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Date: | Tue, 10 May 2005 15:11:51 -0400 |
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ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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Posted on Tue, May. 10, 2005
OTHER VIEWS: INTELLIGENT DESIGN IS NOT SCIENCE
Nearly five years into the 21st century, the Kansas State Board of
Education has begun an earnest discussion of whether schools in the
state should teach science that was obsolete by the end of the 19th
century. The board is holding hearings into proposed changes to its
model science standards, changes intended to cast doubt on
conventional evolutionary biology and inject into classrooms the
notion of "intelligent design" -- the idea that the complexity of
life can be explained only by some conscious creator's having
designed it. Proponents say they mean merely to ensure that
schoolchildren are given a full sense of the scientific controversy
over evolution so that they can make up their own minds. Who can
object to that?
But there is no serious scientific controversy over whether Darwinian
evolution takes place. Intelligent design is not science. Whatever
its rhetoric, the public questioning of evolution is fundamentally
religious, not scientific, in nature. That is not to say that wonder
is illegitimate; it is a perfectly reasonable response to the beauty
and enormity of the universe to believe that it could not have
happened without a divine hand. But the proper place to discuss such
belief is not the public schools. Biology classes need to be taught
with sensitivity to the religious sensibilities of students but not
by casting doubt on evolution.
Evolution is a reality, no matter how much people may object to it.
And denying or downplaying its importance to any serious examination
of the biological sciences ill serves students who may wish to know
how bacteria become resistant to drugs, how birds and dinosaurs are
related, or why dolphins and sharks share certain morphological
traits. How people reconcile their religious convictions with
scientific reality is a matter for places of worship, not for science
classrooms -- or state boards that set standards.
-- The Washington Post
--
Martin Weiss, Ph.D
Vice President, Science
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111 th Street
Corona, New York 11368
718 699 0005 x 356
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