Dover's Darwin
Charles Darwin's most recent judicial challenge began last week in Dover Pennsylvania. It's nothing new. Darwin's litigation history goes back to the Scopes trial in 1925 and includes two US Supreme Court rulings that strongly support the status of the Theory of Evolution as the prevailing theory on the origins of life and, more importantly, declare creation theories to be purely sectarian concepts and therefor not fit for government support via public education under the 1st amendment.
The new attack in Dover rests on an idea called "Intelligent Design" ("ID"). It's a simple idea, really. It states, in short, that aspects of evolution theory are too complicated to have happened through natural selection and random mutation and are therefor attributable only to an "Intelligent Designer", which any Intelligent Reader can only interpret as being " God".
While there have indeed been several pseudo-science papers and books published in support of Intelligent Design, none of these have held up under peer review, or stood up under the scrutiny of the standard practices of scientific validation. It's optimistic to call scientific support for ID anemic.
Darwin's Theory of Evolution, in contrast, has been tested and refined continuously for over 140 years. Although research continues to investigate the exact mechanisms of evolution, biologists are virtually unanimous in believing that all life evolved from a single common ancestor over billions of years. That evolution occurred is as much of a ' fact' as anything we think we know can be.
It's clear then that ID can not stand on equal terms with evolution in a science classroom. Although unlikely, ID proponents may one day elevate their hypothosis to the standards of scientific theory. But until then, every rational observer must agree that a 9th grade science class is not an appropriate venue for the testing and evaluation of new ideas about such weighty subjects as the very origin of life.
So why is the ID movement fighting so hard to gain a foothold in public education? Having been unable to gain ground in the science world they now seek to make converts out of impressionable children. They are so fervent in their spiritual beliefs that they'd sooner see Noah's Ark float on the flooded wreckage of hundreds of years of science than to even acknowledge the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting evolution.
The ID movement is, quite simply, using children as pawns in their game of politics. ID followers like to picture their 'Designer' as being moral and just, and yet their tactics hardly seem worthy of such an image.
The new attack in Dover rests on an idea called "Intelligent Design" ("ID"). It's a simple idea, really. It states, in short, that aspects of evolution theory are too complicated to have happened through natural selection and random mutation and are therefor attributable only to an "Intelligent Designer", which any Intelligent Reader can only interpret as being " God".
While there have indeed been several pseudo-science papers and books published in support of Intelligent Design, none of these have held up under peer review, or stood up under the scrutiny of the standard practices of scientific validation. It's optimistic to call scientific support for ID anemic.
Darwin's Theory of Evolution, in contrast, has been tested and refined continuously for over 140 years. Although research continues to investigate the exact mechanisms of evolution, biologists are virtually unanimous in believing that all life evolved from a single common ancestor over billions of years. That evolution occurred is as much of a ' fact' as anything we think we know can be.
It's clear then that ID can not stand on equal terms with evolution in a science classroom. Although unlikely, ID proponents may one day elevate their hypothosis to the standards of scientific theory. But until then, every rational observer must agree that a 9th grade science class is not an appropriate venue for the testing and evaluation of new ideas about such weighty subjects as the very origin of life.
So why is the ID movement fighting so hard to gain a foothold in public education? Having been unable to gain ground in the science world they now seek to make converts out of impressionable children. They are so fervent in their spiritual beliefs that they'd sooner see Noah's Ark float on the flooded wreckage of hundreds of years of science than to even acknowledge the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting evolution.
The ID movement is, quite simply, using children as pawns in their game of politics. ID followers like to picture their 'Designer' as being moral and just, and yet their tactics hardly seem worthy of such an image.
posted by Chris at 13:31
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