After toiling in obscurity for nearly a decade, the institute's Center for Science and Culture has emerged in recent months as the ideological and strategic backbone behind the eruption of skirmishes over science in school districts and state capitals across the country. Pushing a "teach the controversy" approach to evolution, the institute has in many ways transformed the debate into an issue of academic freedom rather than a confrontation between biology and religion.
Mainstream scientists reject the notion that any controversy over evolution even exists. But Mr. Bush embraced the institute's talking points by suggesting that alternative theories and criticism should be included in biology curriculums "so people can understand what the debate is about."
Financed by some of the same Christian conservatives who helped Mr. Bush win the White House, the organization's intellectual core is a scattered group of scholars who for nearly a decade have explored the unorthodox explanation of life's origins known as intelligent design
In any other political climate, these people would be known as crack pots who are pushing a pseudo-scientific answer to the theory of evolution. But in today's climate they are scientists posing an important alternative to a theory that has been postulated over and over again. Oh right, Intelligent Design can't be tested through regular tests; a designer acted. How can you test faith? Sorry,then it's not science, and can't be taught in public schools.
Here's something by Carl Zimmer that refutes Intelligent Design
It describes how the Institute has spent $3.6 million dollars to support fellowships that include scientific research in areas such as "laboratory or field research in biology, paleontology or biophysics."
So what has that investment yielded, scientifically speaking? I'm not talking about the number of appearances on cable TV news or on the op-ed page, but about scientific achievement. I'm talking about how many papers have appeared in peer-reviewed biology journals, their quality, and their usefulness to other scientists. Peer review isn't perfect--some bad papers get through, and some good papers may get rejected--but every major idea in modern biology has met the challenge.
It's pretty easy to get a sense of this by perusing two of the biggest publically available databases, PubMed (from the National Library of Medicine) and Science Direct (from the publishing giant Reed Elsevier)....Look for the topics that have won people Nobel Prizes--the structure of DNA, the genes that govern animal development, and the like--and you quickly come up with hundreds or thousands of papers.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - ABE
"We Jews... tend to get a bit crazed when The First Amendment is under attack; and Intelligent Design is just another attack on it."
Intelligent Jews don't attack intelligent design.
Only crazed Jews do that.
And Intelligent Design has nothing to do with the First Amendment.
Intelligent Jews want to learn more about any theory.
2 - billy
here we go again. i have no problem learning about intelligent design, except it isnt a theory.
it is a rather simplistic philosophy that explains evrything to an invisible and undetectable "designer"
the cause of everything cant be tested so there is no theory and certainly no basis to discuss it in science class.
3 - ABE
Why don't elephants spew venom and why don't cobras have trunks?
Answer that billy, and I'll ask several hundred million more questions.
I'm sure you can answer each one of them.
"evolution" doesn't begin to answer these questions.
4 - The Bastard
Evolution doesn't begin to answer these questions?
If that's that case neither does intelligent design. Why? Because there is absolutely not one single ounce of credibal research to back up intelligent design. Just the bible.
And I'm confused, in the Bible there are actually two stories on how this world came about, which one is true? Answer me that and I'll let you teach intelligent design in public schools!
5 - ABE
Evolution doesn't begin to answer these questions?
"If that's that case neither does intelligent design"
Good. We are making progress.
But Intelligent Design doesn't rely on the Bible.
Why do opponents of ID have to rely on kicking the Bible around to avoid addressing intelligent questions?
6 - The Bastard
Intelligent questions? What exactly is an intelligent question? Is it "no question is a dumb question" or is it "how many quarters make up a dollar?"
And in case anyone is wondering why an elephant has a trunk and why shakes have venom really should pick up a science book instead of copping out and saying I don't have to learn this stuff because it was all made by God.
One last question, if you believe in intelligent design than you would have to believe in martians, right?
Stop making excuses and learn something!
Because Intelligent Design states that something "out there" made us with a purpose. So God is a martian, right?
But that would contradict what you believe and that is that human life is the only life in the universe.
7 - billy
Answer that billy, and I'll ask several hundred million more questions.
how would you asking me absurd questions detached from reality, raise id to the level of a theory?
8 - pia savage
let me simply state that if Intelligent Design could be quantified and studied as evolution has been, I might think it acceptable to teach in public schools.
But it hasn't been, and so I can't accept it.
Thought about the crazed Jew remark and I have to thank Abe. I come from a long line of crazed Jews.
Yes intelligent Jews want to learn any theory that has substance; any intelligent person does of any race, ethnic and and/or religious group.
I was stating that William Safire and I tend not to agree on most issues, but usually do on First Amendment issues, and Intelligent Design is a First Amendment issue. I wouldn't want any kid I know to be taught it as equal to Evolution, or even less than.
Let me repeat this because I have learned to: William Safire (once Nixon's numero uno speech writer) and I tend not to agree on issues other than First Amendment ones.
Intelligent Design is most certainly a First Amendment issue
9 - ABE
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Intelligent Design is most certainly a First Amendment issue.
How so?
10 - ABE
Comment 8 posted by pia savage
"let me simply state that if Intelligent Design could be quantified and studied as evolution has been, I might think it acceptable to teach in public schools."
Evoluton is being questioned by Intelligent Design.
And with sufficient cause.
Why is it being turned into something else?
11 - Victor Plenty
"Intelligent design" is theology, not science.
12 - ABE
Intelligent Design is questioning the "theory" of evolution.
If you have no questions -- you are being satisfied by a "theory" full of holes.
You can't see the holes -- but many can.
13 - Victor Plenty
Gaps in science require more science to fill them. Not theology dishonestly masquerading as science.
14 - ABE
What theology?
15 - ABE
Why don't elephants spew venom and why don't cobras have trunks?
This is not theology.
"evolution" doesn't begin to answer these questions.
16 - Victor Plenty
Every question you pose has one answer: "God made it that way." Clearly, ABE, this is the only reason you believe "intelligent design" has something more to say on the matter than evolutionary biology does.
This makes all of your questions theological questions, not scientific questions.
Intelligent design is a perfectly adequate subject for theology students to learn. It has no place in any biology class.
17 - ABE
Intelligent design is a way to allow students to question the current "theory" in a biology class.
What you appear to fear is students understanding the holes in what is presently being taught.
No one is suggesting that we that teach "God made it that way."
18 - Victor Plenty
You fear students learning to think for themselves, without turning to the self-appointed authority of a religious leader to learn the answers to every perplexing question.
If you put "intelligent design" into biology classes, "God made it that way" is exactly what you are teaching the students. The phrase has no other meaningful interpretation.
Science is a method for investigating the universe without the theological disputes which have always muddied the inquiry into reality in the past.
19 - ABE
You are connecting points that have not been made here,
I can see why you are content with the current “theory.”
20 - Victor Plenty
Hmm. What have I overlooked? Perhaps you really believe the "intelligent designer" behind the current state of affairs in the universe wasn't God after all, but was actually Cooter from the old television series The Dukes of Hazzard.
Actually that might explain a lot. Who else but Crazy Cooter could come up with the platypus and call it an intelligent design?
No, your claim that "intelligent design" has nothing to do with theology is far more of a strain to any credibility you might have had than any of the so-called holes you imagine you have found in the science of evolutionary biology.
21 - ABE
the·ol·o·gy
“the study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions. A course of specialized religious study usually at a college or seminary
A system or school of opinions concerning God and religious questions”
___
No one is proposing that biology include “the study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions” or any of the rest of “theology“.
Intelligent Design is “the study of the nature of evolution and scientific findings; rational inquiry into questions dealing with the holes and gaps in the “theory” of evolution.
22 - Victor Plenty
Oooh, argument by dictionary definition. Sign of the amateur debater every time.
Tell us, ABE, what are your answers to these questions you have posed about cobra trunks and elephant venom?
Surely your scientific analysis must have come up with something really good by now, being so intelligent and everything.
23 - ABE
I resort to the dictionary only when it is necessary to educate someone.
24 - Victor Plenty
Oh! I am slain by your rapier wit! You want to educate me, why don't you answer my question about who the Intelligent Designer really is, if you want us to believe it's not God you're talking about here?
Or answer your own questions about why cobras and elephants are the way they are. Share your vast scientific knowledge with us.
Go ahead. Educate us.
25 - ABE
That is what I have been trying to do without success.