Debating Darwin: Should evolution be taught as the only truth? at the 2007 Battle of Ideas conference hosted by the Institute of Ideas.
The debate over creationism has sprung up as the latest flashpoint in the battle between secularism and religion. While the US has seen extended conflict over the theory of evolution - from the 1925 'Scopes Monkey Trial' to the recent Dover, PA court case "new challenges to Darwinism under the guise of intelligent design (ID) have arisen in the UK. Concerns centre on school science education, from Sir Peter Vardy's Emmanuel Schools Foundation to the controversial teaching packs distributed by the anti-evolution group Truth in Science. The rise of 'Islamic creationism', modeling itself on ID, adds to concerns that Islam poses a special threat to secularism in Britain. Although the Royal Society and much of the scientific establishment have denounced the teaching of creationism, a recent MORI poll revealed that over 40% of the public believe that creationism or ID should be taught alongside evolution in school science classes.
While few seriously endorse the literal biblical story of creation, ID on the other hand claims to highlight Darwinism's shortcomings on scientific grounds. Evolution is 'just a theory' after all. Surely in the spirit of encouraging critical thinking we should 'teach the controversy'? Science is about questioning received truths rather than establishing certainties for all time. Does this not permit a more flexible approach to science education, where debate is encouraged? Further, the sheer complexity of evolutionary theory leads ID advocates to claim it is best to cultivate a critical eye in pupils, rather than have them take as truth a misunderstood Darwinian theory.
Is science, or 'scientism', just as fundamentalist as religion, arrogantly claiming to know everything, or are doubts such as these a reflection of scientists' failure to make the case properly for what science does have to offer? Is this merely another case of the 'balance fallacy' the mistaken belief that even falsehoods should be given air time?- IoI
Bio
Simon Conway Morris
Simon Conway Morris is Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge. He has worked as a Research Fellow at St John's College, and has lectured at the Open University. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1990, and has received medals from the National Academy of Sciences and the Geological Society of London. He worked for the Natural Environment Research Council between 1998 and 2002. Simon is renowned for his insights into early evolution and his studies of palaeobiology.
Steve Fuller
Steve Fuller is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK. He received his B.A. summa cum laude (History and Sociology) from Columbia University (1979), MPhil. (History and Philosophy of Science) from Cambridge University (1981), and PhD (History and Philosophy of Science) from University of Pittsburgh (1985). He is the founder of the research program of social epistemology - which is the name of a quarterly journal he founded with Taylor & Francis in 1987, as well as his first book Social Epistemology
Steve's work has appeared in 15 languages, and he has been a visiting professor in the US, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Japan and Israel. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, Fellow at the Economic and Social Research Council, and is listed in Who’s Who in the World. In 2007 Warwick University awarded him a 'higher doctorate' (DLitt) for distinguished contributions to scholarship.
Alex Hochuli
Alex Hochuli is a masters student in European studies at King's College London and editor of the Battle of Ideas and Institute of Ideas websites.
He assists in the development of the IoI's communications and new media, and with the Debating Matters Competition. Alex is a Battle of Ideas committee member and is on the editorial team of the 2007 Battles in Print.
He occasionally writes articles for spiked and reviews for Culture Wars. Alex co-edits the Manifesto Club freedom blog, Speaking Our Mind, and is a regular guest on news discussion programme Up Front on internet talk TV channel 18 Doughty Street.
Alex is a recent graduate in International Relations and History from the London School of Economics (LSE) with a special interest in religion and secularism, co-producing the IoI and Bishopsgate Institute series of debates on secularism in early 2008. He also has a keen interest in issues relating to the media and the internet, particularly with regard to censorship and free speech.
David Perks
David Perks has taught in state schools for over 20 years and is a passionate defender of academic science education. His critique of the new school science curriculum published in What is science education for? provoked the front page headline in The Times - Science elite rejects new GCSE as 'fit for the pub'. David writes more broadly on education and the relationship between science and society. His interests range from environmentalism to intelligent design. David originated the Institute of Ideas and Pfizer Debating Matters sixth form debating competition
(born Feb. 12, 1809, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, Eng.—died April 19, 1882, Downe, Kent) British naturalist. The grandson of Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood, he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and biology at Cambridge. He was recommended as a naturalist on HMS Beagle, which was bound on a long scientific survey expedition to South America and the South Seas (1831–36). His zoological and geological discoveries on the voyage resulted in numerous important publications and formed the basis of his theories of evolution. Seeing competition between individuals of a single species, he recognized that within a local population the individual bird, for example, with the sharper beak might have a better chance to survive and reproduce and that if such traits were passed on to new generations, they would be predominant in future populations. He saw this natural selection as the mechanism by which advantageous variations were passed on to later generations and less advantageous traits gradually disappeared. He worked on his theory for more than 20 years before publishing it in his famous On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859). The book was immediately in great demand, and Darwin's intensely controversial theory was accepted quickly in most scientific circles; most opposition came from religious leaders. Though Darwin's ideas were modified by later developments in genetics and molecular biology, his work remains central to modern evolutionary theory. His many other important works included Variation in Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868) and The Descent of Man… (1871). He was buried in Westminster Abbey. See alsoDarwinism.
First of all, despite what the two silly Darwinists with bad haircuts in this video say, Intelligent Design makes no claim regarding whether or not evolution is true. That's a common misconception that's been fueled by propaganda from the Darwinist's camp. Intelligent Design is simply the belief that nature - including biology - shows signs of design.
Intelligent, well educated people who are open to following the scientific data all agree that it does. Those who are stuck on antiquated 19th century fairy tales (Darwinism) do not.
Please note that evolution and Darwinism are not one and the same.
Let me make this simple so you brainwashed simpletons can better grasp it......
Intelligent Design is not Creationism vs Evolution
Intelligent Design is not Theist/Deist vs Atheist/Agnostic (there are many atheistic supporters of I.D.)
Intelligent Design is 'Watchmaker' vs 'Blind Watchmaker'
It doesn't matter whether you believe the 'Watchmaker' is the God of any specific religion, aliens from the planet Utopia-X, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or anyone or anything else. It also doesn't matter how you believe the 'Watchmaker' diversified life - fully-formed creationism, front-loaded evolution, guided evolution, etc. All that matters is that you believe design can and has been detected in nature. You may think evolution has taken place, but the evidence for this is not evidence for purposeless 'Blind Watchmaker' Darwinism. In fact, Michael Behe's masterpiece "The Edge of Evolution" shows us that Darwinian mechanisms can only produce very trivial beneficial results, and those are extremely rare. If evolution happened/happens, it didn't happen anywhere close to the way Darwin thought it did.
"Nothing in evolution makes sense except in the light of front-loading."
-DaveScot, Uncommon Descent
In terms of this issue between evolution and intelligent design, if you look at it closely, these two ideas do not contradict each other at all. It is absurd to believe that the universe was created by God in seven days yet we are at a loss to explain why the universe's laws, the order of the universe and the design and diversity of everything are the way they are. Therefore, since everything is in a certain order of design, someone must be the architect to design it. Nothing can give order by itself. Hence, evolution is just a part of intelligent design. These two ideas complement each other completely. We CAN teach these two ideas hand in hand in schools. There shouldn't even be a conflict. As long as those fundamentalists don't start with their 6-day theory....
It is infuriating that in one breath certain individuals - Carlos - will admit to their ignorance of the topic and then proceed to pontificate on the limitations, the "gaps" of evolution as a theory based on nothing more than their ignorance - "Jeez, if I can't see how it could be so, then it must not be so."
The claim by creationists - Mr. Mare652 - that evolution is "just a theory" not a fact, speaks volumes to the central problem, indeed, the central danger, which is illustrated by fact that the definition of an elementary term like "theory", in the scientific sense, is obviously a mystery to a high school educated individual in a first world country! Arthur C. Clarke once said something to the effect that sufficiently advance technology would appear to us to be magic. However, it works equally well if the populace is sufficiently dumbed down.
It truly scares me, and sometimes even humor me, to see how man and there intelligence, try to explain themselves!. Although, I'm not an expert on either " Intelligent Design" or " Evolution"...I must say that I am a thinker, who is looking for answers, but at the same time, has enough sense to know that I cannot explain my existence!. We need to be at least honest with ourselves, and see that " Evolution " has many GAPS...or open question, that by the way, cannot be explained. My question to all the THINKERS out there, who live on the basis of THEORY; and by the way "PRAETORIAN" thank you for clearing up what THEORY means to Scientist...In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature that is supported by many facts gathered over time. Theories also allow scientists to make predictions about as yet unobserved phenomena." Still, there is the question of the SOUL...for example...where is it?, where does come from?, and how does it allow Human Beings to rationalize, adapt, and even have emotions. I understand that these are complicated questions, to which we might never find the answer to, just more QUESTIONS!. Still, to not give children, the opportunity to make up ther own MIND, is WRONG and IMMORAL!. Hopefully, we will do the RIGHT thing, and the Scientific thing!.
Your comment about entropy displays more of a misconception about thermodynamics than about evolution. The second law of thermodynamics says, "No process is possible in which the sole result is the transfer of energy from a cooler to a hotter body." [Atkins, 1984, The Second Law, pg. 25] Your confusion arises when the 2nd law is phrased in another equivalent way, "The entropy of a closed system cannot decrease." Entropy is an indication of unusable energy and often (but not always!) corresponds to intuitive notions of disorder or randomness. Creationists thus misinterpret the 2nd law to say that things invariably progress from order to disorder.
However, they neglect the fact that life is not a closed system. The sun provides more than enough energy to drive things. If a mature tomato plant can have more usable energy than the seed it grew from, why should anyone expect that the next generation of tomatoes can't have more usable energy still? Creationists sometimes try to get around this by claiming that the information carried by living things lets them create order. However, not only is life irrelevant to the 2nd law, but order from disorder is common in nonliving systems, too. Snowflakes, sand dunes, tornadoes, stalactites, graded river beds, and lightning are just a few examples of order coming from disorder in nature; none require an intelligent program to achieve that order. In any nontrivial system with lots of energy flowing through it, you are almost certain to find order arising somewhere in the system. If order from disorder is supposed to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, why is it ubiquitous in nature?
The thermodynamics argument against evolution displays a misconception about evolution as well as about thermodynamics, since a clear understanding of how evolution works should reveal major flaws in the argument. Evolution says that organisms reproduce with only small changes between generations (after their own kind, so to speak). For example, animals might have appendages which are longer or shorter, thicker or flatter, lighter or darker than their parents. Occasionally, a change might be on the order of having four or six fingers instead of five. Once the differences appear, the theory of evolution calls for differential reproductive success. For example, maybe the animals with longer appendages survive to have more offspring than short-appendaged ones. All of these processes can be observed today. They obviously don't violate any physical laws.
Lastly, we agree on the need for toleration, but that need doesn't translate into bringing pseudoscience and the supernatural into science classes nor does it justify evolutionary biologist's giving discourses from the pulpit of your church.
It isn't being dogmatic about the theory of evolution, it's being dogmatic about the scientific method. What proponents of intelligent design wish to do is circumvent the scientific method. That is why scientists abhor it. By the way, in science a theory is the highest aspiration. In order to prove you must venture into mathematics. The use of the word theory in science is completely different to the use of theory in common nomenclature. According to the National Academy of Sciences,
"Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory. In everyday language a theory means a hunch or speculation. Not so in science. In science, the word theory refers to a comprehensive explanation of an important feature of nature that is supported by many facts gathered over time. Theories also allow scientists to make predictions about as yet unobserved phenomena."
Do you also want unsubstantiated supernatural explanations for gravity, which after all is only a theory? Are we to also teach our children that God makes apples fall?
To be dogmatic about evolution is amusing to me considering it is still a theory not a fact or law of science. Even though today it is not taught that way in public school, which explains the loyal devotion to its concept. It actually goes against the second law of nature (entropy- anything left to itself becomes more disorderly) What happenned to having a choice of ideas and being tolerant of others belief, or doesn't that apply to a Christian's perception?
Why not teach intelligent design as an equally plausible explanation for other scientific theories such as plate tectonics, disease or the most ridicules theory out there... relativity! I mean, come on now stop time?!?!? Have YOU ever seen anyone frozen in time? I thought not! (For the mythologically impaired this is written as a sarcastic post.)
member. 
