Nation

Discovery Institute has invited Dr. Francisco Ayala to debate the thesis of the book Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design with the book’s author, Dr. Stephen Meyer. Those who’ve been following the debate between Meyer and his critics know that there has been a bit of back and forth since Ayala was invited to critique SITC on the Biologos website. Meyer has responded this week, with the first of two parts on the Biologos site. Discovery Institute would like to initiate a full-fledged, official debate between the two, and so we have already sent the following invitation to Dr. Ayala. Dear Professor Ayala: I am writing to you in my capacity as the Director of Read More ›

The recent front page New York Times article on academic freedom legislation offers a stark reminder that the intelligentsia is very worried about the prospect of teachers gaining academic freedom, as a bill presently in the Kentucky legislature would allow, “to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner, including but not limited to the study of evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.” From 2008-2009, 12 academic freedom bills were submitted into state legislatures, including Florida, Alabama (2), South Carolina (2), Missouri (2), Michigan, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Iowa, and New Mexico. Now in 2010, there are 3 bills already, including bills in Kentucky, Missouri, and Mississippi. The Kentucky bill contains an excellent Read More ›

The nationwide effort to protect the freedom of teachers to hold balanced classroom discussions of evolution, global warming, and other scientific issues is highlighted on the front page of today’s New York Times. The article, “Darwin Foes Add Warming to Targets,” contains the usual errors and mischaracterizations one expects from the establishment media. But mischaracterizations or not, the article gets one thing right: It reveals how both the public and policymakers are increasingly dissatisfied with the scientific establishment’s attempt to misuse science to support various ideological agendas, whether it be Richard Dawkins’ scientific atheism or some global warming alarmists’ efforts to push us back to the Stone Age. People want genuine education about scientific topics, and that includes being able Read More ›

UPDATE: A sentence in the original post has been corrected to read: I stopped her right there and explained that we do not favor mandating the teaching of intelligent design — as is so often misreported — but rather that we think when evolution is taught teachers should present both the evidence the supports Darwinian evolution as well as some of the evidence that challenges it.

http://www.academicfreedompetition.comTomorrow The New York Times will publish an article about academic freedom bills being considered in a few states. We’ve obviously had some involvement: in 2008 we created the Academic Freedom Petition, which has sample language that legislators could adapt for use in their own states. That led to a very good piece of legislation, the Louisiana Science Education Act, that was finally signed into law last year.

Months ago NYT reporter Leslie Kaufman interviewed CSC associate director John West about academic freedom bills, our views on science education policy, and whether or not we were turning our focus to the global warming issue. As usual, West explained our longstanding science education policy position, which is: “As a matter of public policy, Discovery Institute opposes any effort require the teaching of intelligent design by school districts or state boards of education. Attempts to mandate teaching about intelligent design only politicize the theory and will hinder fair and open discussion of the merits of the theory among scholars and within the scientific community.” Bills that don’t follow this approach are not ones we’re likely to support. When they do, we’re glad to lend our seal of approval, for what it’s worth.

I greatly appreciate that Leslie had the integrity to call us today and verify the quote she wanted to use from West and to make sure it still reflected our general position. I spoke with her briefly and she told me she also planned to describe Discovery Institute as leading the movement to get intelligent design taught in science classes. I stopped her right there and explained that we do not favor mandating the teaching of intelligent design — as is so often misreported — but rather that we think when evolution is taught teachers should present both the evidence the supports Darwinian evolution as well as some of the evidence that challenges it. She said that was too long to fit in her story (in the New York Times, remember, where they promise to report “All the News That’s Fit to Print”; maybe letting people speak for themselves isn’t fit to print, we shall see). So I was encouraged when she read back to me a sentence that describes the Institute as endorsing the teaching of critiques of modern evolution. I agreed to that. Upon reflection I probably should have insisted on finding out how she plans to define both “critiques” and “evolution.” Again, we shall see what sort of meanings are implied and what perceptions readers are likely to take away from the story. I hope her context is as accurate as the sentence she read back.
She might just as well call it what it is, the teach the controversy approach. As I’ve explained it previously:

One of the reasons CSC has advocated for the teach the controversy approach is because it is a good way to teach critical thinking to students who all too often are not learning to analyze things and think critically about the arguments for and against.

Darwinian evolution is mostly taught as if it were a done deal, as if there were no unsolved problems, as if the theory had been proven. Such is not the case. Telling students about the debate amongst scientists over certain evidences for Darwin’s theory is not only necessary for good science, it is a pedagogically sound way of teaching a controversial subject.

See here for some other good reasons this is a good approach.
The important point of couse is

University of California evolutionary biologist John Avise has penned a book, Inside the Human Genome: A Case for Non-Intelligent Design, and gotten it published by a top academic publishing house, Oxford University Press. Avise, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, has for decades been a leading researcher in evolutionary and ecological genetics. He has written hundreds of research articles and over a dozen books. Clearly he has an impressive scientific mind.

Which makes it all the more astonishing that his new book shows all the intellectual savvy of a typical late-night college dormroom bull session. As his subtitle announces, Avise is anxious to show that, despite the claims of certain renegade biochemists, the molecular features of the human genome discovered by science in the recent past show no traces of intelligent design. They are chaotic, haphazard, a mess. Any designer with the smarts of at least, oh, say, John Avise, would have done a much better job.

Avise tries to steal three bases on a bunt. He claims that both [Darwinian] evolution and intelligent design can explain the functional parts of the genome, but only evolution can explain the dysfunctional parts (because a beneficent God would not have made those). So he points to what he deems to be poor design and, voila!, that proves the most intricate, functional molecular machines arose by random mutation and natural selection. No actual separate demonstration of that is thought necessary. In fact, Avise makes only the most cursory attempt to address the scientific argument for ID. His chapter 5 is in large part devoted to answering (after a fashion) my Darwin’s Black Box. Yet in the chapter Avise’s only attempt to explain one of my book’s examples of irreducible complexity is to cite Liu and Ochman’s (2007) dubious endeavor to tag all bacterial flagellar genes as descendants of one amazing prodigy gene. The rest of the chapter is pretty much hand waving.

Since the close of 2009, Access Research Network (ARN) has released its Top 10 Darwin and Design Science News Stories for 2009 and its Top 10 Media Stories for 2009 (covered recently on the ID the Future podcast — see part 1 and part 2). Now ARN has released its list of the top 10 ID resources for 2009. At the top of the list is Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design. Meyer was not the only Discovery Institute fellow to make ARN’s top 10 resource list. Michael Flannery’s innovative book, Alfred Russel Wallace’s Theory of Intelligent Evolution, and David Berlinski’s long-awaited The Deniable Darwin also made the list. But there were also Read More ›