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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (103837)	2/11/2009 4:02:24 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 542149

Missing Links in Darwin Day Poll A new poll just in time for Darwin's 200th birthday (Feb. 12) claims that even liberals support the idea that students need to hear "both sides" of Darwin's Theory of Evolution -- the "strengths and weakness" -- and therefore would support so called "academic freedom" legislation that requires science classrooms be open to all views of creation. "We need to change Darwin Day to Academic Freedom Day because just when Darwinists are celebrating evolution's triumph, this poll shows that they have been losing the public debate over whether students need to hear both sides," said Dr. John West, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, which commissioned the Zogby poll. Well, not quite. The poll does show that the Discovery Institute continues to find new and creative ways to advance the cause of intelligent design. The Discovery Institute is a conservative think tank whose own stated goals are to "replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God" and "to see intelligent design theory as the dominant theory in science." The Institute has provided the template that is being used by state legislators across the country to file "academic freedom" bills that either encourage or require public school science teachers to describe evolution as controversial and explain purported flaws in the theory -- evolution's "strength and weaknesses." Ostensibly, this "academic freedom" would also allow for instruction in intelligent design. So far this year, "academic freedom" bills have been introduced by legislators in Alabama, Iowa, New Mexico, Mississippi and Oklahoma. In recent years, legislators also have tried in Michigan, Missouri and Florida. So far, only Louisiana has enacted the legislation. Next month, the Texas State Board of Education will vote whether to require science textbooks to include the "strengths and weaknesses" approach to teaching evolution. The Discovery Institute calls it "teaching the controversy" -- a tactic they turned to after U.S. Dist. Judge John Jones's 2005 ruling barred a (Dover) Pennsylvania public school district from teaching "intelligent design" in biology class. Jones cited "overwhelming evidence" that intelligent design "is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory." The ruling was seen by many as a major setback for the intelligent design movement. Not so, the Institute claims, offering the new Darwin Day poll as proof that "support for the Darwinists' position has dropped significantly while support for teaching the controversy over evolution has risen." Depends how you ask the question. Here's the way the Zogby poll phrased the question: QUESTION: I am going to read you two statements about Biology teachers teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. Please tell me which statement comes closest to your own point of view -- Statement A or Statement B? Statement A: Biology teachers should teach only Darwin's theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it. Statement B: Biology teachers should teach Darwin's theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it. Most of the 1,053 people who were polled (78 percent) chose B. Strangely, Democrats (82%) and liberals (86%) were even more likely than Republicans (73%) and conservatives (72%) to choose B. Those results should give pause to any conservative think tank trying to make a point. I got better grades in physics than biology, so I asked an expert on the subject what he thought of the poll. "It is indeed a stupid poll," Dr. Richard Dawkins, the famous evolutionary biologist (and On Faith panelist) told me in an email. "Actually I think I'd say a dishonest poll -- because the QUESTION PRESUMES that there is scientific evidence against evolution. Of course, if we have a theory where there is evidence for and against, it would be ridiculous to teach only the evidence in favour. "Now, if there really is evidence against evolution, the Discovery Institute should go into the laboratory, or the field, and find it, and publish it in the scientific journals. Instead, they mislead the public, by phrasing a question which presumes that there is evidence against." Perhaps those who responded to the Institute's poll should have given a third option: Statement C: Biology teachers should teach the theory of evolution, but also creationism, intelligent design and other religious views of how life began. Personally, I'd ask this question: Do we want biology teachers to teach science or religion or both? newsweek.washingtonpost.com