March 17, 2002

Darwinian Struggle in Ohio

Creationists have gotten a lot of bad publicity since the Scopes trial brought the fight over teaching evolution into sharp relief in 1925. Nearly two years ago, Kansas voters threw out conservative members of the state Board of Education who had pushed through new science standards that eliminated biological evolution as an explanation of the emergence of one species from another. The nation has, over the years, come to wide agreement that public school science classes should teach science, not religion. But creationists have not given up. Now in Ohio, another batch of conservative board members is taking a different approach -- one that would leave evolution in the curriculum but insert the teaching of alternative explanations as well, particularly a theory known as "intelligent design."

Ohio's struggle over evolution grew out of a valuable attempt to develop new standards for what students need to learn from kindergarten through 12th grade. Groups of educators, scientists and others drafted science standards that reflected evolution's central place in biology. But when the standards came before the curriculum subcommittee of the state board, several members urged a rewrite that would present evolution as "an assumption" and include intelligent design as an alternative scientific explanation. By one newspaper's count, almost a third of the entire board wants Ohio students exposed to the intelligent-design idea.

To sidestep court decisions against teaching creationism in the public schools, adherents of intelligent design carefully shun any mention of God in their proposals. They simply argue that humans, animals and plants are far too diverse and complex to be explained by evolution and natural selection, so there must have been an intelligent designer behind it all. Whether that designer is God, an advanced civilization from another world or some other creative force is not specified.

But that is a disingenuous attempt to mask the true goal here, which many adherents acknowledge is to open the students' minds to the possibility of a divine creator, rather than leaving them with the soulless processes of evolution. Advocates of intelligent design claim that it is a scientific theory, not a religious concept, but they do not publish in the standard scientific literature and their work is not recognized by the leading scientific organizations.

Teaching students the mysteries of the universe letting them wrap their minds around unresolved questions is a good way to get them interested in science. But no theory that answers those questions by invoking the supernatural deserves a place in a public school science curriculum.

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They simply argue that humans, animals and plants are far too diverse and complex to be explained by evolution and natural selection, so there must have been an intelligent designer behind it all. Whether that designer is God, an advanced civilization from another world or some other creative force is not specified.

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They simply argue that humans, animals and plants are far too diverse and complex to be explained by evolution and natural selection, so there must have been an intelligent designer behind it all.

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Here's an arguement I use on other boards when told that life is too complex to have happened "accidentely": Given enough time, shit happens.

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To put it another way, screw them...

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LOL

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." -Buddha

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The whole Intelligent Design position is an Argument from Incredulity: "I can't imagine how evolution could have produced such-and-such; therefore, some unspecified intelligent agent must have produced it deliberately."

I just want to slap them. "Well, if you can't figure it out, you dimwit, either go out and do some actual science and figure it out, or find a job you're more suited to!"


-- Donnie B.

Brian: "No, no! You have to think for yourselves!" Crowd: "Yes! We have to think for ourselves!"

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