Design

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Intelligent Design Theory

In this scientific age, it is impossible to quarantine the claims of science. They invariably leak into other cultural domains. So we should attend to what scientists tell us. Sometimes it is quite important. For instance, in The Meaning of Evolution, George Gaylord Simpson repeats what is surely the “official” dogma of the contemporary scientific guild: “Man is the result Read More ›

US Commission on Civil Rights Hearing

Proceeding’s summation by then sitting board member Robert P. George: “Authentic education plainly requires fair consideration of all reasonable points of view. It is disturbing that there are efforts to exclude from the curriculum responsible criticism of Darwinism. There is nothing to be lost, and everything to be gained, from free and open inquiry.” Robert P. George McCormick Professor of Read More ›

Let Schools Provide Full Disclosure

The recent news from Post Falls has an all too familiar ring. A group of religiously motivated parents is pressing for the teaching of creationism alongside Darwinian evolution. If they succeed, many fear the A.C.L.U. will sue the school district. On the surface, the Post Falls controversy appears to be yet another dreary and unproductive chapter in the American culture Read More ›

Scientists Explore Origins of Life

Jonathan Wells doesn't dispute that evolution occurs. He just doesn't think it explains the whole rich and varied narrative of life. And throwing out evolution, the theory that living things share common ancestors but have changed over time, doesn't necessarily require inserting another theory in its place, Wells told about 450 people attending a scientific symposium Saturday at Rockhurst High School. Read More ›
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“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” In Biology Instruction

All across the country-from Maine to California, from Virginia to Washington state-school boards, teachers and parents have begun to defy the expertise of professional science educators. Many are now insisting that students to gain access to scientific information challenging the contemporary Darwinist account of biological origins. Read More ›

A Report on the ASA Conference Debate on Pandas and People Textbook

On Sunday, July 23, 1995, at its annual meeting, the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), an organization of Christians in the sciences, sponsored a debate on the supplemental biology textbook Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins, 2nd ed. (Dallas, TX: Haughton, 1993). This 170 page book, written by the biologists Dean Kenyon and Percival Davis, has engendered controversy since it was first published in 1989. Intended for use in public school classrooms as a constitutionally unobjectionable presentation of the notion of “intelligent design,” Pandas has found opposition wherever it is considered by state textbook adoption panels or school boards.

Pandas raises many issues, among them the scientific soundness of “intelligent design,” the empirical adequacy of neo-Darwinism, and the proper content of science education. Thus, members of the ASA resolved to air these differences in a debate, and invited Michael Behe, an associate professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, and Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University, to take opposing sides, with Behe defending Pandas, and Miller critiquing it.

Paul Nelson attended this meeting. What follows are his observations.

This is my report on the recent (July 23) ASA Behe/Miller debate about the book Of Pandas and People. Actually, I’ll have much more to say about my conversations with Ken Miller than about the debate itself. Like Mike Behe, I’d judge the debate a draw, or, perhaps more accurately, a stalemate. Ken wanted to hear how we (the design guys) explained the fossil record and earth history, and we wanted Ken to explain how complex biological systems evolved. Because neither Mike nor I had much to say about the fossil record, and because Ken pled ignorance about the actual mechanisms of evolution, I think the audience was left in some frustration (or confusion). Pandas took some genuine hits from Ken, but none, I think, that would sink the book. Certainly (as Mike pointed out), Ken’s own textbook Biology (Prentice-Hall) has problems – some of which Ken very honorably offered to fix in the next edition – and I think nearly all the problems Ken mentioned with Pandas are reparable, without affecting the book’s distinctive intelligent design thesis.

That thesis, of course, can’t be “fixed” (removed to accomodate methdological naturalism) without destroying Panda’s very raison d’etre. But I’ll come to that issue later. When Steve Meyer originally approached me about taking his place as “resident philosopher” at the debate, he mentioned that Ken was going to be Mike’s opponent. When I heard that, I couldn’t say no. Ever since I began reading his essays on the creation/evolution debate, in the early 1980s, Ken has struck me as the opponent I’d least like to face in a debate – in other words, as the most effective and articulate spokesman for the received view of evolution. When I heard him speak at the 1993 AAAS meeting in Boston, on intelligent design (and why organisms showed evidence of unintelligent design), I thought, now here’s someone I’d like to talk to, one-on-one, about evolution, because unlike the agnostics I usually talk to at the University of Chicago, who find problems with every evolutionary idea, he sure seems to know how the process works.

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Articles by Phillip E. Johnson

This page links to the Phillip E. Johnson page maintained by the Access Research Network. Read More ›
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Open Debate on Life’s Origins

Can scientists change their minds about controversial ideas? Can they reject theories if evidence requires? That may depend upon what theories are at stake. Consider a disturbing case in California involving a distinguished biology professor, Dean Kenyon. A year ago, Kenyon was removed from his biology classroom at San Francisco State University after a few students complained to administrators about Read More ›