The Journal of Young Investigators: An Undergraduate, Peer-Reviewed Science Journal

08 August 2005 - President Bush’s remark on 8 August that ‘intelligent design’ should be taught alongside evolution as a competing theory for the complexity of life reinvigorated the debate over public school science curricula.

In a group interview at the White House, Bush told five Texas reporters that science teachers should present both views so that “people can understand what the debate is about.”

“Intelligent design” is the idea that life is too complex to have originated via evolution alone and that formation was guided by an intelligent being. Opponents hold that there is no legitimate debate in the realm of science over the validity of evolution.

“When it comes to evolution, there is only one school of scientific thought, and that is evolution occurred and is still occurring,” says Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Bush “doesn’t understand that one is a religious viewpoint and one is a scientific viewpoint.”

Bush’s science advisor, John Marburger III said that giving equal consideration to intelligent design and evolution in schools is an “over-interpretation” of the president’s statement. However, conservative supporters claim that this is just what the president intended.

“It’s what a lot of us have been pushing … if you’re going to teach Darwinian theory, teach it as theory,” responded Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“With the president endorsing it … it makes Americans who have that position more respectable,” according to Gary Bauer, a Christian conservative leader who ran for president against Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries.

Many scientists think that this threatens to impair science teaching in a nation whose students are already lagging.

“Scientific theories like evolution, relativity, and plate tectonics are based on hypotheses that have survived extensive testing and repeated verification,” stated Fred Spilhaus, executive director of the American Geophysical Union. “The president has unfortunately confused the difference between science and belief. It is essential that students understand that a scientific theory is not a belief, hunch or untested hypothesis.”

The "Intelligent Design" idea is not based on testable hypotheses and there is no evidence that supports it, while there is overwhelming evidence in support of evolution by natural selection. For this reason, the debate over design would be appropriate within the context of a philosophy class, “but not in biology class,” said Lynn.

Further Reading:

New York Times Article

Washington Post Article

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