The Evolution Wars
When Bush joined the
fray last week,
the question grew
hotter: Is "intelligent design"
a real science?
And should it be taught in schools?
By CLAUDIA WALLIS,
time.com from the Web, August 11, 2005
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DARWIN, BUSH- AP |
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Sometime in the late fall, unless a
federal court intervenes, ninth-graders at the public high school in rural
Dover, Pa., will witness an unusual scene in biology class. The
superintendent of schools, Richard Nilsen, will enter the classroom to read a
three-paragraph statement mandated by the local school board as a cautionary
preamble to the study of evolution. It reads, in part:
Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is
discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for
which there is no evidence ... Intelligent design is an explanation of the
origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book Of
Pandas and People is available for students to see if they would like to explore
this view ... As is true with any theory, students are encouraged to keep
an open mind.
After that one-minute reading, the superintendent will probably depart without
any discussion, and a lesson in evolutionary biology will begin.
That kind of scene, brief and benign though it might seem, strikes horror into
the hearts of scientists and science teachers across the U.S., not to mention
plenty of civil libertarians. Darwin's venerable theory is widely regarded
as one of the best-supported ideas in science, the only explanation for the
diversity of life on Earth, grounded in decades of study and objective evidence.
But Dover's disclaimer on Darwin would appear to get a passing grade from the
man who considers himself America's education President. In a
question-and-answer session with Texas newspaper reporters at the White House
last week, George W. Bush weighed in on the issue. He expressed support
for the idea of combining lessons in evolution with a discussion of "intelligent
design" -- the proposition that some aspects of living things are best explained
by an intelligent cause or agent, as opposed to natural selection. It is a
subtler way of finding God's fingerprints in nature than traditional
creationism. "Both sides ought to be properly taught," said the President,
who appeared to choose his words with care, "so people can understand what the
debate is about ... I think that part of education is to expose people to
different schools of thought."
On its surface, the President's position seems supremely fair-minded: What
could possibly be wrong with presenting more than one point of view on a topic
that divides so many Americans? But to biologists, it smacks of faith-based
science. And that is provocative not only because it rekindles a turf
battle that goes all the way back to the Middle Ages but also because it comes
at a time when U.S. science is perceived as being under fresh assault
politically and competitively. Just last week, developments ranging from
flaws in the space program to South Korea's rapid advances in the field of
cloning were cited as examples that the U.S. is losing its edge. Bush's
comments on intelligent design were the No. 1 topic for bloggers for days
afterward. "It sends a signal to other countries because they're rushing
to gain scientific and technological leadership while we're getting distracted
with a pseudoscience issue," warned Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the
55,000-member National Science Teachers Association in Arlington, Va. "If
I were China, I'd be happy."
As far as many Americans are concerned, however, the President was probably
preaching to the choir. In a Harris poll conducted in June, 55% of 1,000
adults surveyed said children should be taught creationism and intelligent
design along with evolution in public schools. The same poll found that
54% did not believe humans had developed from an earlier species -- up from 45%
with that view in 1994--although other polls have not detected this rise.
Around the U.S., the prevalence of such beliefs and the growing organization and
clout of the intelligent-design movement are beginning to alter the way that
most fundamental tenets of biology are presented in public schools. New
laws that in some sense challenge the teaching of evolution are pending or have
been considered in 20 states, including such traditionally liberal bastions as
Michigan and New York. This week in Kansas, a conservative-leaning state
board of education is expected to accept a draft of new science standards that
emphasize the theoretical nature of evolution and require students to learn
about "significant debates" about the theory. The proposed rules, which
won't be put to a final vote until fall, would also alter the state's basic
definition of science. While current Kansas standards describe science as
"the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the
world," the rewritten definition leaves the door open, critics say, for the
supernatural as well.
A SUBTLER ASSAULT
Darwin's theory has been a hard sell to Americans ever since it was unveiled
nearly 150 years ago in The Origin of Species. The intelligent-design
movement is just the latest and most sophisticated attempt to discredit the
famous theory, which many Americans believe leaves insufficient room for the
influence of God. Early efforts to thwart Darwin were pretty crude.
Tennessee famously banned the teaching of evolution and convicted schoolteacher
John Scopes of violating that ban in the "monkey trial" of 1925. At the
time, two other states -- Florida and Oklahoma -- had laws that interfered with
teaching evolution. When such laws were struck down by a Supreme Court
decision in 1968, some states shifted gears and instead required that "creation
science" be taught alongside evolution. Supreme Court rulings in 1982 and
1987 put an end to that. Offering creationism in public schools, even as a
side dish to evolution, the high court held, violated the First Amendment's
separation of church and state.
But some anti-Darwinists seized upon Justice Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinion
in the 1987 case. Christian fundamentalists, he wrote, "are quite
entitled, as a secular matter, to have whatever scientific evidence there may be
against evolution presented in their schools." That line of argument -- an
emphasis on weaknesses and gaps in evolution -- is at the heart of the
intelligent-design movement, which has as its motto "Teach the controversy."
"You have to hand it to the creationists. They have evolved," jokes
Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education
in Oakland, Calif., which monitors attacks on the teaching of evolution.
HOLES IN DARWIN?
Since the 1987 decision, a devoted band of mostly religious Christians,
including hundreds of scientists, engineers, theologians and philosophers, has
written papers and books, contributed to symposiums on the perceived problems
with Darwin's theory. The headquarters for such thinking is the Center for
Science and Culture at a nonpartisan but generally conservative think tank
called the Discovery Institute, founded in Seattle in 1990.
What exactly is their critique of Darwin? Much of it revolves around the
appealing idea that living things are simply too exquisitely complex to have
evolved by a combination of chance mutations and natural selection. The
dean of that school of thought is Lehigh University biologist and Discovery
Institute senior fellow Michael Behe, author of the 1996 book Darwin's Black
Box, a seminal work on intelligent design. Behe's main argument points to
the fact that living organisms contain such ingenious structures as the eye and
systems like the mechanism for clotting blood, which involves at least 20
interacting proteins. He calls such phenomena "irreducibly complex"
because removing or altering any part invalidates the whole. Behe claims
they could not have arisen through the gradual fits and starts of evolution,
which, he says, "has been oversold to the public." Although his writing is
couched in the language of science, Behe, a practicing Catholic who home schools
his nine children, believes the hand of the designer is self-evident.
"That's why most people disbelieve Darwinian evolution," he says. "People
go out and look at the trees and say, 'Nah.'"
Other arguments in this new brand of anti-Darwinism focus on missing pieces in
the fossil record, particularly the Cambrian period, when there was an explosion
of novel species. Still other advocates, including mathematician,
philosopher and theologian William Dembski, who is heading up a new center for
intelligent design at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, use the mathematics
of probability to try to show that chance mutations and natural selection cannot
account for nature's complexity. In contrast to earlier opponents to
Darwin, many proponents of intelligent design accept some role for evolution --
heresy to some creationists. They are also careful not to bring God into
the discussion (another sore point for hard-line creationists), preferring to
keep primarily to the language of science. This may also help them avoid
the legal and political pitfalls of teaching creationism.
The Discovery Institute and its scientists have been actively involved in many
of the recent skirmishes over evolution at local school-board meetings and in
state legislatures. In Ohio, for instance, the institute sent
representatives to the state board of education meetings last year to push for
science standards that would support teaching critiques of evolution. "All
we're advocating for is that if a teacher wants to bring up the scientific
debate over design, they should be allowed to do that," says institute spokesman
John West. In fact, Ohio modified its standards to say that evolution
should be critically analyzed, which West regards as a victory.
Statewide curriculum standards for science are a relatively new target for
Darwin doubters, one that has a broader impact than local school-board
decisions. In addition, by working at the state level, intelligent-design
advocates can largely avoid dealing with unpolished local activists who make
rash religious statements that don't hold up in court. (Supporters of the
Darwin disclaimer in Dover, Pa., have publicly proclaimed the country a
Christian nation, a point cited in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit.)
It has been only since the late 1980s and early '90s that most states have
created science-curriculum standards as part of a national movement to bring
more accountability to education. "Savvy creationists are focusing their
efforts on this relatively new arena," says Glenn Branch of the National Center
for Science Education. "The decision-making bodies involved in approving
state science standards tend to be small, not particularly knowledgeable and,
above all, elected, so it's a good opportunity for political pressure to be
applied."
In Kansas, conservative members of the state school board, like Connie Morris,
who represents the sparsely populated western half of Kansas, have repeatedly
injected scientifically abstruse, jargon-heavy documents from the Discovery
Institute into the debate about teaching evolution, making the discussion tough
for the average citizen to follow. "Personally, I believe in the Genesis
account of God's creation," says Morris. "But as a policymaker looking at
science standards, I rely mostly on research and expert documentation."
Oddly enough, the President's remarks last week promoting intelligent design
made Morris and many other Darwin doubters uncomfortable because they have a
different timetable in mind. "His support is appreciated, but I plan to
move forward on attempting to get criticism of Darwinian evolution in the
science standards, not intelligent design," says Morris. Pennsylvania
Senator Rick Santorum, a leading voice on the religious right, seemed to be
reading from the same script. "What we should be teaching are the problems
and holes in the theory of evolution," he said in an interview with National
Public Radio a few days after Bush made his comments. Santorum also said,
"As far as intelligent design is concerned, I really don't believe it has risen
to the level of a scientific theory at this point that we would want to teach it
alongside of evolution." The Senator tried to get a teach-the-controversy
addendum into the 2001 No Child Left Behind bill.
Even scientists who believe in intelligent design do not feel it is ready for
prime time. Many would prefer to move forward gradually, building their
case, in order to avoid a backlash. "It's premature for all kinds of
reasons," says oceanographer Edward Peltzer, a senior researcher at the Monterey
Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California. "The science is there, but
the science textbooks are not. The teachers have to be trained. Its
time will come. But its time is not now." The emphasis for now is on
dissing Darwinism, which opens the door to other explanations without
specifically invoking an intelligent creator. Many advocates of
intelligent design complain that Darwinism has become a kind of faith in itself.
"There's religion on both sides," insists David Keller, a chemistry professor at
the University of New Mexico, who taught a seminar on problems with evolution at
an anti-Darwin forum in Greenville, S.C., last week.
BIOLOGISTS ASK, WHAT HOLES?
Many scientists have been reluctant to engage in a debate with advocates of
intelligent design because to do so would legitimize the claim that there's a
meaningful debate about evolution. "I'm concerned about implying that
there is some sort of scientific argument going on. There's not," says
noted British biologist Richard Dawkins, professor of the public understanding
of science at Oxford University, whose most recent book about evolution is The
Ancestor's Tale. He and other scientists say advocates of intelligent
design do not play by the rules of science. They do not publish papers in
peer-reviewed journals, and their hypothesis cannot be tested by research and
the study of evidence. Indeed, Behe concedes, "You can't prove intelligent
design by an experiment." Dawkins compares the idea of teaching
intelligent-design theory with teaching flat earthism -- perfectly fine in a
history class but not in science. He says, "If you give the idea that
there are two schools of thought within science -- one that says the earth is
round and one that says the earth is flat -- you are misleading children."
But the strategy of disengagement may be backfiring on those who care about
teaching evolution. When scientists and science teachers boycotted the
discussion of biology standards at a Kansas school-board meeting last May, they
left the floor wide open to critics of evolution, who won the day. "Are
they wilting young maids that can't stand the heat of a hearing?" asks
Washington attorney Edward Sisson, who was a co-counsel for the 23 academics who
testified on the anti-Darwin side.
Scientists say it is, in fact, easy to gainsay the intelligent-design folks.
Take Behe's argument about complexity, for example. "Evolution by natural
selection is a brilliant answer to the riddle of complexity because it is not a
theory of chance," explains Dawkins. "It is a theory of gradual,
incremental change over millions of years, which starts with something very
simple and works up along slow, gradual gradients to greater complexity.
Not only is it a brilliant solution to the riddle of complexity; it is the only
solution that has ever been proposed." To attribute nature's complexity to
an intelligent designer merely removes the origin of complexity to the unseen
designer. "Who designs the designer?" asks Dawkins.
As for gaps in the fossil record, Dawkins says, that is like detectives
complaining that they can't account for every minute of a crime -- a very
ancient one -- based on what they found at the scene. "You have to make
inferences from footprints and other types of evidence." As it happens, he
notes, there is a huge amount of evidence of evolution not only in the fossil
record but also in the letters of the genetic code shared in varying degrees by
all species. "The pattern," says Dawkins, "is precisely what you would
expect if evolution would happen." Dawkins insists that critics of Darwin
are wrong to say that evolution has become an article of faith among scientists.
He cites biologist J.B.S. Haldane who, when asked what would disprove evolution,
replied, fossil rabbits in the Precambrian era, a period more than 540 million
years ago, when life on Earth seems to have consisted largely of bacteria, algae
and plankton. "Creationists are fond of saying that there are very few
fossils in the Precambrian, but why would there be?" asks Dawkins.
"However, if there was a single hippo or rabbit in the Precambrian, that would
completely blow evolution out of the water. None have ever been found."
Mathematical arguments against evolution are equally misguided, says Martin
Nowak, a Harvard professor of mathematics and evolutionary biology. "You cannot
calculate the probability that an eye came about," he says. "We don't have
the information to make this calculation." Nowak, who describes himself as
a person of faith, sees no contradiction between Darwin's theory and belief in
God. "Science does not produce any evidence against God," he observes.
"Science and religion ask different questions."
WHAT SHALL BE TAUGHT?
But for those who read Genesis literally and believe that God created the world
along with all creatures big and small in just six days, there's no reconciling
faith with Darwinism. And polls indicate that approximately 45% of
Americans believe that. It's no wonder that almost one-third of the 1,050
teachers who responded to a National Science Teachers Association online survey
in March said they had felt pressured by parents and students to include lessons
on intelligent design, creationism or other nonscientific alternatives to
evolution in their science classes; 30% noted that they felt pressured to omit
evolution or evolution-related topics from their curriculum.
But some science teachers voluntarily take alternative theories to class.
Eric Schweain has been teaching high school biology in St. Louis, Mo., for a
decade. Although he follows the district's policy of teaching Darwin's
theory, he also talks about intelligent design, an idea he personally favors.
"I teach according to fossil evidence, though I make sure to tell students that
it's important to talk to family and friends and, if you go to a church, talk to
your clergy."
The standards movement in education has, overall, strengthened the teaching of
evolution, even as it has presented a new target for anti-Darwinists. In
2000, 10 states had no mention of evolution in their curriculum standards.
Now only Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi and Oklahoma -- states with long
creationist traditions -- make this omission. In June, Alaska's state
board of education was pressured by scientists, teachers and concerned citizens
to add evolution to science standards that had avoided the topic. Other
states, most notably Kansas and New Mexico, have wobbled on whether to teach
evolution, deleting and then restoring it to state standards depending on who
was elected to the school board. The Kansas reinstatement occurred after
the state was given an F- in a 2000 report by the Fordham Foundation, titled
"Good Science, Bad Science: Teaching Evolution in the States." Only
24 states earned an A or B for teaching the topic well. Kansas' flunking
grade was based on the fact that, at the time, it had not only cut Darwin from
the curriculum but had also deleted all references to the age of the earth and
universe. Now evolution is back in the Kansas curriculum, but a new, more
conservative board is seeking a teach-the-controversy requirement.
The new, presumably Constitution-proof way of providing coverage for communities
that wish to teach ideas like intelligent design is to employ such earnest
language as "critical inquiry" (in New Mexico), "strengths and weaknesses" of
theories (Texas), and "critical analysis" (Ohio). It's difficult to argue
against such benign language, but hard-core defenders of Darwin are wary.
"The intelligent-design people are trying to mislead people into thinking that
the reference to science as an ongoing critical inquiry permits them to teach
I.D. crap in the schools," says David Thomas, president of New Mexicans for
Science and Reason. On the other hand, tinkering in that way with the
standards won't necessarily weaken instruction on evolution. "Where you
have strong science programs now, they'll ignore the [state] standards," says
Bill Wagnon, a professor of history at Washburn University who represents Topeka
on the Kansas school board.
The new school year is certain to bring more battles over teaching evolution,
not only in Kansas and Pennsylvania but also in the many states that are
preparing new standards-based tests in science. By raising the profile of
intelligent design, the President has doubtless emboldened those who differ with
Darwin and furthered one goal of that movement: he has taught all of us
the controversy.
--With reporting by
Melissa August/ Washington, Jeremy Caplan/ New York, Jeff Chu and Constance E.
Richards/ Greenville, Rita Healy/ Denver, Christopher Maag/ Cleveland, Bud
Norman/ Wichita, Adam Pitluk/ Dallas, Jeffrey Ressner/ Los Angeles and Sean
Scully/ Philadelphia
Printed in the Aug.15, 2005 issue of Time.
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