Reflectorites
Here is a comprehensive summary of the growth of the Intelligent Design
movement, in the Christian Science Monitor.
It says "e-mail this story to a friend" so I assume it is OK to e-mail it in full
to the List.
My comments are in square brackets.
Steve
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http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/02/08/f-p11s1.shtml
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Christian Science Monitor
[...]
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2000
Headlines
e-mail this story to a friend
LEARNING
Whose 'science'?
State reviews of classroom science requirements are prompting further
debate about 'creation science' vs. evolution
Craig Savoye
Special to The Christian Science Monitor
On the 10th day of science class, Roger DeHart taught "creationism." His
critics thought he should give it a rest.
For more than a decade, the biology teacher at Burlington-Edison High
School, north of Seattle, taught a two-week section on evolution. On the
last day, he would talk about a branch of creationism known as "intelligent
design." The theory holds that the sheer complexity of life defies the
science of chance and points to an intelligent architect.
The local school board backed him unanimously when the approach
became publicized in 1998. But the threat of a lawsuit by the American
Civil Liberties Union - on the grounds that "intelligent design" is religious
and therefore illegal to teach - changed all that. A new superintendent told
him to drop the discussion and will allow him only limited criticism of
evolution.
[...]
"I take issue with it being a religious thing," Mr. DeHart says. "I never
mentioned God. I said: here's the controversy, you decide."
For much of the century, faith and science have fought a tug of war inside
the classroom. Science has largely prevailed in recent decades, as DeHart
found. But what some see as a rearguard action by creationists may be
changing that. As states review science-curriculum standards, more
educators are pushing for - and winning - a voice for the biblical account of
how the universe was formed.
Last summer, the Kansas Board of Education voted to excise most
references to evolution from the state's science curriculum and no longer
require knowledge of evolution to pass state tests. This sparked anti-
Darwinian brush fires of varying intensity in Oklahoma, Kentucky, and
New Mexico.
[It is disappointing that the media are still mindlessly parroting each other
by claiming that the KBoE "voted to excise most references to evolution
from the state's science curriculum." The fact is that the very opposite is
the case. The Board in its new standards adopted in August 1999 actually
*increased* references to evolution from what they previously were in the
1995 standards. The KBoE did excise references to *macro*-evolution and
the Big Bang from *draft proposed* standards put to it in July 1999, but
these proposed standards were never part of the curriculum.]
Nearly a dozen states are scheduled to review science standards during the
next two years, including bellwether Texas.
"The battle is only beginning to heat up," says Eugenie Scott, executive
director of the National Center for Science Education in Berkeley, Calif.
Caught in the middle are students who have questions about faith even as
they prepare to enter a "real world" where scientific understanding is
increasingly a prerequisite for success.
"I allowed students to write either a position paper on evolution or one on
intelligent design, giving five best evidences," DeHart says of his approach.
"Or they could choose to have a debate. Now they can't do either. The
students are the losers here. Where is freedom of speech when they're
censoring someone? Is that what they want to teach?"
The fallout from Scopes
The publication of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" in 1859 produced
controversy but not much teaching of evolution in schools - until the events
leading up to the famous Scopes trial in 1925, which found teacher John
Scopes guilty of teaching evolution in violation of Tennessee law. His
conviction was later overturned on a technicality.
[It doesn't mention that the ACLU which was defending Scopes *wanted*
him to be found guilty.]
The practical impact of the trial was that Darwin all but disappeared from
schools for several decades. But in the 1960s, a post-Sputnik push for
better science education led to the inclusion of evolution in textbooks.
Hard on its heels came the movement toward creation science. Defined as
belief in the scientific accuracy of the biblical creation story, the movement
emerged in the 1970s and grew in influence until 1987. A Supreme Court
decision that year restricted the teaching of creation science with religious
intent in public schools.
But in the 1990s, the movement regained confidence. For one thing, it
developed a new strategy that focuses on winning elections and working
with officials at the local level. The result has been local fights that
sometimes turn nasty even as they remain beyond the national spotlight.
The Kansas decision last year, some say, is the bubbling up to the state
level of this approach.
Creationists have also tapped into a rich vein of concern. A 1997 Gallup
poll showed that 45 percent of adults believe in a biblical version of
creation, another 39 percent believe that humans evolved over time but
with divine assistance ("theistic evolution"), and just 10 percent believe in
evolution absent divinity.
[...]
Some observers say the movement has mushroomed in part by exploiting
fears that science has become predominant in society - leaving no room for
religious views that many embrace.
Indeed, John Morris, president of the Institute for Creation Research, a
group located near San Diego that includes many well-credentialed
scientists and academics, says he and other groups are witnessing a
burgeoning interest in creationism.
Mr. Morris charges that evolution, or "naturalism," has taken on the
trappings of religion, just as atheism has come to be defined as a religion or
a world view that governs people's perceptions of who we are and why we
exist.
[It is highly significant that the ICR now seems to be moving its emphasis
away from `young-Earth' distinctives towards Intelligent Design, and
picking up on Johnson's argument that the reigning scientific philosophy of
"naturalism" is effectively a State religion.]
Viewed from that perspective, the Kansas decision to delete evolution is "a
move to take religion out of the public schools and put science back in," he
says.
It's a given that a new approach is needed in the classroom, agrees Philip
Johnson, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a
leader of the intelligent-design movement. He also sees a need to rethink
what is labeled "science."
"Materialists have seized the name science," Professor Johnson says. He
objects to evolution theory being used to prove that matter and natural law
can create anything without some assistance from God.
[It is good to see that the media is waking up that there is such a thing as
"the intelligent-design movement" which is distinct from the ICR and led by
"a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley". Johnson's point
about the name "science" having been seized by "Materialists" is at the
centre of his `Wedge' strategy].
Joining the battle
To critics, such arguments prove the need for a vigorous defense of
evolution.
For one thing, there's been a shift in creation theory, says Ronald Numbers,
a professor of the history of science and medicine at the University of
Wisconsin. Thought has moved away from "old Earth" creationism, in
which the story of creation in Genesis represented a time period of millions,
if not billions, of years, to the "young Earth" viewpoint, which maintains
our planet is only 6,000 to 10,000 years old.
Thus, even as traditional science has advanced to a more refined view of
evolution, creationism has moved toward a stricter and more biblically
centered explanation.
[The evolutionists appear to be in disarray. Ronald Numbers still thinks the
debate in "creation theory" is between "`old Earth' creationism" and "the
`young Earth' viewpoint". What is really happening is the rapid formation
of a united front among "creation theory" around the more basic issue of
the very existence of an Intelligent Designer.
[...]
Too, critics are troubled by the movement's terminology - especially the
effort to portray science in the same light as religion.
"Science is not a religion. It is inappropriate to characterize it in that way,"
says Robert Pennock, a professor of philosophy at the College of New
Jersey and author of "Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New
Creationism."
[While science itself may not be a religion, the materialistic philosophy
which has captured science functions as a substitute religion in the hearts
and minds of its adherents. Pennock claims that "Science is not a religion",
yet he wrote in the name of science a book with a Biblically derived name:
"Tower of Babel" and an anti-creation subtitle: "The Evidence Against the
New Creationism".]
Ms. Scott of the National Center for Science Education says a discussion is
worthwhile - just not in school. "The debate between theism and
materialism is legitimate," says Scott, "but it shouldn't take place in the
classroom. Any teacher who teaches there is no God has stepped over the
line, just as I wouldn't want my child to be taught that the Grand Canyon
was formed in six days."
[Note the clever use of words by Scott contrastinge atheism with young-Earth
creationism, as though they are the only two alternatives. By admitting that
there is a "debate between theism and materialism" she "legitimate", tacitly
concedes they are opposites. But then she says any such debate between the
two "shouldn't take place in the classroom", even thought materialism is
to continue to be taught unopposed "in the classroom".]
She is concerned that the intelligent-design movement is bent on hiding
religious objections to evolution. "The Kansas decision carefully avoids
legal entanglements by omitting evolution," she says. "It doesn't ban it, it
just discourages it."
[It is good to see that Scott realises she cannot object to ID that it
is only a simple "religious objections to evolution". The fact is that
ID is not necessarily a religious position, but a *philosophical*
position like materialism is.]
Scientists withdraw texts
The debate is unlikely to end anytime soon. In Kansas, the focus has now
shifted to what classroom materials will be used. The new standards there
draw heavily on copyrighted material belonging to several national
scientific organizations. In the wake of the curriculum decision last
summer, those groups have refused permission to use their texts, calling
the new state standards "a disservice to the students of Kansas." The
Kansas Board of Education has subsequently reworded the standards to
excise copyrighted material.
Despite objections from the scientific community, Morris of the Institute
for Creation Research says the days of evolutionist hegemony in schools
are numbered. "It will never go back to the way it was," he says. "Kansas is
the crack in the dike."
[Agreed. The important thing about Kansas is that the Darwinists have for
years the Darwinists have promoted what Johnson calls the "Inherit the
Wind" stereotype where the creationists are the ideological oppressors and
the enemies of free speech and the Darwinists are the victims and the
proponents of free speech. But Kansas made it quite clear what the real
situation is and has been all along. The *Darwinists* are (and have been for
a long time now) the *real* ideological oppressors and the enemies of free
speech.]
[...]
(c) Copyright 2000 The Christian Science Publishing Society.
All rights reserved.
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"But evolution is different. Evolutionists purport to explain where we came
from and how we developed into the complex organisms that we are.
Physicists, by and large, do not. So, the study of evolution trespasses on
the bailiwick of religion. And it has something else in common with
religion. It is almost as hard for scientists to demonstrate evolution to the
lay public as it would be for churchmen to prove transubstantiation or the
virginity of Mary." (Wills C., "The Wisdom of the Genes: New Pathways in
Evolution", Basic Books: New York NY, 1989, p9)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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