"The Scientist" 15[6]:1, Mar. 19, 2001

    Fighting Darwin's Battles

    Symposium marks evolutionist victory,
    anti-evolution growth

    By Eugene Russo

    For the past 80 years, the teaching of evolution has flirted with
extinction several times in several states. From the famous 1925 Scopes
Monkey Trial in Tennessee, to the recent debate in Kansas, Creationist
challenges to the teaching of Charles Darwin's theory have persisted
despite mounting evidence in support of it. According to a panel of
scientists and historians speaking at a symposium at last month's American
Association for the Advancement of Science meeting, such challenges, often
involving proposals to give "equal time" to Creationist and evolutionist
theories, will continue both nationally and internationally.

    The AAAS symposium took place four days after the February 14 decision
by the Kansas State Board of Education, which reinstated evolution in that
state's public school curriculum as mandatory, reversing a previous
board's decision from August 1999. The symposium itself was held to mark
the 20th anniversary of another important battleground for the teaching of
evolution: the landmark McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education trial. In
1981, five scientists, four of whom spoke at the symposium, helped
invalidate an Arkansas statute requiring equal classroom time for
evolution and Creationism. "I don't think we could possibly have lost that
trial," said trial witness and Harvard University professor of zoology
Stephen J. Gould. "But it had to [take] place." He pointed out that he and
his colleagues were not trying to prove evolution, only show that
"Creationism, whatever it is, is not a science."

    Gould, along with other McLean trial veterans--biology professor
Harold J. Morowitz of George Mason University, biology professor and
ordained priest Francisco Ayala of the University of California at Irvine,
and dean emeritus of Oregon State University's College of Oceanic &
Atmospheric Sciences G. Brent Dalrymple--discussed advances in their
respective fields in the past 20 years that have helped reinforce the
theory of evolution. Florida State University professor of philosophy and
zoology Michael J. Ruse, also a witness in McLean v. Arkansas Board of
Education, did not attend.

    Gould suggested that paleontology has had a "very fruitful" 20 years.
He cited findings that have helped "fill the gaps" in the fossil record,
such as the 1994 discovery of the skeleton of the "walking whale"
(Ambulocetus) in northern Pakistan, an apparent intermediary between
aquatic and land mammals.1 Ayala noted that mitochondrial DNA evidence
from recent years lends support to the "out of Africa" theory for how
human ancestors migrated among the continents. Dalrymple pointed to
research out of western Australia from earlier this year reporting mineral
evidence for the existence of continental crust and oceans 4.4 billion
years ago, an important contrast to "Young Earth Creationist" claims of a
much younger planet.2

    The recent human genome papers have also elucidated human evolution by
highlighting humans' high number of nucleotide repeats, and the numerous
protein domains that humans share with other species.3 "The genome has now
a fossil record, a paleontological record, of the last billion years of
genome evolution," maintains Eric Lander, director of the Whitehead Center
for Genome Research in Cambridge, Mass.

    Nevertheless, Creationist movements have increased budgets and bases
of support. The Young Earth Creationists (YEC), who believe, in part, that
God created Earth and all types of living things in six days 10,000 years
ago, have two organizations with $5 billion budgets: the Santee,
Calif.-based Institute for Creation Research, and the newer Answers In
Genesis. A February 2001 Gallup poll suggests that more Americans favor
some form of Creationism than they do any theory of evolution (See
www.gallup.com/Poll/releases/pr010305.asp for poll results). Public
opinion on the topic, according to annual poll results, has not deviated
significantly since Gallup first started asking about evolution and
Creationism in 1982.

    According to Ron L. Numbers, an historian of science at the University
of Wisconsin, symposium discussant, and author of The Creationists,4
Creationist movements, though typically considered a uniquely American
phenomenon, have bloomed internationally as well. Numbers noted
well-established YEC movements in Australia, Korea, Russia, and Turkey.

    Recently, a new facet of anti-evolution has surfaced in addition to
YEC. In the last 10 years, "Intelligent Design (ID) Theory," or
"Intelligent Design Creationism" as it's known by its critics, has
captured much attention.5 According to symposium participant and evolution
activist Eugenie Scott, McLean and a subsequent 1987 ruling against a
statute in Louisiana, which called for classroom time for evolution and
Creationism, "struck down Creation science, which resulted in
anti-evolutionists reinventing [it] under other guises." ID's major
organization is the Seattle-based Center for Renewal of Science and
Culture. Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, a
nonprofit organization working to "defend the teaching of evolution
against sectarian attack," also noted the presence of several ID theorists
at secular institutions, which, she said, had given the anti-evolution
movement a respectability never experienced by the YEC.

    Intelligent design theorists like Michael J. Behe, an associate
professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, and author
of Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution,6 reject the
Creationist label, suggesting that theirs is a scientifically viable
theory. ID theorists generally do not agree with the main tenets of YEC.
The central notion in Behe's book is based on the concept of "irreducible
complexity;" the idea that certain systems, such as bacteria flagellum,
blood-clotting cascade, and other components of cellular systems, are
composed of well-matched interacting parts wherein the removal of any one
of the parts causes the system to stop functioning. Behe contends that
irreducible complexity implies the work of a designer, though that
designer need not necessarily be God (though Behe himself believes that
the designer is, in fact, God).

    Scott charges that ID theory and irreducible complexity are not
science (that they are not testable nor falsifiable) and should not be
included in science curricula. The irreducible complexity concept, said
Scott, does not reflect an understanding of natural selection and implies
a "God at the gaps" argument--using God to explain phenomena that are not
yet well understood. Creationists contend that evolution is also neither
testable nor falsifiable.

    Behe supports the teaching of evolution in schools, and welcomed the
Kansas board's reversal, but he would like to see the problems with
evolutionary theory discussed in the classroom as well. "I think it should
be taught warts and all," he told The Scientist. Behe adds that any
discussion involving the origins of anything, whether life or the
universe, necessarily involves philosophical implications. "People who
think that teaching Darwinian biology does not touch on philosophical
issues are kidding themselves," he comments.

    Scott warned those at the symposium that although such suggestions
seem rational and in the spirit of routine scientific debate, they're
actually tantamount to devoting significant time to nonscience in a
science classroom. Such "equal time" proposals are being considered in
Arizona, Ohio, and Minnesota. Gould and Scott said they were not
particularly concerned about losing legal battles related to the teaching
of evolution, but about teachers bowing to "unstated intimidation" at a
local level--choosing not to teach evolution to avoid conflict with
parents or other teachers.

    "There's no dispute in science over whether evolution took place,"
said Scott. "That's the big distinction lost in the general public."

    Eugene Russo can be contacted at erusso@the-scientist.com

    References
    1. J.G. Thewissen et al., "Fossil evidence for the origin of aquatic
locomotion in Archaeocete whales," Science, 263: 210-12, 1994.
    2. S.A. Wilde et al., "Evidence from detrital zircons for the
existence of continental crust and oceans on the Earth 4.4 Gyr ago,"
Nature, 409:175-8, January 11, 2001.
    3. W.H. Li et al., "Evolutionary analyses of the human genome,"
Nature, 409:847-9, February 15, 2001.
    4. R.L. Numbers, The Creationists, New York: A.A. Knopf, 1992.
    5. S. Bunk, "In a Darwinian world, what chance for design?" The
Scientist 12[8]:3, Apr. 13, 1998.
    6. M.J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to
Evolution, New York: The Free Press, 1996.

For more information on the Creationism/evolution debate:

Access Research Network www.arn.org
The World of Richard Dawkins  www.world-of-dawkins.com/default.asp
National Center for Science Education ncseweb.org
The Talk Origins Archive talkorigins.org

Oryginal: http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2001/mar/russo_p1_010319.html
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The Scientist 15[7]:8, Apr. 2, 2001

LETTER

    Teaching Creationism

    By Phillip Hull

    Regarding "Fighting Darwin's Battles,"1 I spent a day discussing
creationism in my science classroom last year. It was right after the
controversy in Kansas, and the Channel One news program was highlighting
it for a time. I made the point to my kids that I thought that creationism
should be taught in the social studies classroom, and should include
creation stories from all cultures and religious traditions.

      I went so far as to read to them, creation stories from Hindu,
Native American, and Judeao-Christian traditions. I followed up by having
them choose one of six positions on the subject of teaching creationism,
and then having them write letters to the editor supporting the position
they had chosen. The point of the whole discussion was that maybe
creationism has a place in social studies, but it has no place in science.
At no time did I spend any time trying to debunk creationism's arguments.
It worked pretty well, and it helped to defuse some of the
closed-mindedness I was getting from some of the children who were from
fundamentalist homes.

      Just my two cents worth.

                                                          Phillip Hull
                                                 8th grade science teacher
                                              Crawford County Middle School
                                                         Roberta, GA

    1.E. Russo, "Fighting Darwin's Battles," The Scientist, 15[6]:1, March 19, 2001.

Oryginal: http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2001/apr/let_010402.html