Science and Culture Today | Page 1190 | Discovering Design in Nature

Across the country legislation is moving forward that will protect teachers and students who want the freedom to discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory. February 12 used to be universally recognized as the birthday of Abraham Lincoln–a day celebrating freedom. Needing a patron saint, modern Darwin lobbyists have recently converted February 12 into “Darwin Day.” At this very time, U.S. Congress’s lone atheist is trying to honor Darwin’s birth by submitting a congressional resolution to get a government declaration that Darwin’s theory is “strongly supported,” and attacking the teaching of dissenting viewpoints. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating Darwin’s birthday–if that’s what you really want to do. But in recent years the advocacy of evolution has become Read More ›

As reported on ID the Future interview, Martin Gaskell’s attorney Frank Manion stated that during the course of Gaskell’s lawsuit, it became clear that Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), consulted University of Kentucky (UK) faculty about whether UK should hire Gaskell. She gave Gaskell a clean bill of health–not because she endorsed hiring Darwin-skeptics, but because at the time she believed Gaskell was a dyed-in-the-wool evolutionist–“accepting of evolution.” According to her e-mail, Eugenie Scott wrote: Gaskell hasn’t popped onto our radar as an antievolution activist. Checking his web site and affiliations (and also with a friend in Nebraska) it seems as if, as you already know, he is very religious, but accepting of Read More ›

A new paper in the journal Science reports results of a survey of how science teachers cover evolution. Titled “Defeating Creationism in the Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom,” the paper laments that more teachers aren’t pushing neo-Darwinian evolution in a dogmatic fashion, even attacking one teacher who dared to suggest, “Students should make up their own minds” on evolution. The survey forces teachers to fit into 1 of 3 categories: “Advocates of evolutionary biology,” “Advocates of creationism,” or “Advocate of neither.” According to the survey, 28% of teachers are “Advocates of evolutionary biology,” 13% are “Advocates of creationism,” and a full 60% are “Advocates of neither.” (These are the percentages reported in the survey–odd how they add up to Read More ›