Not in our classrooms: Why intelligent design is wrong for our schools

Abstract

The primary goal of this book is to maintain the legitimacy of school science by preventing the inclusion of intelligent design (ID) in the classroom, which is not surprising given the editors of the collection are Eugenie Scott and Glen Branch of the National Center for Science Education, a clearinghouse whose mission is "defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools."In this charge, the editors enlist the efforts of a wide variety of scholars including ordained ministers, a professor of theology, a law school faculty member, an evolutionary biologist, and a science educator whose voices weigh in to critique the current social pressure to include intelligent design in science classrooms.The contributions to the book invoke images of the culture wars between science and religion, with the authors positioning themselves as guardians of science.Terms such as "crusade," "culture wars," and "campaigns" are found throughout much of the text.The issue of intelligent design is presented as a threat against which the battalions of science educators are called to rally their arms.Not in Our Classrooms presents itself as a full-scale response to that threat, which is convincingly portrayed as a "younger cousin" of creationism and offers useful strategies and tactics for concerned citizens to keep ID out of the science classroom.The authors in this volume excel at challenging the claims of ID proponents.For example, they show how the Kansas science standards misrepresent the "mystery" of the Cambrian explosion as being inconsistent with evolution.Evidence contrary to ID claims such as the existence of trace fossils prior to the "explosion" and the vast time span actually involved in the "sudden" appearance of fossils, they note, are not addressed.The frequent reference to the difference between micro-and macroevolution among ID advocates is also discussed.Throughout the book, the authors debunk ID as something less than an explanatory theory, revealing it to be founded on a negative argument of evolution.ID advocates, the authors explain, seem to believe that simply pointing out flaws in evolutionary theory is all that is required for ID to be accepted as correct.The authors also project future strategies of the ID movement and suggest effective responses.In one of the chapters, Alters, a science educator with a long history of work in evolution education, describes the shift in the ID movement away from presenting ID as a scientific theory and toward the notion of teaching "the controversy" in response to recent court cases, a strategy which is designed to exploit the American sense of fairness and hearing "both sides" of an argument.This approach, of course, suggests erroneously that ID is considered to be a legitimate scientific alternative to evolutionary theory, which is clearly not the case.The analyses provided in this text are helpful in understanding the current rhetoric surrounding the push for ID in schools.However, in our view much of this misses a central opportunity.The book is clearly a reaction to the current ID initiatives plaguing the United States.But by reacting the text offers scant insight into the nature of the problem (with the exception of the chapters on religion and law).We were left to puzzle over how science teachers in the United States find themselves in the position of being asked to present ID as a scientifically acceptable alternative to evolution.What is it about science and science education in the United States that has allowed for ID to be taken seriously by the lay public?The chapters by Scott, Matzke and Gross, and Glen briefly describe the political climate that accounts for part of this puzzle, but precious little attention is paid to how science education itself has figured in this debacle.The text is structured to serve as a concise source of information for the informed lay reader.But even considering this audience, we were perplexed to see so little use of the Science Education

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