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Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals
UNDERSTANDING THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN CREATIONIST MOVEMENT: ITS TRUE NATURE AND GOALS A POSITION PAPER FROM THE CENTER FOR INQUIRY OFFICE OF PUBLIC POLICY AUTHOR: BARBARA FORREST, Ph.D. Reviewing Committee: Paul Kurtz, Ph.D.; Austin Dacey, Ph.D.; Stuart D. Jordan, Ph.D.; Ronald A. Lindsay, J. D., Ph.D.; John Shook, Ph.D.; Toni Van Pelt DATED: MAY 2007 ( AMENDED JULY 2007) Copyright © 2007 Center for Inquiry, Inc. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for noncommercial, educational purposes, provided that this notice appears on the reproduced materials, the full authoritative version is retained, and copies are not altered. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the Center for Inquiry, Inc. Table of Contents Section I. Introduction: What is at stake in the dispute over intelligent design?.................. 1 Section II. What is the intelligent design creationist movement? ........................................ 2 Section III. The historical and legal background of intelligent design creationism ................ 6 Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) ............................................................................ 6 McLean v. Arkansas (1982) .............................................................................. 6 Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) ............................................................................. 7 Section IV. The ID movement’s aims and strategy .............................................................. 9 The “Wedge Strategy” ..................................................................................... -
Discussion & Study Guide
DISCUSSION & STUDY GUIDE By Ryan Huxley COURTESY OF Table of Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3 Chapter 1: The Cambrian Explosion............................................................................................... 4 Chapter 2: Darwin’s Dilemma ........................................................................................................ 7 Chapter 3: Chinese Fossils ............................................................................................................ 11 Chapter 4: The Phyla .................................................................................................................... 16 Chapter 5: Biological Information ................................................................................................ 19 Answers......................................................................................................................................... 25 Chapter 1: The Cambrian Explosion..................................................................................... 25 Chapter 2: Darwin’s Dilemma .............................................................................................. 27 Chapter 3: Chinese Fossils .................................................................................................... 30 Chapter 4: The Phyla ............................................................................................................ 35 Chapter -
A Threat to Geoscience Education: Creationist Anti-Evolution Activity in Canada Jason R
Document generated on 10/02/2021 4:16 p.m. Geoscience Canada A Threat to Geoscience Education: Creationist Anti-Evolution Activity in Canada Jason R. Wiles Volume 33, Number 3, September 2006 Article abstract The rejection of biological and geological evolution is a pervasive problem in URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/geocan33_3com01 science education. Recent events in the United States have brought anti-evolution activity to the forefront in media coverage of science education, See table of contents but Canadians are often unaware that such creationist, anti-evolution activity is present in Canada as well. In this article, various foreign and Canadian-based anti-evolution efforts that threaten biology and geoscience education are Publisher(s) discussed. These creationist organizations and their activities may adversely influence Canadian science curricula and public understanding of evolution The Geological Association of Canada and science in general. ISSN 0315-0941 (print) 1911-4850 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Wiles, J. R. (2006). A Threat to Geoscience Education: Creationist Anti-Evolution Activity in Canada. Geoscience Canada, 33(3), 135–140. All rights reserved © The Geological Association of Canada, 2006 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. -
Intelligent Design: Is It Really Worth It?
Leaven Volume 17 Issue 2 Theology and Science Article 6 1-1-2009 Intelligent Design: Is It Really Worth It? Chris Doran [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Doran, Chris (2009) "Intelligent Design: Is It Really Worth It?," Leaven: Vol. 17 : Iss. 2 , Article 6. Available at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol17/iss2/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Religion at Pepperdine Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Leaven by an authorized editor of Pepperdine Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]. Doran: Intelligent Design: Is It Really Worth It? Intelligent Design: Is It Really Worth It? CHRIS DORAN imaginethatwe have all had occasion to look up into the sky on a clear night, gaze at the countless stars, and think about how small we are in comparison to the enormity of the universe. For everyone except Ithe most strident atheist (although I suspect that even s/he has at one point considered the same feeling), staring into space can be a stark reminder that the universe is much grander than we could ever imagine, which may cause us to contemplate who or what might have put this universe together. For believers, looking up at tJotestars often puts us into the same spirit of worship that must have filled the psalmist when he wrote, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" (Psalms 19.1). -
Intelligent Design Is Not Science” Given by John G
An Outline of a lecture entitled, “Intelligent Design is not Science” given by John G. Wise in the Spring Semester of 2007: Slide 1 Why… … do humans have so much trouble with wisdom teeth? … is childbirth so dangerous and painful? Because a big, thinking brain is an advantage, and evolution is imperfect. Slide 2 Charles Darwin’s Revolutionary Idea His book changed the world. All life forms on this planet are related to each other through “Descent with modification over generations from a common ancestor”. Natural processes fully explain the biological connections between all life on the planet. Slide 3 Darwin’s Idea is Dangerous (from the book of the same title by Daniel Dennett) If we have evolution, we no longer need a Creator to create each and every species. Darwinism is dangerous because it infers that God did not directly and purposefully create us. It simply states that we evolved. Slide 4 Intelligent Design Attempts to Counter Darwin “Intelligent Design” has been proposed as way out of this dilemma. – Phillip Johnson, William Dembski, and Michael Behe (to name a few). They attempt to redefine science to encompass the supernatural as well as the natural world. They accept Darwin’s evolution, if an Intelligent Designer is (sometimes) substituted for natural selection. Design arguments are not new: − 1250 - St. Thomas Aquinas - first design argument − 1802 - Natural Theology - William Paley – perhaps the best(?) design argument Slide 5 What is Science? A specific way of understanding the natural world. Based on the idea that our senses give us accurate information about the Universe. -
Intelligent Design Creationism and the Constitution
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Washington University St. Louis: Open Scholarship Washington University Law Review Volume 83 Issue 1 2005 Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationism and the Constitution Matthew J. Brauer Princeton University Barbara Forrest Southeastern Louisiana University Steven G. Gey Florida State University Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, Education Law Commons, First Amendment Commons, Religion Law Commons, and the Science and Technology Law Commons Recommended Citation Matthew J. Brauer, Barbara Forrest, and Steven G. Gey, Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationism and the Constitution, 83 WASH. U. L. Q. 1 (2005). Available at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol83/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington University Law Review by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Washington University Law Quarterly VOLUME 83 NUMBER 1 2005 IS IT SCIENCE YET?: INTELLIGENT DESIGN CREATIONISM AND THE CONSTITUTION MATTHEW J. BRAUER BARBARA FORREST STEVEN G. GEY* TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................... 3 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................. -
The Design Argument
The design argument The different versions of the cosmological argument we discussed over the last few weeks were arguments for the existence of God based on extremely abstract and general features of the universe, such as the fact that some things come into existence, and that there are some contingent things. The argument we’ll be discussing today is not like this. The basic idea of the argument is that if we pay close attention to the details of the universe in which we live, we’ll be able to see that that universe must have been created by an intelligent designer. This design argument, or, as its sometimes called, the teleological argument, has probably been the most influential argument for the existence of God throughout most of history. You will by now not be surprised that a version of the teleological argument can be found in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. You will by now not be surprised that a version of the teleological argument can be found in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas is noting that things we observe in nature, like plants and animals, typically act in ways which are advantageous to themselves. Think, for example, of the way that many plants grow in the direction of light. Clearly, as Aquinas says, plants don’t do this because they know where the light is; as he says, they “lack knowledge.” But then how do they manage this? What does explain the fact that plants grow in the direction of light, if not knowledge? Aquinas’ answer to this question is that they must be “directed to their end” -- i.e., designed to be such as to grow toward the light -- by God. -
Eugenie Scott
Expert Witness Statement by Eugenie C. Scott Contents: 1. Qualifications as an Expert Witness 2. The Nature of Science 3. The Scientific Meaning of “Theory” and “Fact” 4. History of the Creationism/Evolution Controversy Definitions: evolution, creationism, creation science Fundamentalism; Banning Evolution Creation Science “Evidence Against Evolution” and Creation Science Evolution of Creation Science Into Intelligent Design “Theory Not Fact” Policies Are Promoted By Creationists to Denigrate Evolution and Advance Creationism 5. History of Creationism in Georgia 6. History of Creationism in Cobb County 7. “Theory Not Fact” Policies are Pedagogically Harmful Respectfully submitted: Date: November 17, 2006 _________________________ Eugenie C. Scott, Ph.D., D.Sc. 420 40th St #2 Oakland, CA 94609 1. Qualifications My name is Eugenie C. Scott. My curriculum vitae is attached to this Declaration as Exhibit A. I have a Ph.D. in physical anthropology from the University of Missouri and honorary doctorates (D.Sc.) from McGill University, Ohio State University, and Mt. Holyoke College. In December 2006, I will receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and in May 2007, from Rutgers University. I am the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) in Oakland, California. NCSE is a nonprofit membership organization of scientists and others that defends the teaching of evolution in the public schools. NCSE is affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The NCSE monitors the creationism/evolution controversy and maintains an archive of information on the recent history of the controversy, including materials relevant to the history of the creationism/evolution controversy in Cobb County. -
Why Terms Matter to Biological Theories: the Term “Origin” As Used by Darwin
Bionomina, 1: 58–60 (2010) ISSN 1179-7649 (print edition) www.mapress.com/bionomina/ Correspondence BIONOMINA Copyright © 2010 • Magnolia Press ISSN 1179-7657 (online edition) Why terms matter to biological theories: the term “origin” as used by Darwin Thierry HOQUET Département de Philosophie, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, 200 Avenue de la République, 92001 Nanterre Cedex, France. <[email protected]>. Everybody now understands what Darwin meant when he published his epoch-making book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of favoured Races in the Struggle for life (1859). He, of course, meant evolution, i.e., the transformation of animals and plants, chance modifications, and speciation. Nevertheless, the very notion of “evolution” has aroused as much confusion as it has debate: some historians tend to suggest that Darwin intentionally avoided using the term, since it was supposedly full of progressive or embryological connotations; others claim that Darwin constantly employed the word (after all, they argue, the word “evolved” is the last one of the book). This disagreement regarding the supposed absence or presence of the term “evolution” is more than a sterile academic exercise: what is at stake in this debate is the very meaning of Darwin’s theory, as well as its relation to the contingent notions of “progress” and “development”. Darwin’s allegedly crystal-clear title is in fact perhaps the most commented part of the book. Ever since Darwin’s book first appeared, readers claimed that the book did not match its title. St. John Mivart suggested that the right question was not the “origin” but the “genesis” of species (1871); Edward Drinker Cope promoted the “origin of genera” and the “origin of the fittest” (1887); Theodor Eimer took up the question of the origin of species, but emphasized inheritance of acquired characters instead of natural selection (1888). -
Contrastive Empiricism
Elliott Sober Contrastive Empiricism I Despite what Hegel may have said, syntheses have not been very successful in philosophical theorizing. Typically, what happens when you combine a thesis and an antithesis is that you get a mishmash, or maybe just a contradiction. For example, in the philosophy of mathematics, formalism says that mathematical truths are true in virtue of the way we manipulate symbols. Mathematical Platonism, on the other hand, holds that mathematical statements are made true by abstract objects that exist outside of space and time. What would a synthesis of these positions look like? Marks on paper are one thing, Platonic forms an other. Compromise may be a good idea in politics, but it looks like a bad one in philosophy. With some trepidation, I propose in this paper to go against this sound advice. Realism and empiricism have always been contradictory tendencies in the philos ophy of science. The view I will sketch is a synthesis, which I call Contrastive Empiricism. Realism and empiricism are incompatible, so a synthesis that merely conjoined them would be a contradiction. Rather, I propose to isolate important elements in each and show that they combine harmoniously. I will leave behind what I regard as confusions and excesses. The result, I hope, will be neither con tradiction nor mishmash. II Empiricism is fundamentally a thesis about experience. It has two parts. First, there is the idea that experience is necessary. Second, there is the thesis that ex perience suffices. Necessary and sufficient for what? Usually this blank is filled in with something like: knowledge of the world outside the mind. -
The Cambrian Explosion: Biology's Big Bang
© 2001 by Stephen C. Meyer, P. A. Nelson, and Paul Chien. All Rights Reserved. The Cambrian Explosion: Biology’s Big Bang by Stephen C. Meyer, P. A. Nelson, and Paul Chien I. INTRODUCTION: DESIGN WITHOUT A DESIGNER? Both Darwin himself, and contemporary neo-Darwinists such as Francisco Ayala, Richard Dawkins and Richard Lewontin, acknowledge that biological organisms appear to have been designed by an intelligence. Yet classical Darwinists and contemporary Darwinists alike have argued that what Francisco Ayala calls the “obvious design” of living things is only apparent. As Ayala, 1994 president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has explained: The functional design of organisms and their features would therefore seem to argue for the existence of a designer. It was Darwin’s greatest accomplishment to show that the directive organization of living beings can be explained as the result of a natural process, natural selection, without any need to resort to a Creator or other external agent. ....[Darwin’s] mechanism, natural selection, excluded God as the explanation accounting for the obvious design of organisms.1 According to Darwin, and his contemporary followers, the mechanism of natural selection acting on random variation suffices to explain the origin of those features of life that once seemed to require explanation by reference to an intelligent designer. Thus, according to Darwinists, the design hypothesis now represents an unnecessary and unparsimonious explanation for the complexity and apparent design of living organisms. On these as well as methodological grounds contemporary biologists have generally excluded the design hypothesis from consideration as an explanation for the origin of biological structure. -
The Origin of Altruism
book reviews The origin of altruism Unto Others: The Evolution and about? I think the argument is largely seman- degree of relatedness. So we have a single Psychology of Unselfish Behavior tic, and could not be settled by observation. model, but two ways of analysing it. by Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson Two examples will make this clearer. More briefly, here is a second example. Harvard University Press: 1998. Pp. 394. First, consider Wilson’s ‘trait group’ Evolutionary game theory was first devel- $29.95, £19.95 model, first published in 1975 but still very oped to explain the ritualistic nature of ani- John Maynard Smith much part of his thinking. A population is mal fights. This had often been explained8 in divided into trait groups, and selection acts terms of the ‘good of the species’: it seemed It is obvious that the parts of organisms have upon them. The members then disperse and desirable to George Price and myself to specific functions. Since Darwin, this has mate randomly, and their offspring come attempt an explanation in terms of individ- been explained by natural selection, but together again in trait groups. There are two ual selection. Sober and Wilson reconsider what is the target of selection? Should indi- kinds of individual: altruists, who benefit (in this model. They come to exactly the same vidual organisms be thought of as the units terms of fitness) each of their fellow group conclusions that we reached, but argue that it of selection, or must one also consider levels members to a degree b, at a cost to themselves is a case of group selection.