Aussie Scientists Stand up for Darwinian Evolution -- Challenge Australian Governments and Educators Not to Promulgate ID as Science. (October 21, 2005)

     Below is the full text of a letter on intelligent design that was released jointly yesterday by the Dean of Science, University of New South Wales, the Executive Director, Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies, the Executive Secretary, Australian Academy of Science and the President-Elect, Australian Science Teachers Association.

Intelligent Design is Not Science

 

As Australian scientists and science educators, we are gravely concerned that so-called "intelligent design" (ID) might be taught in any school as a valid scientific alternative to evolution.

 

While science is a work in progress, a vast and growing body of factual knowledge supports the hypothesis that biological complexity is the result of natural processes of evolution.

 

Proponents of ID assert that some living structures are so complex that they are explicable only by the agency of an imagined and unspecified "intelligent designer".

 

They are free to believe and profess whatever they like. But not being able to imagine or explain how something happened other than by making a leap of faith to supernatural intervention is no basis for any science: that is a theological or philosophical notion.

 

For a theory to be considered scientific it must be testable - either directly or indirectly - by experiment or observation. The results of such tests should be able to be reproduced by others as a check on their accuracy (and, importantly, if repeated testing falsifies the theory it should be rejected rather than taught as part of the accumulating body of scientific understanding). Finally, a scientific theory should explain more than what is already known: it should be able to predict outcomes in novel situations.

 

Evolution meets all of these criteria but ID meets none of them: it is not science.

We therefore urge all Australian governments and educators not to permit the teaching or promulgation of ID as science. To do so would make a mockery of Australian science teaching and throw open the door of science classes to similarly unscientific world views ­ be they astrology, spoon-bending, flat-earth cosmology or alien abductions - and crowd out the teaching of real science.

Signed,

Michael Archer

Dean of Science, UNSW

 

Bradley Smith

Executive Director FASTS

 

Sue Serjeantson

Executive Secretary AAS

 

Paul Carnemolla

President-Elect
ASTA

 

Credit: Sidney Harris, 1977

 

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Commenting on the letter Ted Boyce, principal of Pacific Hills Christian School in Dural, told The Sydney Morning Herald that intelligent design is taught in science classes. He was not persuaded by the Australian scientists' and teachers' stance and it was appropriate to teach it as an alternative explanation for the origin of humanity. He said, "We believe it is as valid to do that as to teach evolution. It would be unacademic and unscientific not to do so."

The SMH also reports the chief executive of Christian Schools Australia, Stephen O'Doherty, as saying that intelligent design was likely to be discussed in science classes in many Christian schools and this was beneficial for learning.

What the views of Dr Boyce or Mr O'Doherty are with regard to the teaching of astrology, spoon-bending, flat-earth cosmology or alien abductions in science classes wasn't reported.

On the other hand the executive director of Focus on the Family Australia and an intelligent design supporter, Colin Bunnett, told The Age that comparing the theory with spoon-bending and aliens was extreme and puerile. Intelligent design was asking scientific, not hypothetical, questions about the theory of evolution.

The Age goes on to quote Mr Bennett, "Please Mr Evolutionist, give us your answer as to how it happened and if you can't then how are you proving it? If you can't explain it … are [you] not then taking a step of faith to say evolution is the answer."

Colin Bennett raises some interesting and important points.

First is the raising of  astrology, spoon-bending, flat-earth cosmology or alien abductions as any less appropriate to teach in science classes than intelligent design.

On October 19 The New York Times printed this opening under the headline "Witness Defends Broad Definition of Science".

HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct. 18 - A leading architect of the intelligent-design movement defended his ideas in a federal courtroom on Tuesday and acknowledged that under his definition of a scientific theory, astrology would fit as neatly as intelligent design.

 

Prof. Michael J. Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh University, is the first expert witness for the school board of Dover, Pa., which is requiring students to hear a statement about intelligent design in biology class.

The Dover school board is being sued by 11 parents who say intelligent design is inappropriate in a biology class because it is merely religious creationism repackaged to resemble science.