Teach the Controversy
Encyclopedia : T : TE : TEA : Teach the Controversy
Discovery InstituteSteven C. Meyer:"Forget intelligent design, they argued, with its theological implications. Just require teachers to discuss evidence that refutes Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, as well as what supports it." They called it "teach the controversy," and that's become the institute's rallying cry as a leader in the latest efforts to raise doubts about Darwin in school. [Does Seattle group "teach controversy" or contribute to it?] Linda Shaw. The Seattle Times, March 31, 2005. and other intelligent design (ID) advocates. The campaign is intended to undermine the teaching of evolution "Some bills seek to discredit evolution by emphasizing so-called "flaws" in the theory of evolution or "disagreements" within the scientific community. Others insist that teachers have absolute freedom within their classrooms and cannot be disciplined for teaching non-scientific "alternatives" to evolution. A number of bills require that students be taught to "critically analyze" evolution or to understand "the controversy." But there is no significant controversy within the scientific community about the validity of the theory of evolution. The current controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution is not a scientific one." [AAAS Statement on the Teaching of Evolution] American Association for the Advancement of Science. February 16, 2006 while promoting intelligent design,"ID's home base is the Center for Science and Culture at Seattle's conservative Discovery Institute. Meyer directs the center; former Reagan adviser Bruce Chapman heads the larger institute, with input from the Christian supply-sider and former American Spectator owner George Gilder (also a Discovery senior fellow). From this perch, the ID crowd has pushed a "teach the controversy" approach to evolution that closely influenced the Ohio State Board of Education's recently proposed science standards, which would require students to learn how scientists "continue to investigate and critically analyze" aspects of Darwin's theory." Chris Mooney. The American Prospect. December 2, 2002 [Survival of the Slickest: How anti-evolutionists are mutating their message][Teaching Intelligent Design: What Happened When?] by William A. Dembski"The clarion call of the intelligent design movement is to "teach the controversy." There is a very real controversy centering on how properly to account for biological complexity (cf. the ongoing events in Kansas), and it is a scientific controversy."Nick Matzke's analysis shows how teaching the controversy using the Critical Analysis of Evolution model lesson plan is a means of teaching all the intelligent design arguments without using the intelligent design label.[No one here but us Critical Analysis-ists...] Nick Matzke. The Panda's Thumb, July 11 2006 and to advance an education policy for US public schools that introduces creationist explanations for the origin of life to public-school science curricula."has the effect of implicitly bolstering alternative religious theories of origin by suggesting that evolution is a problematic theory even in the field of science." . . . The effect of Defendants’ actions in adopting the curriculum change was to impose a religious view of biological origins into the biology course, in violation of the Establishment Clause. "ID’s backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID." Teach the Controversy proponents portray evolution as a "theory in crisis" with scientists criticizing evolution and that "fairness" and "equal time" requires educating students about the controversy. Opponents, comprised of the majority of the scientific community and science education organizations,See: 1) List of scientific societies rejecting intelligent design 2) . The Discovery Institute's [Dissent From Darwin Petition] has been signed by about 500 scientists. The AAAS, the largest association of scientists in the U.S., has 120,000 members, and [firmly rejects intelligent design and denies that there is a legitimate scientific controversy]. More than 70,000 Australian scientists and educators [condemn teaching of intelligent design in school science classes]. [List of statements from scientific professional organizations] on the status intelligent design and other forms of creationism. reply that any controversial aspects of evolution are a matter of religion and politics, not science. "Some bills seek to discredit evolution by emphasizing so-called "flaws" in the theory of evolution or "disagreements" within the scientific community. Others insist that teachers have absolute freedom within their classrooms and cannot be disciplined for teaching non-scientific "alternatives" to evolution. A number of bills require that students be taught to "critically analyze" evolution or to understand "the controversy." But there is no significant controversy within the scientific community about the validity of the theory of evolution. The current controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution is not a scientific one." [AAAS Statement on the Teaching of Evolution] American Association for the Advancement of Science. February 16, 2006 "That this controversy is one largely manufactured by the proponents of creationism and intelligent design may not matter, and as long as the controversy is taught in classes on current affairs, politics, or religion, and not in science classes, neither scientists nor citizens should be concerned." [Intelligent Judging — Evolution in the Classroom and the Courtroom] George J. Annas, New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 354:2277-2281 May 25, 2006
Intelligent design "holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."Discovery Institute, Center for Science and Culture. Questions about Intelligent Design: What is the theory of intelligent design? "The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. "[Questions About Intelligent Design] Both the intelligent design movement (IDM) and the Teach the Controversy campaign are largely directed and funded by the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tankPatricia O’Connell Killen, a religion professor at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma whose work centers around the regional religious identity of the Pacific Northwest, recently wrote that "religiously inspired think tanks such as the conservative evangelical Discovery Institute" are part of the "religious landscape" of that area. [link] based in Seattle, Washington, USA. The overall goal of the movement is to "defeat [the] materialist world view" represented by the theory of evolution in favor of "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions".The [Wedge Document] (PDF file), a 1999 Discovery Institute fundraising pamphlet. Cited in Handley P. [Evolution or design debate heats up.] The Times of Oman, 7 March 2005.
In December 2005 a United States federal court ruled that a public school district requirement for science classes to teach that intelligent design is an alternative to evolution was a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005), United States District Judge John E. Jones III also ruled that "ID’s backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny, which we have now determined that it cannot withstand, by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the IDM is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID."
Origin of phrase
The term "teach the controversy" originated with Gerald Graff, a professor of English and education at the University of Illinois in Chicago["To Debate or Not to Debate Intelligent Design?"] by Gerald Graff, Inside Higher Ed, September 28, 2005., as an admonition to teach that established knowledge is not simply given as a settled matter, but that it is created in a crucible of debate and controversy. To the chagrin of Graff, who describes himself as a liberal secularist,[To Debate or Not to Debate Intelligent Design?] By Gerald Graff, Inside Higher Ed, September 28, 2005. the idea was later appropriated by Phillip E. Johnson, Discovery Institute program advisor and father of the ID movement. Discussing the 1999-2000 Kansas State Board of Education controversy over the teaching of intelligent design in public school classrooms, Johnson wrote "What educators in Kansas and elsewhere should be doing is to "teach the controversy." In his book Johnson proposed casting the conflicting points of view and agendas as a scholarly controversy. Johnson's usage differs somewhat from Graff's original concept. While Graff advocated that a comprehensive understanding of what are considered to be "established" concepts must include teaching the debates and conflicts by which they were established, Johnson appropriated the concept to cast doubt upon the very concept of established knowledge.
The phrase was picked up by other Discovery Institute affiliates Stephen C. Meyer, David K. DeWolf, and Mark E. DeForrest in their 1999 article, Teaching the Controversy: Darwinism, Design and the Public School Science Curriculum [Teaching the Controversy: Darwinism, Design and the Public School Science Curriculum] David K. DeWolf, Stephen C. Meyer, Mark E. DeForrest. Foundation for Thought and Ethics, October 1, 1999 published by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics. The Foundation for Thought and Ethics also publishes the controversial pro-intelligent design biology textbook Of Pandas and People, suggested as an alternative to mainstream science and biology textbooks in the Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plans proposed by Teach the Controversy proponents.
Overview
The Discovery Institute's strategy has been for DI itself or groups acting on its behalf to lobby state and local boards of education, and local, state and federal policymakers to enact policies and/or laws, often in the form of textbook disclaimers and the language of state science standards, that undermine or remove evolutionary theory from the public school science classroom by portraying it as "controversial" and "in crisis;" a portayal that is contradicted by the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community that there is no controversy, that evolution is one of the best supported theories in all of science, and that whatever controversy does exist is political and religious, not scientific.[Turn out the lights, the "Teach the controversy" party’s over]Such controversies as do exist concern the details of the mechanisms of evolution, not the validity of the over-arching theory of evolution, which is one of the best supported theories in all of science. See: National Academy of Sciences, 1999 [Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition] Additionally, the Teach the Controversy strategy, which is consistent with the Wedge strategy, has included 'stacking' municipal, county and state school boards with intelligent design proponents.[Creationism in 2001: A State-by-State Report] People For the American Way. (PDF file)
As the is the primary organizer and promoter of the Teach the Controversy campaign, the Discovery Institute has played a central role in nearly all intelligent design cases, often working behind the scenes to orchestrate, underwrite and support local campaigns and intelligent design groups such as the Intelligent Design Network.[Intelligent Design Network.org] It has provided support ranging from material assistance to federal, state and regionally elected representatives in the drafting of bills to the provision of support and advice to individual parents confronting their school boards. DI's goal is to move from battles over standards to curriculum writing and textbook adoption while undermining the central positions of evolution in biology and methodological naturalism in science. In order to make their propals more palatable, the Institute and its supporters claim to advocate presenting evidence both for and against evolution, thus encouraging students to evaluate the evidence.
Though Teach the Controversy is presented by its proponents as encouraging academic freedom, it, along with the Santorum Amendment, is viewed by many academics as a threat to academic freedom[Intelligent Design: Teach the Controversy?] Dann P. Siems, Assistant Professor Biology & Integrative Studies, Bemidji State University and is rejected by the National Science Teachers Association[NSTA Position Statement: The Teaching of Evolution] , and the American Association for the Advancement of Science "Some bills seek to discredit evolution by emphasizing so-called "flaws" in the theory of evolution or "disagreements" within the scientific community. Others insist that teachers have absolute freedom within their classrooms and cannot be disciplined for teaching non-scientific “alternatives” to evolution. A number of bills require that students be taught to "critically analyze" evolution or to understand "the controversy." But there is no significant controversy within the scientific community about the validity of the theory of evolution. The current controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution is not a scientific one." [AAAS Statement on the Teaching of Evolution] American Association for the Advancement of Science. February 16, 2006 The American Society for Clinical Investigation's Journal of Clinical Investigation describes the Teach the Controversy strategy and campaign as a "hoax" and that "the controversy is manufactured."[Defending science education against intelligent design: a call to action] American Society for Clinical Investigation, Journal of Clinical Investigation. 116:1134-1138 (2006)
Shift in strategy: teaching intelligent design to teaching the controversy
Prior to the September 2005 start of the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, prominent intelligent design proponents, gradually shifted to a "Teach the Controversy" strategy. They had realised that mandates requiring the teaching of intelligent design were unlikely to survive challenges based on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and that an unfavorable ruling having the effect of legally ruling intelligent design a form of religious creationism.
Thus, the Discovery Institute repositioned itself. It publicly abandoned advocating for any policies or laws that required the teaching of intelligent design in favor of a Teach the Controversy strategy."In a country in which more than 50 percent of adults consistently tell pollsters that they believe God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years, however, there will undoubtedly be a fourth wave that will feature yet another strategy to promote creationism by questioning evolution. It looks as if this next wave will jettison the creationist and intelligent-design baggage and concentrate exclusively on a "teach the controversy" strategy." [Intelligent Judging — Evolution in the Classroom and the Courtroom] George J. Annas, New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 354:2277-2281 May 25, 2006 DI reasoned that once the "fact" that a controversy indeed exists had been established in the public's mind, then the reintroduction of intelligent design into public school criteria would be much less controversial later.[Show Me The Science] Daniel C. Dennett. New York Times.
The best illustration of this shift in strategy is comparing the Discovery Institute's guidebook Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curricula which concludes "school boards have the authority to permit, and even encourage, teaching about design theory as an alternative to Darwinian evolution"[Intelligent Design in Public School Science Curricula: A Legal Guidebook] David K. DeWolf, Stephen C. Meyer, Mark E. DeForrest 1999, Foundation for Thought and Ethics. to recent statements by Phillip E. Johnson, stating his intent was never to use public school education as the forum for his ideas and that he hoped to ignite and perpetuate a debate in universities and among the higher echelon of scientific thinkers.[Father of intelligent design] by Kim Minugh, Sacramento Bee, May 11, 2006
With the December 2005 ruling in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, wherein Judge John E. Jones III concluded that intelligent design is not science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents" (pages 136-138) , intelligent design proponents were left with the Teach the Controversy strategy as the most likely method left to realize the goals stated in the wedge document. Thus, the Teach the Controversy strategy has become the primary thrust of the Discovery Institute in promoting its aims. Just as intelligent design is a stalking horse for the campaign against what its proponents claim is a materialist foundation in science that precludes God, Teach the Controversy has become a stalking horse for intelligent design. But the Dover ruling also characterized "teaching the controversy" as part of a religious ploy."has the effect of implicitly bolstering alternative religious theories of origin by suggesting that evolution is a problematic theory even in the field of science." . . . The effect of Defendants’ actions in adopting the curriculum change was to impose a religious view of biological origins into the biology course, in violation of the Establishment Clause.
By May 2006 the Discovery Institute, in a carefully calculated move, sought to broaden the faltering "teach the controversy" strategy to include examples of other supposed legitimate scientific controversies. In Ohio and Michigan where school boards are again reviewing science curricula standards the Discovery Institute and its allies proposed lesson plans that included global warming, cloning and stem cell research as further examples of controversies that are akin to the alleged scientific controversy over evolution. All four topics are widely accepted by the majority of the scientific community as legitimate science. Members of the scientific community have responded to this tactic by pointing out that like evolution whatever controversy may exist over cloning and stem cell research has been largely social and political, while dissident viewpoints over global warming are often viewed as pseudoscience.[Ohio: Here We Go Again] Richard B. Hoppe. The Panda's Thumb. July 6, 2006[ID Legislation in Michigan] Ed Brayton. Dispatches from the Culture Wars, June 7, 2006 Richard B. Hoppe, holder of a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Minnesota, described the tactic in the following way:
The burden of responding to the well-organized curricular challenges of intelligent design proponents has been disruptive and divisive in the effected communities. In pursuing the goal of establishing intelligent design at the expense of evolution in public school science, intelligent design groups have threatened and isolated high school science teachers, school board members and parents who opposed their efforts.[Testimony, Aralene Callahan] Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District September 27, 2005[Testimony, Julie Smith] Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District September 28, 2005[Defending science education against intelligent design: a call to action] Journal of Clinical Investigation 116:1134-1138 (2006). American Society for Clinical Investigation."Moreover, Board members and teachers opposing the curriculum change and its implementation have been confronted directly. First, Casey Brown testified that following her opposition to the curriculum change on October 18, 2004, Buckingham called her an atheist and Bonsell told her that she would go to hell."In July 2006 a moderator of the blog of intelligent design proponent William A. Dembski, uncommondescent.com, endorsed bullying the children of the plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial and committing vandalism to drive them out of town and that he intends to publish their names on the Web to that end.[link][link][link][link] The campaigns run by intelligent design groups place teachers in the difficult position of arguing against their employers while the legal challenges to local school districts are costly, diverting funding away from education and into court battles. For example, as a result of Dover trial, the Dover Area School District was forced to pay $1,000,011 in legal fees and damages for pursuing a policy of teaching the controversy.[Dover gets a million-dollar bill] Christina Kauffman. The York Dispatch, February 22, 2006
Four days after the six-week Dover trial concluded, all eight of the Dover school board members who were up for reelection were voted out of office. Pat Robertson told the citizens of Dover, "If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city." Robertson said if they have future problems in Dover, "I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them." [Robertson: PA Voters Rejected God] CBS News, November 11 2005
Critics, like Wesley R. Elsberry, say the Discovery Institute has cynically manufactured much of the political and religious controversy to further its agenda, pointing to statements of prominent proponents like Johnson:
According to published reports, the nonprofit Discovery Institute received grants and gifts totaling $4.1 million for 2003 from 22 foundations. Of these, two-thirds had primarily religious missions.[Intelligent design group is just a religious front] by Fred Barton, Lansing State Journal. September 11, 2005 The institute spends more than $1 million a year for research, polls, lobbying and media pieces that support intelligent design and their Teach the Controversy campaign[Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens] By Peter Slevin Washington Post, March 14, 2005 and is employing the same Washington, D.C. public relations firm that promoted the Contract with America.
[Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive] By Jodi Wilgoren, New York Times, August 21, 2005
The Discovery Institute aggressively promotes its Teach the Controversy campaign and intelligent design to the public, education officials and public policymakers. Its efforts are largely aimed at conservative Christian policymakers, where it is cast as a counterbalance to the liberal influences of "atheistic scientists" and "Dogmatic Darwinists." As a measure of their success in this effort, on 1 August 2005, during a round-table interview with reporters from five Texas newspapers, President Bush said that he believes schools should discuss intelligent design alongside evolution when teaching students about the origin of life. Bush, a conservative Christian, declined to go into detail on his personal views of the origin of life, but advocated the Teach the Controversy approach - "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought... you're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes." Christian conservatives, a substantial part of Bush's voting base, have been central in promoting the Teach the Controversy campaign.
In some state battles, the ties of Teach the Controversy and intelligent design proponents to the Discovery Institute's political and social activities have been made public resulting in their efforts being temporarily thwarted. The Discovery Institute takes the view that all publicity is good and that no defeat is real. The Institute has shown a willingness to back off, even to not advocate for the inclusion of ID, to ensure that all science teachers are required to portray evolution as a "theory in crisis." The Institute's strategy is to move, relentlessly, from standards battles, to curriculum writing, to textbook adoption, and back again doing whatever it takes to undermine the central position of evolution in biology. Critics of this strategy and the movement contend that the intelligent design controversy diverts much time, effort and tax money away from the actual education of children.
The Intelligent Design movement, which began in the early 1990s, is an organized campaign promoting a religious agenda that calls for broad social, academic and political changes. These changes center around increasing the role of intelligent design in the public sphere, primarily in the United States. The overall goal of the movement is "to defeat materialism" and the "materialist world view" as represented by evolution, and replace it with "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."[The Discovery Institute's website][Christian Science Trial exposes intelligent design as the religion it is] Ronald Bailey. Reason magaizine, December 23 2005The movement's hub is the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture (CSC). The CSC counts the leading ID advocates and authors among its fellows or officers, including the movement's founder Phillip E. Johnson, Michael Behe, William A. Dembski, Stephen C. Meyer and Jonathan Wells.
The movement consists primarily of a public relations campaign meant to sway the opinion of the public and that of the popular media, and an aggressive lobbying campaign, directed at policymakers and the educational community, which seeks to undermine public support for teaching evolution while cultivating support for what the movement terms "intelligent design theory." Its near-term goal is greatly undermining or eliminating altogether the teaching of evolution in public school science, and with the long-term goal of "renewing" American culture by shaping public policy to reflect conservative Christian values. Intelligent design is central and necessary for this agenda as described by the Discovery Institute: "Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
The ID movement grew out of a creationist tradition that argues against evolutionary theory from a religious (usually Evangelical Christian and Fundamentalist Christian) standpoint, and the 1987 US Supreme Court decision Edwards v. Aguillard which prohibits the teaching of creationism in public school science classrooms. Although ID advocates often claim that they are only arguing for the existence of a "designer," who may or may not be God, all the leading advocates do believe that the designer is God, and frequently accompany their allegedly scientific arguments with discussion of religious issues, especially when addressing religious audiences. In front of other audiences, they downplay the religious aspects of their agenda.
The Wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute. Informally known as the "Wedge Document," it was a fund raising tool used by the Discovery Institute to raise money for its subsidiary, the Center for Science and Culture, (then at the time called the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC)), which was charged with promoting DI's science and education agenda. As stated in the Wedge Document,[Wedge Document] Discovery Institute (PDF file) the strategy is designed to defeat "Darwinism" and to promote an idea of science "consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." The ultimate goal of the Wedge strategy is to "renew" American culture by shaping public policy to reflect conservative Christian values.
The strategy outlines a public relations campaign, of which teaching the controversy is part, meant to sway the opinion of the public, popular media, charitable funding agencies, and the scientific community in order that they should effect an "overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies". Wedge advocates have stated they hope to reinstate a "broadly theistic understanding of nature" to replace materialism. Phillip Johnson, the architect of the strategy, invokes the metaphor of a wood-splitting wedge to illustrate his goal of splitting apart the concepts of science and naturalism. A fundamental part of the Wedge strategy is the rejection of naturalism as unnecessary to science. Though the alternative to naturalism is supernaturalism, ID proponents avoid this word when speaking to mainstream audiences, substituting euphemisms like "non-natural" or skirting the issue altogether. Critics of the campaign characterize this as a semantic subterfuge made in the hope that it will enable ID proponents to skirt the First Amendment prohibition against promoting religion in public schools.
According to critics of the intelligent design movement, the Wedge document, more than any other document issued by the Discovery Institute, betrays the Institute's and intelligent design's political rather than scientific purpose.
Prominent evolutionary biologists such as Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne have proposed various 'controversies' that are worth teaching, instead of intelligent design.[One side can be wrong] The Guardian. September 1 2005. Dawkins compares teaching intelligent design in schools to teaching flat earthism: perfectly fine in a history class but not in science. "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."[The Evolution Wars] Claudia Wallis. TIME magazine. August 15 2005.
Tufts philosopher Daniel C. Dennett, author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea, describes how they generate a sense of controversy: "The proponents of intelligent design use an ingenious ploy that works something like this: First you misuse or misdescribe some scientist's work. Then you get an angry rebuttal. Then, instead of dealing forthrightly with the charges leveled, you cite the rebuttal as evidence that there is a 'controversy' to teach." Such a controversy is then self-fulfilling and self-sustaining, though completely without any legitimate basis in the academic world.
Critics of the Teach the Controversy movement and strategy can also be found outside of the scientific community. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State described the approach of the movement's proponents as "a disarming subterfuge designed to undermine solid evidence that all living things share a common ancestry."
"The movement is a veneer over a certain theological message. Every one of these groups is now actively engaged in trying to undercut sound science education by criticizing evolution," said Lynn. "It is all based on their religious ideology. Even the people who don't specifically mention religion are hard-pressed with a straight face to say who the intelligent designer is if it's not God."[Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens] Peter Slevin. Washington Post, March 14 2005.
Critics also allege that the Discovery Institute has a long-standing record of misrepresenting research, law and its own policy and agenda and that of others:
Given the history of the Discovery Institute as an organization committed to opposing any scientific theory inconsistent with "the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God",[The "Wedge Document": So What?] Discovery Insitute. many scientists regard the movement purely as a ploy to insert creationism into the science curriculum rather than as a serious attempt to discuss scientific evidence. In the words of Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Education:
Writes Johnson in the foreward to Creation, Evolution, & Modern Science (2000) "The Intelligent Design movement starts with the recognition that "In the beginning was the Word," and "In the beginning God created." Establishing that point isn't enough, but it is absolutely essential to the rest of the gospel message." Johnson admits that intelligent design arguments are carefully formulated in secular terms and intentionally avoid positing the identity of the designer and that cultivating ambiguity by employing secular language in arguments which are carefully crafted to avoid overtones of theistic creationism is a necessary first step for ultimately reintroducing the Christian concept of God as the designer. "...The first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion. ...This is not to say that the biblical issues are unimportant; the point is rather that the time to address them will be after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact."[The Wedge Breaking the Modernist Monopoly on Science] Phillip E. Johnson. ARN.org. This bolsters the claims of those critics who cite Johnson's admission that the ultimate goal of the campaign is getting "the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools."
Amidst this political and religious controversy the clear, categorical and oft-repeated advice of established national and international scientific organizations remains that there is no scientific controversy over teaching evolution in public schools.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
With the Dover ruling describing "teach the controversy" as part of the same religious ploy as presenting intelligent design as an alternative to evolution, intelligent design proponents have moved to a fallback position, teaching what they call the Critical Analysis of Evolution.[Critical Analysis of Evolution is Not the Same as Teaching Intelligent Design] Casey Luskin. Intelligent Design The Future, July 11 2006. The Critical Analysis of Evolution strategy is viewed by Nick Matzke and other intelligent design critics as a means of teaching all the intelligent design arguments without using the intelligent design label.[No one here but us Critical Analysis-ists...] Nick Matzke. The Panda's Thumb, July 11 2006 Critical Analysis of Evolution continues the themes of the teach the controversy strategy, emphasizing what they say are the "criticisms" of evolutionary theory and "arguments against evolution," which continues to be portrayed as "a theory in crisis."
To the absence of actual scientific controversy over the validity of evolutionary theory, Johnson said:
And to the resistance of science educators over portraying evolution as controversial or disputed, Johnson said:
Elsberry and others allege that statements like Johnson's are proof that the alleged scientific controversy intelligent design proponents seek to have taught is a product of the institute's members and staff.Political action
Political battles involving the Discovery Institute
Origin of the campaign
Intelligent design movement
The Wedge strategy
Criticisms
The theory of evolution is accepted by the vast majority of biologists and by the scientific community in general (in such overwhelming numbers that some claim the theory of evolution to be a scientific consensus). Over 70 scientific societies, institutions and other professional groups representing tens of thousands individual scientists have issued policy statements supporting evolution education and opposing intelligent design. Such controversies as do exist concern the details of the mechanisms of evolution, not the validity of the over-arching theory of evolution. In the absence of an actual professional controversy between groups of experts on evolution, critics say intelligent design proponents have merely renamed the conflict that already existed between biologists and creationists, and that the controversy to which intelligent design proponents refer is political in nature and thus, by definition, outside of the realm of science and scientific educational curricula. Critics contend that intelligent design proponents ignore this point by continuing to make the claim of a "scientific controversy."
For example the National Association of Biology Teachers in a statement endorsing evolution as noncontroversial quoted Theodosius Dobzhansky "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." and went on to state that the quote "accurately reflects the central, unifying role of evolution in biology. The theory of evolution provides a framework that explains both the history of life and the ongoing adaptation of organisms to environmental challenges and changes." They emphasized that "Scientists have firmly established evolution as an important natural process" and that "The selection of topics covered in a biology curriculum should accurately reflect the principles of biological science. Teaching biology in an effective and scientifically honest manner requires that evolution be taught in a standards-based instructional framework with effective classroom discussions and laboratory experiences."[Statement on Teaching Evolution] National Association of Biology Teachers, 2004..The Discovery Institute
According to critics of the Discovery Institute's efforts through the Teach the Controversy campaign and the intelligent design movement, the Wedge strategy betrays the Institute's political rather than scientific and educational purpose. The Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture (CSC) has an overarching conservative Christian social and political agenda that seeks to redefine both law and science and how they are conducted, with the stated goal of a religious "renewal" of American culture.
Though Teach the Controversy proponents cite the current public policy statements of the Discovery Institute as belying the criticisms that their strategy is a creationist ploy and decry critics as biased in failing to recognize that the intelligent design movement's Teach the Controversy strategy as really just a question of science with no religion involved, is itself belied by Discovery Institute's former published policy statements,[What is The Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture All About?]
[The Mission of The Center for Renewal of Science & Culture] its "Wedge Document", and statements made to its constituency by its leadership, and in particular Phillip E. Johnson. See also
External links
Con
Neutral
Pro
Audio and video
References
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.