Missing the Mark

Glenn Branch and Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education authored an article that recently appeared in the Perspective column of the San Jose Mercury News, and was posted on February 15, 2004. I penned a response to the Mercury News, but am not aware that they plan to publish it any time soon. No particular conspiracy theory here, they just told me that they don’t normally publish responses to the Perspective column. Furthermore, they assured me they were confident that the NCSE article represented a balanced treatment of the issue. Ah, the innocence . . .

To be fair, I am happy to acknowledge that the Perspective article was toned down considerably from much of the material put out by the NCSE. In addition, I happen to agree with Branch and Scott that Georgia should continue to teach about evolution. But that the Perspective article represents an accurate or balanced treatment of intelligent design challenges credulity.

In any event, here is the response I sent to the Mercury News:

Missing the Mark

The Oakland-based National Center for Science Education, which, according to its website, is dedicated to “defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools,” fired another salvo in the ongoing evolution debate in a recent Perspective column entitled “Assaults on Evolution have Evolved as Well.” Glenn Branch and Dr. Eugenie Scott of the NCSE appropriately denounce the recent faux pas by Kathy Cox, Georgia state superintendent of schools, who proposed eliminating the word “evolution” from the state science standards, but later backed down under a storm of criticism.

Unfortunately, Branch and Scott also use the opportunity to take a swipe at intelligent design, not because intelligent design was responsible for the recent flap in Georgia, but because intelligent design represents the most formidable challenge to traditional evolutionary theory, which the NCSE is dedicated to defending.

Despite having been involved in the debate for some time, Branch and Scott either have not read much regarding intelligent design or have misunderstood what they have read. Despite the NCSE’s caricature, intelligent design is not a negative argument along the lines of “Gee, life is too complex to understand, and therefore God must have done it.” Rather, intelligent design follows a positive line of scientific reasoning: (1) it is possible to identify that some things are intelligently designed, (2) certain biological systems exhibit these characteristics of design, and (3) therefore the most likely explanation (what is technically known as the “inference to the best explanation”) is that such biological systems were intelligently designed.

I have yet to see Branch or Scott address intelligent design’s straightforward thesis from a scientific perspective. Rather, the tactic seems to be to portray intelligent design proponents as “a new breed of creationists” and then create the impression that intelligent design is thus an impermissible line of inquiry in the public schools. Despite the impression created by Branch and Scott, however, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Edwards vs. Aguillard certainly does not prohibit the teaching of either intelligent design or other scientific challenges to traditional evolutionary theory in the schools.

It is noteworthy that many proponents of intelligent design have also strongly critiqued the recent events in Georgia. Rob Crowther, spokesman for the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank supportive of intelligent design, denounced superintendent Cox’s proposal in the following terms: “This is just absurd. Georgia needs to teach more about evolution, not less.”

Thus, while both intelligent design proponents and the NCSE want evolution taught in the public schools, there is an important difference. Intelligent design proponents would like students to delve deeply into the topic of evolution and learn to critically analyze the evidence, being exposed to evidence both for and against. In contrast, Branch and Scott are content that “evolution receives reasonably good treatment in every secular high school biology textbook on the market.” In other words, we should thus stick with the status quo of ‘Darwin was right’ without deeply analyzing any of the scientific controversies surrounding evolution.

That smacks more of indoctrination than quality education.

Eric Anderson

February 25, 2004