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Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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[sorry if this has been shared already today ? I only read the digests]

Prof. Jerry Coyne?s article in this week?s The New Republic is a superb and detailed examination of ID?s claims, motives, and ultimate failures.  The piece is essential reading for anyone new to the debate (no one on this list, I assume), but also a good review for those already wind-chapped by this frustrating and unavoidable tempest.

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050822&s=coyne082205&c=1&pt=AXXXjo5ntcZL44v7UuCsbH%3D%3D

Here?s one of the article?s final thoughts most relevant to this listserv:

?IDers have been helped by Americans' continuing doubts about the truth of evolution. According to a Gallup poll taken last year, 45 percent of Americans agree with the statement, "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years." Asked if evolution is well supported by evidence, 35 percent of Americans said yes, 35 percent said no, and 29 percent said they lack the knowledge to reply. As a rationalist, I cannot help but believe that the first group would swell were Americans to be thoroughly taught the evidence for evolution, which is rarely done in public high schools. I have seen creationist students become evolutionists when they learn about biogeography or examine the skulls of mammal-like reptiles. What we need in the schools is not less teaching of evolution but more.?  

Amen to that.  But don?t more people pass through science center doors each year than graduate high school?  Aren't we are uniquely positioned to deal with the ID problem?  Isn?t that what we?re designed to do?

I do not believe that creationists are malicious people bent on tearing down the temple of science.  I do not believe that science can answer every ?why? question I have.  But I do believe that every science center in America should not shrink from publicly addressing the falsity of Intelligent Design.  This veiled creationism is a direct challenge to the mission of every member institution in the ASTC nation.  Ignoring the ?controversy,? baseless though it be, constitutes negligence in our roles as educators.  (Likewise, science teachers in the classroom must not avoid this topic.)  While we do not seek to criticize or refute our audience?s belief in God, we cannot allow that belief?s more fanatical adherents to undermine the work of centuries of scholarship and scientific revelation.  This must be a world of progress, for everyone.  In a world of progress it is not religion that is wrong or dangerous, but ignorance.

So: Directors write your editorials, Science and Education people develop your programs, PR staff write your newsletters, Development departments apply for evolution program funding, and floor personnel respectfully correct the misapprehensions of the curious and the faithful.  Please?

Debunking ID is our responsibility.  If not us, who?

Venting,

Nik Charov
New York Hall of Science

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Nik Charov
Development Associate
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th Street
Queens, NY  11368
W:718-699-0005 x380
F: 718-699-1341
email: [log in to unmask]
 

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