Dispatches from the Creation Wars

Why Shouldn’t ID Be Taught in Public Schools?

Posted by Ed Brayton on January 23, 2005
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From Bruce Gordon, former Discovery Institute Fellow:

Design theory has had considerable difficulty gaining a hearing in academic contexts, as evidenced most recently by the the Polanyi Center affair at Baylor University. One of the principle reasons for this resistance and controversy is not far to seek: design-theoretic research has been hijacked as part of a larger cultural and political movement. In particular, the theory has been prematurely drawn into discussions of public science education where it has no business making an appearance without broad recognition from the scientific community that it is making a worthwhile contribution to our understanding of the natural world.

And from Paul Nelson, Discovery Institute Fellow, in the July/August 2004 issue of Touchstone magazine:

“Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We don’t have such a theory right now, and that’s a problem. Without a theory, it’s very hard to know where to direct your research focus. Right now, we’ve got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as ‘irreducible complexity’ and ‘specified complexity’-but, as yet, no general theory of biological design.”

Any questions?

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Comments

  1. #1 Ed Darrell
    January 23, 2005

    Um, yeah — do you have citations for those quotes that we can put into our amicus briefs?

  2. #2 Ed Brayton
    January 23, 2005

    Ed-

    Yes, I do. The first one I’ve been citing for quite some time. You can find the entire Gordon article here. The Nelson quote has the citation attached, but it is not available online. Barbara Forrest has the original of it and supplied that quote and citation to me.

  3. #3 RBH
    January 23, 2005

    Neoson said something similar to that at Dartmouth in 2003:

    “However, responding to a question after the lecture, Nelson said that he opposed the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.

    “‘It isn’t a fully-fledged theory — there isn’t yet enough there to actually teach,’ Nelson said.’

    http://www.thedartmouth.com/article.php?aid=2003022101040

    RBH

  4. #4 Ed Darrell
    January 26, 2005

    I wanted to establish the record. The DI minions denied such statements had ever been made, at the Texas State Board of Education Hearings in 2003. Those hearings were in July and September. Nelson’s speech at Dartmouth was February.

    FYI.

  5. #5 Ed Brayton
    January 26, 2005

    I wanted to establish the record. The DI minions denied such statements had ever been made, at the Texas State Board of Education Hearings in 2003. Those hearings were in July and September. Nelson’s speech at Dartmouth was February.

    The DI people who testifed at those meetings denied that any of them had ever admitted that there was no ID theory yet to be taught? Is there a transcript of that testimony available anywhere? If there is, I’d sure love to have it.

  6. #6 Dave S.
    January 26, 2005

    The DI people who testifed at those meetings denied that any of them had ever admitted that there was no ID theory yet to be taught? Is there a transcript of that testimony available anywhere? If there is, I’d sure love to have it.

    Ed,

    A transcript for the 2004 meetings can be found here. The 2003 meetings referred to above can be found here. I did not have time to wade through the transcripts to find who said what.

  7. #7 Dave S.
    January 26, 2005

    Ooops, the links failed to materialize.

    The first ‘here’ should be linked to http://www.tea.state.tx.us/textbooks/adoptprocess/, whist the second ‘here’ to http://www.tea.state.tx.us/textbooks/archives/index.html