reduces the decibel level; you don't
get sued; you get good education; and the Darwinists don't have a leg
to stand on."

In the wake of the Dover ruling, many committed Darwinists declared
victory for an uncritical approach to teaching evolution. But, in
fact, the ruling has worked to galvanize a previously disjointed
movement. Whereas many teachers and school boards might previously
have shunned the "teach the controversy" strategy in favor of the
more bold step of introducing ID, those groups and individuals are
now more willing to listen.

John Calvert, managing director of IDnet, praises Explore Evolution
as "enormously important." Since 2005, his organization has focused
its efforts on bringing critical analysis of evolution into
classrooms, not ID.

In past years, groups like IDnet might have rallied around another
new textbook scheduled for publication this fall: The Design of Life,
a rewrite of the ID-advancing classic Of Pandas and People. Like
Explore Evolution, this 360-page text presents the scientific
weaknesses of Darwinism, but it also goes further in outlining the
case for ID. Authors William Dembski and Jonathan Wells lay out such
noted design arguments as irreducible complexity and specified complexity.

The Design of Life publisher Jon Buell, president of the Foundation
for Thought and Ethics, has no illusions of his textbook cracking
public-school curriculums in the wake of the Dover ruling. "Our book,
we fully expect to be taught in university courses," he said. "We
will not market to public schools."

Prior to the Dover case, Of Pandas and People broke into public
biology classrooms in 22 states over its two-decade run. Now, Explore
Evolution offers the latest real hope for a text critical of Darwin
to repeat such success. West told WORLD that one state school board
has already expressed interest in using the new textbook, though
discussions remain in the preliminary stages.

"We expect a lot of teachers to use it, including public-school
teachers, to help them teach evolution better," he said. "In fact, we
already know some of those where the school may not be purchasing 30
copies, but the teacher is using it to build their lesson plan."

Despite not mentioning ID, Explore Evolution has received sharp
criticism from the Discovery Institute's usual opponents. PZ Myers, a
biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, and author
of the highly popular Darwinist blog Pharyngula, rails against the
text as "a dirty, dishonest book in a slick package."

In a cursory review of the 159-page volume, Myers charges that it
fails to represent the case for Darwinism accurately and presents
complex subjects superficially: "The biology part is shallow,
useless, and often wrong, and the critiques are basically just warmed
over creationist arguments."

Similarly, writers on the influential evolution blog The Panda's
Thumb have dismissed Explore Evolution as a "creationist textbook"
that seeks to hide its true enterprise of "religious apologetics."

Most of the book's five authors are not unfamiliar with such charges.
Stephen Meyer, Scott Minnich, and Paul Nelson are fellows of the
Discovery Institute and well-known advocates for ID. Ralph Seelke, a
professor of microbiology at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, is
an outspoken critic of Darwinism. The fifth contributor, Jonathan
Moneymaker, provided technical writing assistance.

Without a Darwinist representative, that panel has drawn predictable
questions as to the textbook's objectivity. How can skeptics of
Darwinism be trusted to represent faithfully the strongest evidence
for a theory they oppose?

But Explore Evolution does not purport to provide comprehensive
outlines of Darwinian arguments, leaving that up to most every other
biology textbook on the market. The preface to this new text explains
that its summary accounts of the case for Darwinism are meant to
recap briefly what students have already learned elsewhere. The focus
of the book is to present new information as to why the theory of
evolution remains scientifically controversial.

Though supportive, IDnet director Calvert does not share the
Discovery Institute's optimism that this new textbook and the
approach it embodies will significantly dent the uncritical Darwinist
dogma currently taught in most public schools. In February, he
emerged from a long political battle in Kansas where attempts to
mandate the critical analysis of evolution fell short.

Opponents of the new Kansas science standards argued that any
criticism of Darwinism amounts to thinly veiled ID, which according
to the Dover ruling amounts to thinly veiled religion. The state
school board agreed, effectively determining that any scientific
challenge to Darwinian evolution violates the Constitution's
Establishment Clause.

That blow to the "teach the controversy" approach has left Calvert
skeptical: "I don't think the Discovery Institute's textbook is going
to have any traction until we get the Dover court decision reversed.
Until we get a legal decision on our side, things will keep getting worse."

Doug Cowan disagrees: "The schools want to have critically thinking
kids. And you can't be a critical thinker if you hear only one side
of the story."

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Received on Fri Jul 13 17:38:13 2007