Another anti-evolution law in the United States - the disease is spreading!

More insanity from the States.....yet again the nutters are trying to catch them early in schools and indoctrinate them in the madness of the Discovery Institute philosophy. The only real chance that they have of spreading this nonsensical irrationalist religious claptrap is if they try and stop people getting an education....so that's what they're trying to do.

Amazingly, the idea that Intelligent Design is actually a theory (rather than an embarassing joke) is starting to drip into the public consciousness, and it is getting frightening.

Here in HK, much of the heirarchy at HK University comes from the fundamentalist christian diaspora and despite world renowned evolutionary biology departments working on H5N1, students do not leave school with any understanding of evolution and consequently very few local students enter the department from the local school system.

I teach students who actually think there is evidence for ID and that the evidence for evolution is debatable!!!! These are nice students who have adults around them telling them lies, afraid that the whole basis for their belief system will crumble around them if they learn about one of the most clearly understood theories. This is almost criminal....certainly an intellectual crime. People actually exist who think we didn't evolve from other life forms..that we're somwhow special. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

The recent worldwide Darwin's Evolution week celebrating his life had to be renamed in HK to Darwin's Legacy as the Evolution title was considered by the 'Government' to be too controversial!!!!

Louisiana passes first antievolution "academic freedom" law

Louisiana passes first antievolution "academic freedom" law

By John Timmer | Published: June 27, 2008 - 02:13PM CT

As we noted last month, a number of states have been considering laws that, under the guise of "academic freedom," single out evolution for special criticism. Most of them haven't made it out of the state legislatures, and one that did was promptly vetoed. But the last of these bills under consideration, the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), was enacted by the signature of Governor Bobby Jindal yesterday. The bill would allow local school boards to approve supplemental classroom materials specifically for the critique of scientific theories, allowing poorly-informed board members to stick their communities with Dover-sized legal fees.
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The text of the LSEA suggests that it's intended to foster critical thinking, calling on the state Board of Education to "assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories." Unfortunately, it's remarkably selective in its suggestion of topics that need critical thinking, as it cites scientific subjects "including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

Oddly, the last item on the list is not the subject of any scientific theory; the remainder are notable for being topics that are the focus of frequent political controversies rather than scientific ones.
The opposition

The bill has been opposed by every scientific society that has voiced a position on it, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science. AAAS CEO Alan Leshner warned that the bill would "unleash an assault against scientific integrity, leaving students confused about science and unprepared to excel in a modern workforce."

Jindal, who was a biology major during his time at Brown University, even received a veto plea from his former genetics professor. "Without evolution, modern biology, including medicine and biotechnology, wouldn't make sense," Professor Arthur Landy wrote. "I hope he [Jindal] doesn't do anything that would hold back the next generation of Louisiana's doctors."
Louisiana

Lining up to promote the bill were a coalition of religious organizations and Seattle's pro-Intelligent Design think tank, the Discovery Institute. According to the Louisiana Science Coalition, Discovery fellows helped write the bill and arranged for testimony in its favor in the legislature. The bill itself plays directly into Discovery's strategy, freeing local schools to "use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner."

Discovery, conveniently, has made just such a supplemental text available. As we noted in our earlier analysis, Discovery hopes to use these bills as a way to push its own textbook into the classroom. Having now read the text of the book, it is clear that our earlier analysis was correct; the book badly misrepresents the scientific community's understanding of evolution in order to suggest that the basics of the theory are questioned by biologists. In doing so, it ignores many of the specific questions about evolution that are actively debated by scientists.

Courts in Pennsylvania and Georgia have both ruled that laws which single out evolution serve no secular purpose and are evidence of unconstitutional religious motivations. Those precedents, however, do not apply to Louisiana, and it's possible that the LSEA will either be ruled constitutional or remain in force for years before a court rejects it. That will leave the use of supplemental scientific material to be determined by local school boards in the intervening years and, if boards in Florida are viewed as evidence, they are likely to be spectacularly incapable of judging scientific issues.

As such, most observers are expecting the passage of the LSEA by the state to unleash a series of Dover-style cases, as various local boards attempt to discover the edges of what's constitutionally allowable. The AAAS' Leshner suggested that the bill's passage would "provoke an expensive, divisive legal fight." In vetoing similar legislation in Oklahoma, Governor Brad Henry suggested it would end up "subjecting them [school officials] to an explosion of costly and protracted litigation that would have to be defended at taxpayers' expense." In essence, Jindal is inviting local school boards to partake in that explosion without committing the state to paying the inevitable costs.

In the meantime, the students of the state will be subjected to an "anything goes" approach to science—if it looks scientific to a school board, it can appear in the classroom.

Ali G on Science, Creationism & Evolution

Kansas Outlaws Practice Of Evolution

Kansas Outlaws Practice Of Evolution

TOPEKA, KS—Any living being that undergoes genetic modification favoring survival could face jail time under the new law.

TOPEKA, KS—In response to a Nov. 7 referendum, Kansas lawmakers passed emergency legislation outlawing evolution, the highly controversial process responsible for the development and diversity of species and the continued survival of all life.

Lawmakers decried spontaneous genetic mutations.

"From now on, the streets, forests, plains, and rivers of Kansas will be safe from the godless practice of evolution, and species will be able to procreate without deviating from God's intended design," said Bob Bethell, a member of the state House of Representatives. "This is about protecting the integrity of all creation."

The sweeping new law prohibits all living beings within state borders from being born with random genetic mutations that could make them better suited to evade predators, secure a mate, or, adapt to a changing environment. In addition, it bars any sexual reproduction, battles for survival, or instances of pure happenstance that might lead, after several generations, to a more well-adapted species or subspecies.

Violators of the new law may face punishments that include jail time, stiff fines, and rehabilitative education and training to rid organisms suspected of evolutionary tendencies. Repeat offenders could face chemical sterilization.

To enforce the law, Kansas state police will be trained to investigate and apprehend organisms who exhibit suspected signs of evolutionary behavior, such as natural selection or speciation. Plans are underway to track and monitor DNA strands in every Kansan life form for even the slightest change in allele frequencies.

"Barn swallows that develop lighter, more streamlined builds to enable faster migration, for example, could live out the rest of their brief lives in prison," said Indiana University chemist and pro-intelligent-design author Robert Hellenbaum, who helped compose the language of the law. "And butterflies who mimic the wing patterns and colors of other butterflies for an adaptive advantage, well, their days of flouting God's will are over."



Human beings may be the species most deeply affected by the new legislation. Those whose cytochrome-c molecules vary less than 2 percent from those of chimpanzees will be in direct violation of the law.

Under particular scrutiny are single-cell microorganisms, with thousands of field labs being installed across the state to ensure that these self-replicating molecules, notorious for mutation, do not do so in a fashion benefitting their long-term survival.

Anti-evolutionists such as Hellenbaum have long accused microorganisms of popularizing "an otherwise obscure, agonizingly slow, and hard-to-understand" biological process. "These repeat offenders are at the root of the problem," Hellenbaum said. "We have the fossil records to prove it."

"No species is exempt," said Marcus Holloway, a state police spokesman. "Whether you're a human being or a fruit fly—if we detect one homologous chromosome trying to cross over during the process of meiosis, you will be punished to the full extent of the law."

Although the full impact of the new law will likely not be felt for approximately 10 million years, most Kansans say they are relieved that the ban went into effect this week, claiming that evolution may have gone too far already.

"If Earth's species were meant to change over successive generations through physical modifications resulting from the adaptation to environmental challenges, then God would have given them the genetic predisposition to select mates and reproduce based on their favorable heritable traits and their ability to thrive under changing conditions so that these advantageous qualities would be passed down and eventually encoded into the DNA of each generation of offspring," Olathe public school teacher and creationist Joyce Eckhardt said. "It's just not natural."

Some warn that the strict wording of the law could have a deleterious effect on Kansas' mostly agricultural economy, since it also prohibits all forms of man-made artificial selection, such as plant hybridization, genetic engineering, and animal husbandry. A police raid on an alleged artificial-insemination facility outside McPherson, KS on Friday resulted in the arrest of a farmer, a veterinarian, four assistants, one bull, and several dozen cows.

Agribusiness leaders, who rely on evolution science to genetically modify crops, have voiced concerns about doing business with Kansas farmers.

"If Kansans want to ban evolution, that is their right, but they must understand that we rely on a certain flexibility in the natural order of things to be able to deliver healthy food products to millions of Americans," said Carl Casale, a vice president with the agricultural giant Monsanto. "We're not talking about playing God here. We are talking about succeeding in the competitive veggie-burger market."

Horizon - War on Science

The theory of evolution is under attack from a controversial new idea called intelligent design. But is it science?


Background and summary of documentary.....

When Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution nearly 150 years ago, he shattered the dominant belief of his day – that humans were the product of divine creation. Through his observations of nature, Darwin proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection. This caused uproar. After all, if the story of creation could be doubted, so too could the existence of the creator. Ever since its proposal, this cornerstone of biology has sustained wave after wave of attack. Now some scientists fear it is facing the most formidable challenge yet: a controversial new theory called intelligent design.

In the late 1980s Phillip Johnson, a renowned lawyer and born-again Christian, began to develop a strategy to challenge Darwin. To Johnson, the evidence for natural selection was poor. He also believed that by explaining the world only through material processes was inherently atheistic. If there was a god, science would never be able to discover it.

Johnson recruited other Darwin doubters, including biochemist Professor Michael Behe, mathematician Dr William Dembski, and philosopher of science Dr Stephen Meyer. These scientists developed the theory of intelligent design (ID) which claims that certain features of the natural world are best explained as the result of an intelligent being. To him, the presence of miniature machines and digital information found in living cells are evidence of a supernatural creator. Throughout the 90s, the ID movement took to disseminating articles, books and DVDs and organising conferences all over the world.

To its supporters, intelligent design heralds a revolution in science and the movement is fast gaining political clout. Not only does it have the support of the President of the United States, it is on the verge of being introduced to science classes across the nation. However, its many critics, including Professor Richard Dawkins and Sir David Attenborough, fear that it cloaks a religious motive – to replace science with god.

Throughout the 20th century Christian groups resisted the theory of evolution. Many US states did not teach it until 1968 when the Supreme Court ruled that banning the teaching of evolution contravened the first amendment of the constitution of America, the separation of church and state. It was however still legal to teach religion as part of science class until the Edwards vs. Aguillard case in 1987, where mentioning a theory called 'creation science' in biology lessons was also deemed unconstitutional. This left evolution as the only theory of biological origin that science teachers were allowed to teach.
In 2005, the school board of Dover, a small farming community in western Pennsylvania, became the first in America to adopt the theory of intelligent design. The move divided the community and the small town became the centre of national attention. The school board voted to teach the ninth grade biology class that there are gaps and problems with the theory of evolution and to present intelligent design as an alternative.

Dover science teacher Bryan Rehm and his wife Christy believed that this new policy was not only anti-science, but religious and therefore unconstitutional. By promoting religion it was a violation of the law passed in 1987. The Rehms and nine other parents and teachers filed a law suit against the school board. Neighbour was pitted against neighbour in the first legal challenge to intelligent design.

After 40 days of trial, Judge John E Jones III ruled against the school board, stating: "We have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."

Evolution supporters heralded this victory as the damning blow to the intelligent design movement. However, as history shows, law suits have little effect on the support for creationism in a country where over 50% of citizens believe that God created humans in their present form, the way the bible describes it.*

Richard Dawkins - Not a trivial error.

Open Letter To Kansas School Board

Open Letter To Kansas School Board
I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.

Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.

Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.

I’m sure you now realize how important it is that your students are taught this alternate theory. It is absolutely imperative that they realize that observable evidence is at the discretion of a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Furthermore, it is disrespectful to teach our beliefs without wearing His chosen outfit, which of course is full pirate regalia. I cannot stress the importance of this enough, and unfortunately cannot describe in detail why this must be done as I fear this letter is already becoming too long. The concise explanation is that He becomes angry if we don’t.



You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.

In conclusion, thank you for taking the time to hear our views and beliefs. I hope I was able to convey the importance of teaching this theory to your students. We will of course be able to train the teachers in this alternate theory. I am eagerly awaiting your response, and hope dearly that no legal action will need to be taken. I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.

Sincerely Yours,

Bobby Henderson, concerned citizen.

P.S. I have included an artistic drawing of Him creating a mountain, trees, and a midget. Remember, we are all His creatures.

Intelligent design is a science, not a faith

If Darwinists distinguished between science and their religious beliefs, we'd all be wiser, says Richard Buggs

Tuesday January 9, 2007
The Guardian

'It is true that complex things in nature look as if they have been designed. Darwin knew this. But the sublime truth about his theory is that it explains how complex things can come about without design." That was James Randerson arguing that Darwin refuted intelligent design - which, he says, has no place in school science (Here endeth the lesson, December 13).

Darwin made a massive contribution to science, and his ideas still suggest hypotheses today. These provide the starting point for my own research, published in journals of evolution. But despite the brilliance of Darwin's work, it is overoptimistic to claim that his theory explains the origin of all living things.

If Darwin had known what we now know about molecular biology - gigabytes of coded information in DNA, cells rife with tiny machines, the highly specific structures of certain proteins - would he have found his own theory convincing? Randerson thinks that natural selection works fine to explain the origin of molecular machines. But the fact is that we are still unable even to guess Darwinian pathways for the origin of most complex biological structures.

Science has turned lots of corners since Darwin, and many of them have thrown up data quite unpredicted by his theory. Who, on Darwinian premises, would have expected that the patterns of distribution and abundance of species in tropical rainforests could be modelled without taking local adaptation into account? Or that whenever we sequence a new genome we find unique genes, unlike any found in other species? Or that bacteria gain pathogenicity (the ability to cause disease) by losing genes?

But, whatever the limitations of Darwinism, isn't the intelligent design alternative an "intellectual dead end"? No. If true, ID is a profound insight into the natural world and a motivator to scientific inquiry. The pioneers of modern science, who were convinced that nature is designed, consequently held that it could be understood by human intellects. This confidence helped to drive the scientific revolution. More recently, proponents of ID predicted that some "junk" DNA must have a function well before this view became mainstream among Darwinists.

But, according to Randerson, ID is not a science because "there is no evidence that could in principle disprove ID". Remind me, what is claimed of Darwinism? If, as an explanation for organised complexity, Darwinism had a more convincing evidential basis, then many of us would give up on ID.

Finally, Randerson claims that ID is "pure religion". In fact, ID is a logical inference, based on data gathered from the natural world, and hence it is firmly in the realm of science. It does not rely upon the Bible, the Qur'an, or any religious authority or tradition - only on scientific evidence. When a religious person advocates teaching ID in science without identification of the designer, there is no dishonesty or "Trojan horse", just realism about the limitations of the scientific method. If certain Darwinists also had the intellectual honesty to distinguish between science and their religious beliefs, the public understanding of science would be much enhanced.

· Richard Buggs sits on the scientific panel of Truth in Science richard.buggs@cantab.net
downsman

January 9, 2007 1:15 AM

Mr Buggs each of your conclusions is based on a simple error of reason.

Your final point [ID is not pure religion, but a logical inference] fails to complete the necessary causative chain. Assume you are right that ID is a more logical explanation of, say, mammalian or reptilian remains we have found. You still have to go the next step and explain why design by an inanimate deity is the most likely or even a remotely conceivable logical likelihood. The rest of your theory is of no value unless you can bridge this yawning chasm too. It is your own ‘missing link’.

Your penultimate point [“if true, ID is a profound insight into the natural world”] only has to be stated for its logical error to be clear. You are presupposing something to be true, as evidence (or a logical reason) for its existence. Back to the drawing-board with that.

Your main opening point appears to be that because parts of the natural world cannot yet be proven to comply with Darwinian principles (often of course simply for lack of evidence) therefore we should dismiss those ancestral lines for which such evidence does exist, and which plausibly demonstrate the broad truth of Darwin’s propositions. Logically wrong. You need to show that those for which there is evidence disprove or cannot be logically consistent with broad Darwinian principles. You don’t even attempt this.

Your best point seems to be that you have been able to get some of this stuff published in journals of evolution. Now that is a miracle. It is certainly the best evidence for a deity to be found in your article.


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MarkGreen0

January 9, 2007 1:37 AM

Richard Buggs, you say this has nothing to do with the bible, but I'd put money on you being a good god fearing Christian. Why do you think there is so often a connection if this is a purely scientific matter as you claim?

I think your role is similar to those tiny amount of climate change deniers that oil companies fund.

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Hydro

January 9, 2007 1:49 AM

Mr Buggs, to scientifically prove that ID is a science, you have to make a prediction about the natural world which will only work if ID is correct and evolution is not correct. It shouldn't be too hard, you have had 6000 years and an omnipotent designer to help you figure one out.

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butwhatif

January 9, 2007 2:06 AM

Exactly, Hydro. Going on the logic contained within this piece, the fat controller responsible for designing Buggs either lacks intelligence or has a wicked sense of humour.

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Kimpatsu

January 9, 2007 2:49 AM

What a load of cobblers. Every one of these arguments against Darwinism have been refuted by Richard Dawkins in Climbing Mount Improbable. Buggs is merely arguing from personal incredulity, which is incredibly arrogant. Because HE can't fathom an explanation, then there CAN'T BE ONE! What tosh.
Further, even if Darwinism were false, it would certainly not lead to the conclusion that ID is true. And ID is definitely not science, because it lacks the defining element of science: falsifiability. C'mon, Buggs, design an experimental protocol to test the primary tenet of ID: "God did it". You can't, because ID is religion, not science, as Michael Shermer pointed out in Why Darwin Matters. I guess real science must really... (wait for it!) BUGG you. (Ha! Ha!)
Oh, and shame on the scientifically illiterate editors ofthe Guardian for printing Buggs's drivel.

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aleph

January 9, 2007 3:03 AM

What a boring subject. When will we be free of dogmatic theology?

What happened to the old pagan world? What happened to natural theology?

Emerson wrote - "The Religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide."

Science will lead us, has indeed already, to the author of the universe. Einstein believed, or rather felt, that in his work he was tracking an intelligence far superior to his own.

Who can explain the existence of mathematics? Or the discovery of it?

Pythagoras pulled geometry out of his own mind. And yet it is the measure of planetary motion! A pure abstraction of the human mind, and yet it rules the universe.... "God", if you want to call it that, is a mathematician. Or rather is mathematics, and more.

William Burroughs' portrait of a society obsessed with addiction and consumerism, whipped up by advertising, the politics of addiction, mass madness, and virus panic, was all too prophetic.

"The fate of the poor shepherd, who, blinded and lost in the snow-storm, perishes in a drift within a few feet of his cottage door, is an emblem of the state of man. On the brink of the waters of life and truth, we are miserably dying."

Richard Dawkins wants to remove religion from the planet. He is going to be disappointed. Superstition alone is embedded in the human mind. Who would swap their wedding ring for an exact replica for $100? Why do we think such things contain with a certain spiritual significance? That is superstition is it not?

"The universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in the history of the globe."

Still, the moral force comes through history, an iron thread, just like maths. It comes through history as a little dream of spiritual elegance and economic simplicity, and collaboration and cooperating communally-all of those things together. It may be that it was the early Christian vision. Certainly it was one part of the early Buddhist vision.

There is a whole new generation in search of a new religion.

"The true doctrine of omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb. The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every point. If the good is there, so is the evil; if the affinity, so the repulsion; if the force, so the limitation. Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral."

We distrust our sympathy with nature. A man is a god in ruins. But a new religion beckons, and it is of the oldest kind, without name, or titular pedestal.

The increasing sense of dependence of the earth, the interconnection of life, this can help us develop a ecosophy; a true environmental sense. For we didn't come into the world when we were born, we came out of it, like an apple from a tree. This will be emancipation from the idea that we are allowed to eat up the planet. Instead we are stewards; an ecological stewardship, a noblesse oblige. Just as in the old Jewish history of the Revelation at Mt. Sinai, we need a covenant with those not yet born to be stewards of the earth, to pass it on.

And so the ancient precept, "Know thyself," and the modern precept, "Study nature," become at last one maxim.

It is not man who pursues truth, but truth man.

A thought too bold, — a dream too wild?

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jihadisbad

January 9, 2007 5:03 AM

The comments here so far are more interesting than the article. Great points by downsman and aleph (love the Burroughs reference!).

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monkeyface

January 9, 2007 5:19 AM

To be fair on him, he never claims we were designed by an omnipotent deity. Maybe he thinks we were designed by superintelligent aliens. There's much more of evidence for that than God - just look at all the people who've been abducted.

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Arethosemyfeet

January 9, 2007 5:24 AM

"If Darwinists distinguished between science and their religious beliefs,"

The thing is, we do, that's why those of us who are both Christians and scientists acknowledge that the theory of evolution is based on scientific observation, while our belief that God is responsible for creation and evolution is solely within the realm of faith. It is you, Mr Buggs, who seems unable to separate the two.

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AdvocatusDiaboli

January 9, 2007 5:49 AM

Buggs, bunny, you hoist yourself on your own petard.

"If Darwin had known what we now know about molecular biology - gigabytes of coded information in DNA, cells rife with tiny machines, the highly specific structures of certain proteins - would he have found his own theory convincing?"

The reductive explanation of the mechanism of evolution which is provided by molecular biology is the clinching argument in it's favour. Indeed if we knew what we know about molecular biology and hadn't yet thought of the possibility of evolution we would be compelled to invent it.

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Krisco

January 9, 2007 6:33 AM

I wonder whether Richard Buggs is funded by some US evangelical foundation. It has all the signs of being such because, outside this lot, not many believe in ID (and I don’t mean cards!). Bush and his [fake] religious cronies (who regularly speak to god) rear their ugly heads up again! Before these latter day spinners got involved, this concept was not even called 'Intelligent Design'. Next thing, you know, Bush will be called an 'intelligent president' and, before long, Buggs will be defending this myth as well! Pity they do not have the intellect of 'downsman' and 'kimpatsu'.

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ClareLondon

January 9, 2007 7:19 AM

Someone here reprimands the Guardian for printing this silly article. I protest. These weirdo religious nutters with their insane fairytales bring out some wonderfully robust, expert arguers, for which I am deeply grateful. Thank you for your vigilance, otherwise these stupid empty, childlike ideas would stand uncontested in the Guardian archives - and they mustn't be allowed so to do.

Also, at 7.12am, after a night spent working right through, I particularly wish to tweak the sleeve of both Downsman & AdvocatusDiaboli for some fabulously clever and funny gags. (Buggs Bunny... just great!)

I am always so relieved to find that when the one-eyed crazy monsters emerge there are a pack of you standing by waiting calmly to take the crazies straight off to the mental assylum, using pure, cold reason - and satire. PLEASE don't ever go away... Someone above writes of climate change deniers. Exactly. If only these nutcases could turn their passions towards the need to reaxmine our actual - as in real, as opposed to imaginary - lives and stop farting about thinking about fairies, then maybe, maybe, we could save the human race.

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BriscoRant

January 9, 2007 7:28 AM

time to give ID a good scientific work-over. As several other posters pointed out, fine to have intelligent design as a theory - but the key thing is to test it. That is what makes it science.

Difficult to get to grips with this as Buggs does not state what his theory is. The name gives no clues - "intelligent" is notoriously difficult to define, so much so that the education system gave up trying to test for intelligence years ago, as it could never define exactly what intelligence was. As for design - what is meant there? I assume something similar to designing furniture perhaps - ie assess a need - come up with something on paper - construct, install.

So if this is ID theory, what might the theory predict? About say taking bacteria and throwing them into a new culture containing, say, an antibiotic which usually kills them? Or putting them into a new culture, where the only possible source of food is cellulose? Something bacteria usually can't eat? I could in theory design experiments on plants - of the genus Senecio for instance, or Mercurialis - but bugs are usually faster to study.

First, with the bacteria and antibiotic - the intelligent designer presumably wants some bugs to live, since bugs on antibiotics do usually become resistant - so the designer has endowed - or endows - them with a way to do so.

Since this is design, there is presumably one mechanism only provided for. If you have come up with a way to make bugs resistant - then why re-invent it for every new bug that wants to do the trick? So we can take say three dozen cultures of bugs - put them in the same antibiotic - and we predict, the ones that resist it, will all show the same changes. So we could test it, by looking at different bacteria which have all become resistant. We would expect to see the same changes in them each time. Exactly the same. My own penchant is for DNA sequencing, so we might look for changes in that. But I'm open to suggestions.


Also cellulose. Cellulose (straw, cotton, paper, wheat stems) is notoriously difficult to digest, but if you can digest it, it breaks down into glucose, which is a great food. The designer has already come up with a design, that allows some organisms to live on cellulose - one thinks of termites, fungi, and shipworms. Those designs are successful - the organisms thrive. The mechanism for living on cellulose, must be a fairly robust design, as it works in different types of organisms.

The designer presumably intends bugs to survive if they face hardship - when you throw them into antibiotic, some usually become resistant. So again you can predict that you could take some bacteria - ones that cannot usually live on cellulose - and put them in a medium where cellulose is the only possible food source - the designer will have endowed them with a means to survive. ID theory leads to the following predictions.

-there should be no problem in bugs becoming able to eat cellulose. A design for organisms eating cellulose, already exists and works in various organisms.

-the mechanism seen in the bugs, will be exactly the same as that seen in the other organisms. As every designer knows, if you come up with one good design, use the same thing again and again.

-if you do the experiment with lots of differnet batches of bugs, the changes seen in each batch will be the same.


So those would be two or three clear predictions from intelligent design that allow the theory to be tested a little.

The ID people can modify these suggestions if they like, as long as they work on the same basic ideas. Bacteria put into antibiotics that usually kill them. Bacteria put onto cellulose, something they can't usually eat.

The other thing the ID people really need to spell out is what they mean by the intelligent part of the theory. Intelligence is notoriouslyu difficult to define, so they'd better tell us wha they mean by it here, and what the defining charactersistics are of this type of intelligence. Once we know those, we can start to make preedictions about how the intelligent being or whatever might behave. And make some predictons on the direction of change. And design experiments to bring about that change, and then see if its direction, is the same as the one we predicted, or different from the one we predicted.

I suspect the above have already been tried, and that there is already information on what types of things happen, when you throw bacteria into antibiotic, or force them to eat cellulose. So much the better, as the results are already known. Up to other posters to fill in the details....

Q&A: intelligent design

The theories behind intelligent design

Anna Seward
Monday November 27, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

What is intelligent design?
Intelligent design is a movement that says that life is so complex that it must have been designed by a higher intelligent being, and not via the Darwinian theory of natural selection - widely accepted by scientists. Followers argue that the scientific community is not as convinced by evolution as we are led to believe, and urge that we are more critical in our consideration of evolution.

Surely intelligent design is another name for creationism?
Intelligent design does share a number of similarities with creationism, and the phrase appears in several examples of creationist literature. They both argue that evolution is unable to account for the vast array of species, and both promote the concept of a designer.

But there are fundamental differences. First, intelligent design accepts that the earth is millions of years old, not adhering to the creationist, biblically derived argument that the earth was created some 6,000 years ago.

Second, intelligent design accepts that species do undergo small amounts of change, whereas creationists believe that all forms of life were created in their current form at the time of the earth's creation. However intelligent design claims that these changes are the result of a guiding hand, not the result of random genetic mutations and natural selection.

Intelligent design also differs from creationism by not specifically naming the creator as God. Proponents use this as justification that their argument is not religious. However despite avoiding making a public association, almost all statements directed at supporters of intelligent design declare openly that the designer is believed to be God.

What evidence is there to support intelligent design?
A number of academics support the intelligent design argument, maintaining that it is soundly supported by scientific disciplines. They argue that intelligent design provides empirical proof for the existence of a super-intelligent being, and that this proof is freely detectable in nature itself.

However it is very difficult to find definitive evidence in support of the concept, since it has no theoretical background, and the movement is fuelled more by belief than by experimentally derived proof.

What are the arguments against intelligent design?
Critics argue that intelligent design cannot be classed as science. It cannot be tested, and is therefore merely a philosophical concept. It lacks the necessary theoretical basis from which hypotheses can be tested and is therefore unable to provide any basis for new directions of research. As a result, it has made no contribution to agriculture, forestry, pathology, or any of the other areas of biology that evolutionary theory has provided insight into.

Intelligent design is frequently accused of following a socio-political agenda rather than being interested in scientific issues. Critics argue that it is merely a poor attempt to disguise a creationist agenda, and to sneak religion into science lessons.

Intelligent design simply aims to fill in existing gaps in evolutionary theories, such as gaps in the fossil record, with speculative beliefs. As critics point out, just because our current understanding of evolution hasn't given us the answers to everything so far, that doesn't mean that we should turn to intelligent design instead.

Many of the arguments used to defend intelligent design are directly related to creationist arguments that have previously been refuted. Evolution theory, on the other hand, has repeatedly generated predictions that have proven to be true and that have never been disproved by other scientific theories. Rather than attempt to discredit the scientific evidence that contradicts their concept, followers of intelligent design simply choose to ignore it.

What does flying spaghetti have to do with any of this?
A recent development has been the growth of so-called Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, a satirical 'religion' created by Bobby Henderson, a physics graduate of Oregon State University. He wrote to the Kansas Board of Education in June 2005, alerting them to the many people who believe that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, and demanding that science lessons be split three-ways: "One third time for intelligent design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence."

Henderson's point is that the concept of a Flying Spaghetti Monster is every bit as rational a concept as intelligent design. He has received sympathetic reponses from members of the board who also oppose intelligent design, as well as attracting overwhelming support from 'followers' all over the world.

Interview: Darwin in the blood

* 31 March 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
* Amanda Gefter
As a child Matthew Chapman wasn't much interested in his great-great-grandfather, Charles Darwin. For him, Darwin was just a part of science, someone to take for granted, rather than a hero who theorised in areas where few dared to tread. But all that changed as Chapman sat with the journalists covering the battle at Dover, Pennsylvania, when 11 parents sued their school district for presenting intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in the classroom. Now Chapman has gained some heretical views of his own, as Amanda Gefter discovered

What was it like growing up knowing that your great-great-grandfather was Charles Darwin?

It was not something I thought much about. I was probably proud of it, but also a little intimidated. I was not particularly interested in him as a man or in his theories. In England, as in most countries, his ideas were pretty much accepted. Watson and Crick were far more interesting to me. Both worked at Cambridge, where I grew up, and they were wonderfully outspoken. To me, Darwin was a building block rather than a real character.

Why did you attend the Dover trial?

I had written a book after visiting the Tennessee town where the Scopes trial took place [in 1925, high-school biology teacher John Scopes was tried for teaching evolution, then an illegal activity in 15 states] because I wanted to see if the place had evolved since the trial. It had not. When I heard about Kitzmiller vs Dover, I saw its potential as a similarly philosophical debate. Not only pro-evolution scientists but also philosophers and theologians were coming to testify. It looked like it might be a really good fight - and it was.

How did people on both sides of the fence react to you when they found out who you were?

Everyone without exception was very polite. Even those, like Michael Behe, who are fundamentally opposed to the implications of Darwin, actually find it hard to dislike him, and most admire him for his thoroughness and dedication. Michael and I got along well.

Did this largely American controversy seem foreign to you as a Brit?

As a Brit, but even more as a rationalist, where reason would dictate one thing and faith another, I find American attitudes completely strange. That said, I find it more peculiar that people still believe in astrology than that they still believe in creationism. If you're a biblical literalist, there are plenty of reasons to contort yourself into believing the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. There is no reason to believe that there are only 12 personality types caused by the position of the stars at birth.

What did you learn from the Dover trial?

A great deal of science. It was a shame the trial was not filmed because very smart lawyers without significant science education used all their legal skills to make scientific arguments comprehensible to a judge, who, while also very smart, also lacked a scientific education. Previously incomprehensible things became easily comprehensible, to the dismay of intelligent-design buffoons accustomed to preaching to the choir - often literally.

What about the personalities involved in the trial?

It is impossible to remove the characters from this story and tell it properly. It takes a certain kind of character to believe in things which are manifestly absurd, and trying to understand such people is vital for many obvious reasons. And those people who refused to allow fundamentalism to damage their children's education had a quiet courage and integrity. They were individualistic and refused to be bullied. They sacrificed a lot to defend a part of the constitution that is subtle, complex, and could easily be ignored. To me, as a screenwriter, this is astonishingly powerful.

Which moments of the trial stood out for you?

The most disturbing element was how the intelligent-design crowd, many of whom I liked, would intellectually and morally contort themselves to cling to ideas one felt even they did not quite believe. The scientists among them seemed to have taken hold of small shards of the scientific whole that no one fully understands yet, and created a shield against reality. They were smart people, and at times it was painful to watch them. There was a moment when one intelligent-design scientist was literally walled into the witness box by books and articles detailing an evolutionary process he said had not been described. And though they had had months to prepare, the school board members who advocated intelligent design still knew almost nothing about it. When asked to define intelligent design, one of them defined evolution.

You write that a medieval giant has woken and is thumping on the door, but say it may be wiser to use his strength against him than resist. Explain.

Science is often accused of being arrogant. I don't think it is arrogant enough. In fact, I think the scientific method is essentially humble: if something cannot be proven, you must have the humility to set it aside or abandon it, even if you have staked your career on it. In my book, I argue that inviting intelligent design into the classroom and then demolishing it would both reveal the strength and beauty of the scientific method and undermine by association other unfounded assertions made by religion. This would be achieved without attacking religion head-on because intelligent design is supposedly not religious. It seems like a fairly gentle way of suggesting that people who make wild claims without evidence might not be people whose views on abortion, homosexuality, stem cells or contraception are worth listening to.

But if they did teach intelligent design your way, should this be in science lessons or elsewhere?

Inclusion in the science class is what the advocates of intelligent design want. I think they should get it and face the consequences. And I think science has become diminished in children's minds by its apparent lack of contact with the "ordinary world". What science now seeks to understand has become so complex that the beautiful simplicity of its methods and its applicability to "ordinary" problems have been lost. If you cast science in a heroic role - doing battle with superstition and primitive thinking - it might seem an attractive career choice, or a child might use it when evidence needs rational assessment.

How did the trial make you feel about the US?

I feel more optimistic and more afraid. More optimistic because of the simple decency and determination of the plaintiffs, but more afraid because of the contortions of the defendants. There is a real world that can be examined and understood using, among other real instruments, the tools of science. There are certain things that are true: the Earth goes around the sun, gravity exists, and it's more than "possible" that the Earth is older than 10,000 years. There must be some part of the fundamentalist mind that recognises these facts, which contradict a literal biblical interpretation. Yet they insist that another truth in conflict with this one exists. I think it's likely these two "truths" will increasingly diverge, and I wonder what will happen to the people forced to straddle them. I fear the pain of it is going to lead to even darker and more twisted behaviour than we have seen already.

Do you now feel closer to Darwin?

Yes I do. Seeing how passionately inclined people disregard evidence in favour of whatever feels convenient to them, I now see that there is something heroic about simply gathering evidence until it tells you something true. It would have been much easier for Darwin, who was married to a deeply religious woman, a woman who was hurt and offended by his conclusions, just to have shut the door on his investigations.
From issue 2597 of New Scientist magazine, 31 March 2007, page 46-47

Intelligent design rears its head

Jul 28th 2005 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
It's subtler than creationism, and may be coming soon to a classroom near you

SOMETIME within the next few months, the Kansas Board of Education will decide whether to allow a form of creationism to be taught in the state's schools. It seems likely to do so. The proposed curriculum changes have been given preliminary approval by the board and were written after hearings dominated by anti-evolutionists.

The changes, which affect the standards used in statewide science tests, include adding the word “may” to the assertion that “gradual changes...over many generations may have resulted in variations among populations and species.” They would tell students that “in many cases the fossil record is not consistent with gradual, unbroken sequences postulated by biological evolution.” And they would call the notion that one species evolved from another “controversial...based on inferences from indirect or circumstantial evidence.”

None of these propositions is false. But the cumulative effect, as some members of the board themselves approvingly noted, would be to encourage teachers to discuss alternatives to evolution—a theory one member, Connie Morris, has dismissed as “a fairy tale”.

Kansas is one of many states where teaching evolution is under attack. In Georgia's Cobb County, for instance, the local school district stuck labels on textbooks saying “Evolution is a theory, not a fact”. It was told to remove them by a district judge. Georgia's state superintendent of schools proposed removing the E-word altogether from the biology curriculum, though she later backed down.

In Pennsylvania, the state House of Representatives is discussing a bill to introduce an alternative to evolutionary theory into the public-school code, while Dover, Pennsylvania, has become the first district in the country to adopt the following guideline: “Students will be made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin's theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design.” This being America, a trial is due to begin in September to decide whether that guideline contravenes the first amendment, which bans state sponsorship of religion. In all, disputes involving evolution are bubbling in around 20 of the 50 states.

It is tempting to see this as one more example of the surging influence of the religious right. But that is only partly true. The battles over evolution are being fought in secondary schools; there is no argument at universities, where evolutionary science is uncontroversial.

Nor are there signs of any recent increase in popular opposition to teaching evolution. In 1999, the Kansas guidelines were even less scientific than they could soon become; back then they omitted all reference to evolution, the age of the earth or anything inconsistent with old-fashioned creationism. They changed because creationists were removed from the Board of Education in elections in 2000. A new board rewrote the guidelines to bring them into line with accepted science, but that board was in turn removed in 2004, bringing back an anti-evolutionist majority, along with pressure to change the guidelines again.

The implication is that anti-evolution in America is a persistent rather than a resurgent phenomenon. It ebbs and flows. The reason for its increase now has less to do with any fundamentalist backlash than with the lobbying power of proponents of a theory of evolution called “intelligent design”.

Intelligent design derives from an early-19th-century explanation of the natural world given by an English clergyman, William Paley. Paley was the populariser of the famous watchmaker analogy. If you found a watch in a field, he wrote in 1802, you would infer that so fine and intricate a mechanism could not have been produced by unplanned, unguided natural forces; it could have been made only by an intelligent being. This view—that the complexity of an organism is evidence for the existence of God—prevailed until 1859, when Charles Darwin's “Origin of Species” showed how natural selection could indeed “explain so many classes of facts” (as Darwin put it).

Proponents of intelligent design are renewing Paley's argument with a new gloss from molecular biology. Darwin himself acknowledged that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Intelligent designers claim that living things are full of such examples at the molecular level. Blood clotting is one: ten proteins have to work together in sequence for the process to occur. So-called eukaryotic cells, which digest nutrients or excrete waste, are another: these cells contain an elaborate “traffic system” which directs proteins to the right compartments.

In both cases, argues Michael Behe, whose book “Darwin's Black Box” is one of the bibles of intelligent design, you have complex systems that will work only if all the components operate at once. He argues that you could not get such a thing from “successive, slight modifications”. Hence the molecular machines inside living beings are evidence of an intelligent designer—God.

Intelligent design asks interesting questions about evolution, but since all its answers are usually “God”, scientists have rejected it. As the National Academy of Sciences has said, intelligent design “and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life” are not science because their claims cannot be tested by experiment and propose no new hypotheses of their own. (Instead, intelligent designers poke holes in evolutionary theory.)

In addition, biologists point out that the intelligent designers' favourite examples of “irreducible complexity” often prove not to be. Some organisms, for example, use only six proteins to clot blood—irreducibility reduced. In other cases, single parts of a complex mechanism turn out to have useful functions of their own, meaning that the complex mechanism could have been produced by step-by-step evolution. When the Discovery Institute, a promoter of intelligent design, came up with a list of 370 people with science degrees who backed their ideas, the National Centre for Science Education responded with almost 600 scientists called Steve or Stephanie who rejected them.

But if intelligent design has few friends among scientists, it has won a significant following among the general public. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, evolution itself seems to stick in the craw of anyone with strong beliefs, not just those who are religious. Stalin's Soviet Union rejected evolution, for example, on the ground that only economic conditions could be said to determine human behaviour. The Nation of Islam, an American Muslim group, also rejects it.

Religious conservatives have a special reason for disliking natural selection. There may be nothing necessarily anti-Christian about Darwin's theory (which was hailed by Charles Kingsley, a contemporary clergyman, as evidence of the majesty of God), but if God has a plan for the world and everyone in it, as most American Protestants and President George Bush say they believe, then it is much easier to imagine evolution occurring under divine guidance than as a result of random mutations and the survival of the fittest. By providing an explanation consistent with those beliefs, intelligent design has proved tempting to conservative Christians everywhere, not just in America.

In early July, Christoph Schönborn, the cardinal archbishop of Vienna, rejected “the supposed acceptance—or at least acquiescence—of the Roman Catholic Church” in “neo-Darwinian dogma”. He conceded that “evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true”, but argued that “evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense—an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection—is not.” The Catholic Church has long turned its back on a literal reading of the Book of Genesis. It does not seem to be doing the same with intelligent design.

Second, though there has been no big increase in opposition to evolution, there is enough to be going on with without it. Two-thirds of Americans think humans were directly created by God (as opposed to 22% who think people “evolved from an earlier species”). Half do not think apes and men had a common ancestor.

With its claims (however spurious) of scientific respectability, intelligent design promises to reconcile mass anti-evolutionism with science. Strict creationism has been long discredited and, since the Supreme Court decision of Edwards v Aguillard (1987), may not be taught in state schools. But intelligent design is a different matter. Its proponents accept that the earth is billions of years old. They agree that gene mutation and natural selection occur within species, though not necessarily between species. They concede that scientific method, not biblical authority, is the arbiter of truth. Proponents do not even demand that intelligent design should replace evolution in the classroom, merely that schools should “teach the controversy” (which they themselves have created). In short, religious Americans who find evolution distasteful are jumping at the chance to teach an alternative that claims to be science.

Whichever way the argument over intelligent design is finally resolved, it is likely to damage science teaching. This is not because bad science standards will necessarily be adopted but because—as Diane Ravitch of the Brookings Institution showed in “The Language Police” in 2003—the biggest threat to high standards is the unwillingness of state Boards of Education to offend any sort of pressure group, whether right or left. Instead, they avoid controversial topics altogether. In 2000, a survey by the Fordham Foundation found that only ten states taught evolution fully, six did so skimpily and in 13 the treatment was considered useless or absent. (Kansas received an F minus, and “disgraceful”.) These failings shame American evolution teaching, and the manufactured controversy over intelligent design will do nothing to make them better.

Questions of faith

Christians are divided about evolution and creation
EASTER Sunday is an exuberant moment in the calendar of St Chad’s, the church where a doctor called Robert Darwin, sceptical about religion but conscious of convention, had his son Charles baptised in 1809. This year, as every year since the cylindrical building was constructed in 1790, worshippers at the main Anglican church in this old English town will give a lusty rendering of some familiar Easter hymns; and many will stroll down the nearby river bank where young Charles Darwin took “delight in fishing for newts”.

Mark Thomas, the vicar, easily reconciles his faith with local pride in a man who convinced many people that the Bible could not be literally true. As co-organiser of an annual Darwin festival, featuring lectures on religion and science, he cites Saint Paul’s adage that the “letter kills, but the spirit gives life” as a warning against literalism.

And in other English places linked with Darwin, there is often more emphasis on the scientist’s emollient personality than on arguments which raged over his work. In Cambridge, where Darwin studied theology, a play has just been staged that recounts the warm correspondence between Darwin and Asa Gray, an American botanist who shared his friend’s scientific interests but had conventional views on religion. The play is a spinoff from a project to publish 14,000 letters received or sent by Darwin, and to post some on the internet. As the play shows, Darwin’s scepticism in religious matters gradually deepened, yet his feelings for his friend were unaffected.

Among the 2 billion Christians celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ this weekend (this is a year when the moveable calendars of western and Orthodox Christians coincide) such cheerful negotiation of difference is often impossible. Arguments over how to interpret the Bible—and how to read the story of Creation in the first chapter of Genesis—continue to cause controversy both between Christian communities and within them.

Mr Thomas’s ultimate boss—Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the world’s 80m Anglicans—has dismissed literal readings of Genesis as a “category mistake”. Cerebral Christians like the archbishop endorse the view that instead of treating the Genesis account of the world’s creation in six days as a historical text, it should be read in the sophisticated way that Jewish commentators read it 2,000 years ago. In other words, the “days” of creation are not chronological periods but elements in a vision of the relationship between God, man and the physical world: a vision also implicit in the architecture of the ancient Jewish temple, as Margaret Barker, a Methodist Hebrew scholar, has argued.

But in the fast-growing varieties of Christianity—in the overlapping worlds of evangelicalism, fundamentalism and Pentecostalism—many prefer their faith simple, not sophisticated. As Samuel Rodovalho, an activist in Brazil’s Pentecostalist movement, puts it: “We are sure that the story in Genesis is true, and we are not very interested in scientific theories which say otherwise.”

Somewhere in between these stark convictions and the intellectual subtleties of Mr Thomas's Anglicanism, some intensive discussions about creation and evolution are in progress in the upper ranks of the Roman Catholic church, to which over 1 billion people (with varying intensity) adhere. While Catholic teaching regards a simple faith in the truth of Genesis as permissible, most Catholic scientists would agree with the late Pope John Paul II in saying that fresh evidence makes evolution “more than a hypothesis”. But Pope Benedict XVI has given hints that he wants to reaffirm certain other elements in his predecessor’s teaching—including the idea that signs of a deity are discernible in nature.

Benedict XVI has emphasised the Catholic view that human reason can discern the “divine reason” which formed the world. Ultimately this argument could complicate his hopes of reconciliation with the world’s 140m or so Orthodox Christians—whose medieval forebears clashed with Rome by insisting that communion with God differs from contemplation of the physical world. But in the short term, Vatican-watchers are keenly awaiting the publication of some minutes from an informal, but important seminar on creation and evolution that the pope convened last August.

Meanwhile none of these discussions will prevent the profusion of Christians in Darwin’s home town from celebrating Easter with gusto. In a grassy field opposite one of England’s best-known garden centres, Father Stephen Maxfield has turned a medieval church into an Orthodox parish. In a message to parishioners, he reflects on the instructions he has seen on a packet of sweet-pea seeds, saying, "the purpose of all plants is to reproduce.” “In a sense that must be true,” Father Stephen muses, “but it doesn’t account for the strangeness and wonder of plants, the beauty of their flowers and foliage, the properties of their seeds…Surely there is more to it?” Whatever has changed in Shrewsbury in 200 years, the townspeople retain their curiosity over matters physical and metaphysical.

Evolution and Religion - The Economist

The debate over creation and evolution, once most conspicuous in America, is fast going global..
THE “Atlas of Creation” runs to 770 pages and is lavishly illustrated with photographs of fossils and living animals, interlaced with quotations from the Koran. Its author claims to prove not only the falsehood of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, but the links between “Darwinism” and such diverse evils as communism, fascism and terrorism. In recent weeks the “Atlas de la Création” has been arriving unsolicited and free of charge at schools and universities across French-speaking Europe. It is the latest sign of a revolt against the theories of Darwin, on which virtually the whole of modern biology is based, that is gathering momentum in many parts of the world.
continued.......

The mass distribution of a French version of the “Atlas” (already published in English and Turkish) typifies the style of an Istanbul publishing house whose sole business is the dissemination, in many languages, of scores of works by a single author, a charismatic but controversial Turkish preacher who writes as Harun Yahya but is really called Adnan Oktar. According to a Turkish scientist who now lives in America, the movement founded by Mr Oktar is “powerful, global and very well financed”. Translations of Mr Oktar's work into tongues like Arabic, Urdu and Bahasa Indonesia have ensured a large following in Muslim countries.

In his native Turkey there are many people, including devout Muslims, who feel uncomfortable about the 51-year-old Mr Oktar's strong appeal to young women and his political sympathies for the nationalist right. But across the Muslim world he seems to be riding high. Many of the most popular Islamic websites refer readers to his vast canon.

In the more prosperous parts of the historically Christian world, Mr Oktar's flamboyant style would be unappealing, even to religious believers. Among mainstream Catholics and liberal Protestants, clerical pronouncements on creation and evolution are often couched in careful—and for many people, almost impenetrable—theological language. For example, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the world's 80m Anglicans, has dismissed literal readings of the Creation story in Genesis as a “category mistake”. But no such highbrow reticence holds back the more zealous Christian movements in the developing world, where the strongest religious medicine seems to go down best.

In Kenya, for example, there is a bitter controversy over plans to put on display the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human being ever found, a figure known as Turkana Boy—along with a collection of fossils, some of which may be as much as 200m years old. Bishop Boniface Adoyo, an evangelical leader who claims to speak for 35 denominations and 10m believers, has denounced the proposed exhibit, asserting that: “I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it.”

Richard Leakey, the palaeontologist who unearthed both the skeleton and the fossils in northern Kenya, is adamant that the show must go on. “Whether the bishop likes it or not, Turkana Boy is a distant relation of his,” Mr Leakey has insisted. Local Catholics have backed him.

Rows over religion and reason are also raging in Russia. In recent weeks the Russian Orthodox Church has backed a family in St Petersburg who (unsuccessfully) sued the education authorities for teaching only about evolution to explain the origins of life. Plunging into deep scientific waters, a spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate, Father Vsevolod Chaplin, said Darwin's theory of evolution was “based on pretty strained argumentation”—and that physical evidence cited in its support “can never prove that one biological species can evolve into another.”

A much more nuanced critique, not of Darwin himself but of secular world-views based on Darwin's ideas, has been advanced by Pope Benedict XVI, the conservative Bavarian who assumed the most powerful office in the Christian world two years ago. The pope marked his 80th birthday this week by publishing a book on Jesus Christ. But for Vatican-watchers, an equally important event was the issue in German, a few days earlier, of a book in which the pontiff and several key advisers expound their views on the emergence of the universe and life. While avoiding the cruder arguments that have been used to challenge Darwin's theories, the pope asserts that evolution cannot be conclusively proved; and that the manner in which life developed was indicative of a “divine reason” which could not be discerned by scientific methods alone.

Both in his previous role as the chief enforcer of Catholic doctrine and since his enthronement, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has made clear his profound belief that man has a unique, God-given role in the animal kingdom; and that a divine creator has an ongoing role in sustaining the universe, something far more than just “lighting the blue touch paper” for the Big Bang, the event that scientists think set the universe in motion.
Yesterday America, today the world

As these examples from around the world show, the debate over creation, evolution and religion is rapidly going global. Until recently, all the hottest public arguments had taken place in the United States, where school boards in many districts and states tried to restrict the teaching of Darwin's idea that life in its myriad forms evolved through a natural process of adaptation to changing conditions.

Darwin-bashers in America suffered a body-blow in December 2005, when a judge—striking down the policies of a district school board in Pennsylvania—delivered a 139-page verdict that delved deeply into questions about the origin of life and tore apart the case made by the “intelligent design” camp: the idea that some features of the natural world can be explained only by the direct intervention of a ingenious creator.

Intelligent design, the judge found, was a religious theory, not a scientific one—and its teaching in schools violated the constitution, which bars the establishment of any religion. One point advanced in favour of intelligent design—the “irreducible complexity” of some living things—was purportedly scientific, but it was not well-founded, the judge ruled. Proponents of intelligent design were also dishonest in saying that where there were gaps in evolutionary theory, their own view was the only alternative, according to the judge.

The Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which has spearheaded the American campaign to counter-balance the teaching of evolution, artfully distanced itself from the Pennsylvania case, saying the local school board had gone too far in mixing intelligent design with a more overtly religious doctrine of “creationism”. But the verdict made it much harder for school boards in other parts of America to mandate curbs on the teaching of evolution, as many have tried to do—to the horror of most professional scientists.

Whatever the defeats they have suffered on home ground, American foes of Darwin seem to be gaining influence elsewhere. In February several luminaries of the anti-evolution movement in the United States went to Istanbul for a grand conference where Darwin's ideas were roundly denounced. The organiser of the gathering was a Turkish Muslim author and columnist, Mustafa Akyol, who forged strong American connections during a fellowship at the Discovery Institute.

To the dismay of some Americans and the delight of others, Mr Akyol was invited to give evidence (against Darwin's ideas) at hearings held by the Kansas school board in 2005 on how science should be taught. Mr Akyol, an advocate of reconciliation between Muslims and the West who is much in demand at conferences on the future of Islam, is careful to distinguish his position from that of the extravagant publishing venture in his home city. “They make some valid criticisms of Darwinism, but I disagree with most of their other views,” insists the young author, whose other favourite cause is the compatibility between Islam and Western liberal ideals, including human rights and capitalism. But a multi-layered anti-Darwin movement has certainly brought about a climate in Turkey and other Muslim countries that makes sure challenges to evolution theory, be they sophisticated or crude, are often well received.

America's arguments over evolution are also being followed closely in Brazil, where—as the pope will find when he visits the country next month—various forms of evangelicalism and Pentecostalism are advancing rapidly at the expense of the majority Catholic faith. Samuel Rodovalho, an activist in Brazil's Pentecostal church, puts it simply: “We are convinced that the story of Genesis is right, and we take heart from the fact that in North America the teaching of evolution in schools has been challenged.”

Even in the United States, defenders of evolution teaching do not see their battle as won. There was widespread dismay in their ranks in February when John McCain, a Republican presidential candidate, accepted an invitation (albeit to talk about geopolitics, not science) from the Discovery Institute. And some opponents of intelligent design are still recovering from their shock at reading in the New York Times a commentary written, partly at the prompting of the Discovery Institute, by the pope's close friend, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna.

In his July 2005 article the cardinal seemed to challenge what most scientists would see as axiomatic—the idea that natural selection is an adequate explanation for the diversity and complexity of life in all its forms. Within days, the pope and his advisers found they had new interlocutors. Lawrence Krauss, an American physicist in the front-line of courtroom battles over education, fired off a letter to the Vatican urging a clarification. An agnostic Jew who insists that evolution neither disproves nor affirms any particular faith, Mr Krauss recruited as co-signatories two American biologists who were also devout Catholics. Around the same time, another Catholic voice was raised in support of evolution, that of Father George Coyne, a Jesuit astronomer who until last year was head of the Vatican observatory in Rome. Mr Krauss reckons his missive helped to nudge the Catholic authorities into clarifying their view and insisting that they did still accept natural selection as a scientific theory.

But that was not the end of the story. Catholic physicists, biologists and astronomers (like Father Coyne) insisted that there was no reason to revise their view that intelligent design is bad science. And they expressed concern (as the Christian philosopher Augustine did in the 4th century) that if the Christian church teaches things about the physical world which are manifestly false, then everything else the church teaches might be discredited too. But there is also a feeling among Pope Benedict's senior advisers that in rejecting intelligent design as it is understood in America they must not go too far in endorsing the idea that Darwinian evolution says all that needs to be, or can be, said about how the world came to be.

The net result has been the emergence of two distinct camps among the Catholic pundits who aspire to influence the pope. In one there are people such as Father Coyne, who believe (like the agnostic Mr Krauss) that physics and metaphysics can and should be separated. From his new base at a parish in North Carolina, Father Coyne insists strongly on the integrity of science—“natural phenomena have natural causes”—and he is as firm as any secular biologist in asserting that every year the theory of evolution is consolidated with fresh evidence.

In the second camp are those, including some high up in the Vatican bureaucracy, who feel that Catholic scientists like Father Coyne have gone too far in accepting the world-view of their secular colleagues. This camp stresses that Darwinian science should not seduce people into believing that man evolved purely as the result of a process of random selection. While rejecting American-style intelligent design, some authoritative Catholic thinkers claim to see God's hand in “convergence”: the apparent fact that, as they put it, similar processes and structures are present in organisms that have evolved separately.

As an example of Catholic thinking that is relatively critical of science-based views of the world, take Father Joseph Fessio, the provost of Ave Maria University in Florida and a participant in a seminar on creation and evolution which led to the new book with papal input. As Father Fessio observes, Catholics accept three different ways of learning about reality: empirical observation, direct revelations from God and, between those two categories, “natural philosophy”—the ability of human reason to discern divine reason in the created universe. That is not quite intelligent design, but it does sound similar. The mainly Protestant heritage of the United States may be one reason why the idea of “natural philosophy” is poorly understood by American thinkers, Father Fessio playfully suggests. (Another problem the Vatican may face is that Orthodox Christian theologians, as well as Catholic mystics, are wary of “natural philosophy”: they insist that mystical communion with God is radically different from observation or speculation by the human brain.)
The evolution of the anti-evolutionists

Whatever they think about science, there is one crucial problem that all Christian thinkers about creation must wrestle with: the status of the human being in relation to other creatures, and the whole universe. There is no reading of Christianity which does not assert the belief that mankind, while part of the animal kingdom, has a unique vocation and potential to enhance the rest of creation, or else to destroy it. This point has been especially emphasised by Pope Benedict's interlocutors in the Orthodox church, such as its senior prelate Patriarch Bartholomew I, who has been nudging the Vatican to take a stronger line on man's effect on the environment and climate change.

For Father Coyne, belief in man's unique status is entirely consistent with an evolutionary view of life. “The fact we are at the end of this marvellous process is something that glorifies us,” he says.

But Benedict XVI apparently wants to lay down an even stronger line on the status of man as a species produced by divine ordinance, not just random selection. “Man is the only creature on earth that God willed for his own sake,” says a document issued under Pope John Paul II and approved by the then Cardinal Ratzinger.

What is not quite clear is whether the current pope accepts the “Chinese wall” that his old scientific adviser, Father Coyne, has struggled to preserve between physics and metaphysics. It is in the name of this Chinese wall that Father Coyne and other Catholic scientists have been able to make common cause with agnostics, like Mr Krauss, in defence of the scientific method. What the Jesuit astronomer and his secular friends all share is the belief that people who agree about physics can differ about metaphysics or religion.

Critics like Father Fessio would retort that their problem was not with the Chinese wall—but with an attempt to tear it down by scientists whose position is both Darwinist and anti-religious: in other words, with those who believe that scientific observation of the universe leaves no room at all for religious belief. (Some scientists and philosophers go further, dismissing religion itself as a phenomenon brought about by man's evolutionary needs.)

The new book quoting Pope Benedict's contributions to last year's seminar shows him doing his best to pick his way through these arguments: accepting that scientific descriptions of the universe are valid as far as they go, while insisting that they are ultimately incomplete as a way of explaining how things came to be. On those points, he seems to share the “anti-Darwinist” position of Father Fessio; but he also agrees with Father Coyne that a “God of the gaps” theory—which uses a deity to fill in the real or imagined holes in evolutionary science—is too small-minded. Only a handful of the world's 2 billion Christians will be able to make sense of his intricate intellectual arguments, and there is a risk that simplistic reporting and faulty interpretation of his ideas could create the impression that the pope has deserted to the ranks of the outright anti-evolutionists; he has done no such thing, his advisers insist.

Not that the advocates of intelligent design or outright creationists are in need of anyone's endorsement. Their ideas are flourishing and their numbers growing. As Mr Krauss has caustically argued, the anti-evolution movement is itself a prime example of evolution and adaptability—defeated in one arena, it will resurface elsewhere. His ally Father Coyne, the devoted star-gazer, is one of the relatively few boffins who have managed to expound with equal passion both their scientific views and their religious beliefs. He writes with breathless excitement about “the dance of the fertile universe, a ballet with three ballerinas: chance, necessity and fertility.” Whether they are atheists or theists, other supporters of Darwin's ideas on natural selection will have to inspire as well as inform if they are to compete with their growing army of foes.