CSC Policy Position: Teach Scientific Strengths & Weakness of Neo-Darwinian Evolution

Recent events in Kansas have given Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture an occasion to repeat its policy position concerning the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools. Now a proposed piece of legislation in New York requires another reiteration.To restate the CSC’s policy on teaching evolutionary theory in public schools: we OPPOSE the MANDATING of intelligent design theory in public schools. Intelligent design is a promising scientific theory, but it is nonetheless an emerging theory. A better policy would be for students to learn some of the scientific criticisms of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory and chemical origin-of-life theories, along with the best scientific arguments favoring those respective theories. Drs. John Angus Campbell and Stephen Meyer lay out such a Read More ›

A Blogger Asks: Is Intelligent Design Science?

Discovery Institute isn’t calling for states to mandate the teaching of intelligent design in the science classes of our public education system, but neither should a biology teacher be forbidden to discuss it if she so chooses. One blogger’s intellectual journey through the writings of Discovery Institute senior fellow Stephen Meyer offers an engaging explanation of why:

Eugenie Scott v. Steve Meyer on Fox News

A transcript of the Fox News interchange on May 6 between Eugenie Scott and Discovery Institute’s Stephen Meyer has been posted on the Fox News website. During the segment Eugenie Scott continues her recent effort to defend “evolution” by virtually disowning Darwin in public.

C-SPAN Presents Civilized Discussion of Kansas Evolution Hearings, Featuring Discovery Institute Rep

If you don’t think a civilized discussion of the evolution controversy is possible, watch the May 7 edition of C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” which held a low-key and eminently reasonable discussion of the Kansas hearings and the controversy over how best to teach evolution. The program featured Mark Ryland, director of Discovery Institute’s Washington, D.C. office, and Peter Folger of the American Geophysical Union. If only the Darwinists in Kansas were as respectful and dignified as Mr. Folger! You can watch the program on the web by going here and clicking on the program for May 7. The discussion of evolution starts about an hour and twenty-two minutes into the show.

Kansas Scarecrow Beginning to Show its Straw

An essay of mine ran in today’s Kansas City Star. It begins: It seems the Darwinists in Kansas are living in the past. Not the past of, say, the fossil record. The history written there tells of the abrupt appearance of major animal forms, nothing like the gradually branching tree of life that Darwin envisioned. The past that some evolutionists are living in, rather, is the Kansas science curriculum battle of 1999.