No New Evidence Likely to Alter Evolution?
Tuesday, the Florida Board of Education (my home state) will decide whether to revise the Sunshine State Standards to specifically encourage the teaching of evolution which is “the fundamental concept underlying all of biology and is supported by multiple forms of scientific evidence.” Casey Luskin, of the Discovery Institute, has an excellent op ed piece opposing the adoption of these changes in today’s Lakeland Ledger.
The newspaper’s opinion, on the opposite page, hails the National Academy of Sciences as the nation’s preeminent scientific organization and points to their publication, Science, Evolution and Creation, as the definitive work on the controversy over Darwinian Evolution and Intelligent Design. Luskin gets to the core of the controversy by directing his readers to this comment found in that book of the NAS:
[t]here is no scientific controversy about the basic facts of evolution” because “no new evidence is likely to alter” it.
He correctly shows that this statement if fundamentally untrue. Many scientists have questioned the science behind Darwinism. Unfortunately, many of these have been marginalized and discriminated against. Luskin states:
Sadly, the academy is commonly intolerant of dissent from Darwinism. Consider the NAS’ statement that “there is no scientific controversy” over evolution. Imagine you are a scientist with fundamental doubts about Darwinism and you see the top science organization in the U.S.A. asserting that your views don’t exist.
This spring, a documentary will be released featuring Ben Stein, titled “Expelled,” that recounts the stories of scientists who have experienced persecution of their academic freedom because they questioned evolution. One such scientist is Dr. Richard Sternberg, a biologist formerly at the Smithsonian with two Ph.D.s in evolution, who was harassed and intimidated because he is a skeptic of neo-Darwinism. Another biologist lost her job at George Mason University because she challenged evolution in a classroom.
No wonder Darwinists confidently declare there is no debate over evolution: They shut down such debate and prevent it from taking place.(emphasis mine)
Unfortunately, the proposed Florida science standards will stifle free inquiry because they, too, censor any scientific challenges to evolution. Change is necessary if Florida teachers are to be given the freedom to inform students about scientists who dissent from evolution.
Luskin makes important points in this debate. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the public continue to misunderstand the issue. Instead, they continue to misrepresent the views of the Intelligent Design movement. The Ledger’s editorial was again mischaracterizes those who oppose the revision of the standards as…
… mostly represent(ing) Evangelical Christianity and Orthodox Judaism. They take the biblical description of Earth’s creation literally.
Understand that those in the Intelligent Design Movement do not oppose the teaching of Evolution in public schools. What is opposed is the teaching of evolution as incontrovertible, established fact that is unopposed by the scientific community. Well-known and respected scientists have expressed many concerns with Darwinian Evolution. Students should be taught the controversy over Darwinism. They should be told why many hold it to be the best theory of how to account for the present diversity and complexity of life as well as why many feel the theory breaks down and is inadequate to account for such life.