"The evolution wars" in Time [Time Magazine's cover story]

National Center for Science Education ^ | 11 August 2005 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

The cover story of the August 15, 2005, issue of Time magazine is Claudia Wallis's "The evolution wars" -- the first cover story on the creationism/evolution controversy in a major national newsweekly in recent memory.

With "When Bush joined the fray last week, the question grew hotter: Is 'intelligent design' a real science? And should it be taught in schools?" as its subhead, the article, in the space of over 3000 words, reviews the current situation in detail. Highlights of the article include:

• A photomontage -- available only in the print edition -- on p. 26 and half of p. 27, with the elderly Darwin at the center, orbited by images of Pepper Hamilton's Eric Rothschild (a lead litigator in Kitzmiller v. Dover) brandishing a copy of Of Pandas and People, students in a biology classroom in Kansas, President Bush, the Cobb County disclaimer, and so forth.

• A comment from Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, on President Bush's remarks on "intelligent design": "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 ... If I were China, I'd be happy."

• A map, compiled from data provided by NCSE, showing antievolution proposals considered by state legislatures and boards of education since 2001 and antievolution proposals considered by local schools or panels in 2005. As members of NCSE and regular visitors to its website will have guessed, the map is crowded.

• A pair of definitions from Kenneth Miller and Joseph Levine's Biology textbook on the one hand and Percival Davis and Dean Kenyon's Of Pandas and People on the other hand. According to the latter, "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact."

• A brief history of the development of creationist tactics from the Scopes era to the post-Edwards era, under the heading "A subtler assault," which quotes NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott as quipping, "You have to hand it to the creationists. They have evolved."

• A paragraph explaining the significance of state science standards as a new venue for creationists. NCSE's Glenn Branch told Time, "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."

• A recognition of the disparity between President Bush's seeming endorsement of teaching "intelligent design" and the Discovery Institute's recent distancing of itself from such proposals, with Connie Morris (a conservative Republican on the Kansas state board of education), and Senator Rick Santorum seeming "to be reading from the same script."

• A section in which scientists -- primarily the Oxford zoologist and popular expositor Richard Dawkins, as well as the Harvard mathematician and evolutionary biologist Martin Nowak -- castigate "intelligent design" as resting on misconceptions and mischaracterizations of bology.

• A pithy diagnosis of the "teach the controversy" strategy by David Thomas, the president of New Mexicans for Science and Reason: "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."

• A sidebar asking four prominent figures -- the National Human Genome Research Institute's Francis Collins, Harvard's Steven Pinker, the Discovery Institute's Michael Behe, and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's Albert Mohler -- "Can you believe in God and evolution?"

While Wallis's article is inevitably not as scientifically detailed as, for example, H. Allen Orr's recent article in The New Yorker, or as politically astute as, for example, Chris Mooney's recent article in The American Prospect, overall it accomplishes the important goal of informing the general reader that antievolutionism -- whether it takes the form of creation science, "intelligent design," or calls to "teach the controversy" -- is scientifically unwarranted, pedagogically irresponsible, and constitutionally problematic.

[js1138]

I would suggest you find a good link or book on the Scientific Method.

Books on scientific method are, at best, just descriptions of what scientists do. At worst, they are just philosophers' wet dreams. Scientists in general never consult philosophers about what they should be doing.

Science does not seek truth. It seeks knowledge. There is a difference. Knowledge is always incomplete and tentative. Knowledge has the attributes of utility and degrees of confidence, but never has certainty and logical perfection.

[js1138]

Astrology is nothing compared to the true doctrine of Scientology. Imagine how nuts Tom Cruise would be without the assistance of his auditors.

Actually, someone has imagined this, and made a movie about it.

Bowfinger.

[js1138]

Maybe you can explain the difference between "reasonable conjecture" and "theories that attempt to explain existing evidence."

OK, here goes. A reasonable conjecture is one that suggests further research to find confirming or contracicting evidence. Any conjecture that does not have within it the suggestion of possible disconfirming evidence is not part of science.

Theories are, in general, conjectures that are rich in detail and which have withstood many years of inquiry.

Regarding astrology, to the extent that it attempts to make predictions, the predictions are wrong. For the most part, what passes for astrology in newspaper colums is just randomly sorted platitudes that apply equally to everyone.

[narby]

Fester I see you're still equating evolution with astrology.

You have such a way of presenting things that justify some people's erroneous preconceptions that it's amazing.

Anyway, the concept that one's birthday is related to their personality or "luck" is just ridiculous. The evidence of fraternal twins should easily demonstrate the falicy of astrology.

Science in no way supports astrology. Why you equate the two is a mystery. Except that it is a handy rhetorical tool for you to bash your demon, evolution, without any real argument in hand.

[VadeRetro]

Most of us don't have to worry; we aren't purple. Although I have no idea what the subtraction of a gall bladder does to one's hue.

Didn't notice much color change but my wallet got a lot lighter.

[VadeRetro]

Science in no way supports astrology. Why you equate the two is a mystery.

When reaching for dung to fling, any old dung will do.

[Coyoteman]

Seems to me that in keeping with multiculturalism, if KS Board of Education decided to include Creationism as an alternative to Evolution they will be Required by Law to equally represent the other major religions as well.

I would not go so far as to insist on every American Indian creation myth, or other rare and esoteric religions, but one can logically find in a court of law that failure to equally represent say, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist and Shinto would be "unconstitutional"...

That is one of the reasons I have been posting the creation stories! Very perceptive. But, why would the lesser ones be excluded? I'm partial to Old Man Coyote stories myself.

[RadioAstronomer]

WOW. I never really looked at what Scientology was teaching.

Bowfinger? Haven't seen it yet.

[RadioAstronomer]

Will be my turn next.

[js1138]

Perhaps you could go into Radio Astrolgy. I bet it pays better.

[Gumlegs]

Worked for Syndey Omar.

[RadioAstronomer]

Perhaps you could go into Radio Astrolgy. I bet it pays better.

LOL! I bet it would too. :-)

However, my morals would not let me fleece someone.

[RadioAstronomer]

LOL! Guess it did.

[Doctor Stochastic]

However, my morals would not let me fleece someone.

"If God didn't want them to be fleeced, He wouldn't have made them sheep." (attrib. Tuco Ramiriz)

[RadioAstronomer]

LOL!

[PatrickHenry]

[PatrickHenry]

More Tuco quotes:

"I like big fat men like you. When they fall they make more noise."
"When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk."
".. . you're the son of a thousand fathers, all bastards like you."

[Fester Chugabrew]

First you say the predictions of astrology are generally "wrong," then you say they are platitudes that could just as easily apply to anybody.

I do not consider astrology to be a strong science. It fails, by and large, to connect direct observation and testability with predictability. But I consider it to be science inasmuch as it is a body of "knowledge" collected over time.

Evolutionism, to the extent it attempts to reconstruct history, is not much different. The assumptions of evolutionism make for an easy way to construct platitutdes that could just as easily apply to any thing. It is apparent that evolutionism may be confusing common ancestry for common design.

It it no mystery that, if one takes the fundamental assumptions of evolutionism seriously, he will be able to interpret the evidence accordingly. The same goes for creationism. I don't think either one belongs in the science classroom per se, but I think both views are worthy of consideration and discussion.

I happen to be a young earth creationist. Although I do not have an exact figure and can only surmise from texts and evidence that have come my way, millions and billions of years are not necessary to explain what we see today. My understanding is based on what has been recorded in human language and reported through the generations that have preceded me. So far the manner and degree of order demonstrated by the universe leads me to agree with the biblical texts which declare it to be the subject and object of an almighty Creator.

If others want to come along and say this it not so, then I'll leave it for them to explain how order can come about apart from an intelligent agent. So far, as you know, I have hardly been convinced.

But again, this whole discussion, while it has a place, is outside of what science in the strict sense is all about.

[Fester Chugabrew]

. . . I see you're still equating evolution with astrology.

"Evolutionism" is the word I have been using. By that I mean the notion that all life is derivative of a common ancestor. I do NOT equate it with astrology in terms of certitude, but consider it to be similar because it takes inferences and declares them with certitude. At least astrology deals with a body of evidence currently operative and does not make claims about billions of years of unobserved, unrecorded history.

[js1138]

I suppose if you consider astrology to be a body of knowledge, that pretty much says it all.

There are popular writings about evolution that indeed sound circular in their reasoning. I will grant you that. But there are also dreadfully written articles and books about physics and mathematics.

And religion.

If you wish to score points by picking apart straw men, go for it.