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Revealed! The SECRET PLOT to Teach About Evolution in an Objective, Responsible, Engaging Manner!

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Actually, Discovery Institute’s aim to see evolution treated as a normal scientific idea, subject to question and criticism, is neither secret nor a plot. But vocal members of the Darwin community habitually cast our efforts in paranoid terms, so it’s good to be able to report that we’ve now published an updated Educator’s Briefing Packet on teaching evolution and intelligent design.

Yes, if a public school teacher were to write to us asking for information about ID or evolution, this is the document to which we would direct her. It’s 100 percent public and available for inspection by all.

The packet spells out in detail, in 32 pages with 89 endnotes, exactly how we think, as a scientific, legal, and a pedagogical matter, evolution is best approached in public school science classrooms. It’s free here, and if the full-color trim makes you suspicious, you may also find it here in black and white. Some highlights:

From “A Letter of Introduction,” here is our education policy on ID:

[I]t’s vital to understand that just because intelligent design is a growing scientific theory backed by much evidence, that does not mean it’s smart or appropriate to push it into public schools.

For the record, we do not propose that intelligent design be mandated in public schools, which is why we strongly opposed the school district policy at issue in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. However, if you voluntarily choose to raise the issue of intelligent design in your classroom, it is vitally important that any information you present accurately conveys the views of the scientists and scholars who support intelligent design, rather than a caricature of their views. Otherwise you will be engaging in indoctrination, not education.

A point of constitutional law often overlooked by Darwin activists:

Suggestions that public school teachers tell students that evolution is either compatible or incompatible with religion raise serious First Amendment issues. The question of whether evolution is compatible with religion is essentially a theological question and public schools are forbidden from endorsing any particular theological position regarding evolution. Objective discussions of religious views are permitted (in relevant courses), but giving students materials that present only one religious position (e.g., “good theology” favors evolution) is clearly unconstitutional and may place teachers and school districts in legal jeopardy.

This made me think of the school principal lambasted by Zack Kopplin in a Slate article. The principal agreed with a miffed parent that it was inappropriate for a teacher to instruct students about how God did or did not “mean for us to look,” to offer commentary on “what the preacher said on Sunday,” whether “Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis ministry” is right about evolution being “evil,” and so on. It’s not a public school science teacher’s place to lecture on theology, whether in a fashion that’s pro-evolution (as in this teacher’s case) or critical of it. The principal said, “I am sorry this happened and I have corrected it, I hope.” From the evidence available, he was right to say so.

From the “FAQ on Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Education”:

Is Intelligent Design the Same as Creationism?

No. …The charge that ID is “creationism” is a rhetorical strategy on the part of Darwinists who wish to delegitimize ID without actually addressing the merits of its case.

Yep.

To say that mandating ID would be unwise and counterproductive is not the same as saying that any legal (or scientific) principle precludes a teacher on her own from taking up the subject:

Should Public Schools Mandate Intelligent Design?

No. The ID movement has long been focused on developing the theory of intelligent design through scientific research, scientific publications, and other forms of scientific discussion and does not seek to push ID into schools. In today’s politically charged climate, attempts to mandate teaching about intelligent design only politicize the theory and will likely hinder fair and open discussion of the merits of the theory among scholars and within the scientific community. Furthermore, most teachers at the present time do not know enough about ID to teach about it accurately and objectively.

Has ID Been Banned from Public Schools?

No. Science teachers have the right to teach science. Since ID is a legitimate scientific theory, it should be constitutional to discuss in science classrooms and it should not be banned from schools. If a science teacher wants to voluntarily discuss ID, she should have the academic freedom to do so.

The Educator’s Briefing Packet details some of the scientific problems with Darwinian theory, in areas including genetics, biochemistry, paleontology, taxonomy, and chemistry. But what would instruction along these lines actually look like? If you were in the classroom, what would you see? Well, “If taught properly, students may not even know exactly where the teacher stands on this topic.” Indeed. In concrete terms, and I find this particularly helpful, here’s what we recommend:

What Is a Suggested Plan for Teaching a Unit on Neo-Darwinian Evolution?

Objective education means that students must be allowed to form and express their own opinions. An objective unit covering neo-Darwinian evolution might look something like this:

  • First, cover the required curriculum by teaching the material in the textbook. Ensure that students understand the scientific arguments for neo-Darwinian evolution. (1-2 weeks)

  • Next, spend a few days discussing scientific criticisms of neo-Darwinian evolution. The supplementary textbook Explore Evolution, the DVD Investigating Evolution, and the Icons of Evolution Study Guide are potential resources. Encourage students to think critically. (2-3 days)

  • Finally, consider allowing students to spend a couple days wrestling with the data and forming their own opinions. This could include in-class debates, or an assignment where students write a position statement on neo-Darwinian evolution. In these exercises, students may defend whatever position they wish, but must justify it using only scientific evidence and scientific arguments. (1-2 days)

Most public school curricula stop after step 1, missing out on the benefits from steps 2 and 3. Some might claim those extra steps would take too much time. But teaching the modern neo-Darwinian theory of evolution in an objective fashion need not take any more time than the 2-3 weeks typically spent on an evolution unit.

More importantly, any extra time taken to teach this topic objectively is not wasted — it will help students better understand the evidence, better appreciate scientific reasoning, and fulfill standards requiring critical thinking and use of the inquiry method. Finally, this approach will be welcomed by students who find this topic engages their interest in science.

Don’t miss the chapters on “The Truth about the Kitzmiller v. Dover Intelligent Design Case,” “Teaching About Evolution in the Public Schools: A Short Summary of the Law,” and “Scientific Problems with Biological and Chemical Evolution.”

The need for this publication was urgent because most of the criticisms of academic freedom boil down, in the end, to conspiracy theories. Against that, all you can do is articulate your true goals and views, again and again, as clearly as possible.

But it’s a job keeping up with the profusion of fibs disseminated in the media and across the Internet by propagandists on the other side. You have disinformation specialists like Joshua Rosenau at the National Center for Science Education, regaling gullible reporters with tales of the Wedge Document Illuminati and the Protocols of the Elders of Intelligent Design.

You have activists like Zack Kopplin who casts academic freedom laws, of the kind we support, as “creationist” legislation seeking a way to sneak the Bible into evolution instruction.

But since teaching the Bible in public school science class is unconstitutional anyway, not to mention foolish, it’s not clear why any teacher who intended to do that, defying the Constitution of the United States, would eagerly welcome a law like the Louisiana Science Education Act that explicitly excludes religious instruction from its ambit.

You have guys like Lee McIntyre at Boston University who wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education that Discovery Institute “advocat[es] that ‘intelligent-design theory’ be taught in the public schools as balance for the ‘holes’ in evolutionary theory.”

But again, it’s hard to see why, if you wanted to push intelligent design into public school science classes, you would support a law that spoke of teaching evolution’s strengths and weaknesses but gave neither mention nor mandate to teaching about the positive case for intelligent design.

Finally you have gents like mathematician Jason Rosenhouse who thinks he’s squared the circle by saying that teaching the strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory basically is the same as teaching ID. If true, that might get Lee McIntyre off the hook. But it’s not true, clearly not, as anyone who’s studied the issue knows. Scientific critiques of Darwinian theory are negative — they cast doubt on an idea — while ID makes a separate positive case. See our relevant document, “Critical Analysis of Evolution Is Not the Same as Teaching Intelligent Design.”

Could that be any clearer? I hardly see how. We’ve got two curricula on offer for schools — one for public schools (Explore Evolution), covering evolution’s strengths and weaknesses, and one for private and homeschools (Discovering Intelligent Design). And as any competent reader can verify, they are different books, covering different subject matter.

Goodness, can these people read? Or are they so blinded by their own ideological preoccupations that that they can’t even grant the actual terms of what is being discussed and disagree with us — whether on science or education — on the merits of the case we make? I would love to hear a genuine argument against teaching evolution objectively, rather than just a series of evasions that mutate depending on which Darwin activist you’re listening to.

I really would love that. Won’t some honest evolutionist oblige me?

Image: � Cherries/ Dollar Photo Club.

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture. Klinghoffer is also the author of six books, a former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

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