Critical Analysis of Evolution
Encyclopedia
Critical Analysis of Evolution is the name of both a proposed high school science lesson plan
promoting intelligent design
and a tactic to promote design using Teach the Controversy
promoted by the American
think tank
, Discovery Institute
, originators of the intelligent design movement
, as part of their campaign promoting intelligent design
. It is an integral part and slogan of the Teach the Controversy campaign the goal of which is to undermine the teaching of evolution
in public school science
curricula and supplement it with intelligent design
.
A prime feature of the lesson plan is that it treats evolution as a theory which should be questioned
in science classes. The Discovery Institute's presentation of evolution stands in contrast to that of the scientific community
, where evolution is overwhelmingly accepted. McGill University
Professor of Education Brian Alters
states in an article published by the NIH that "99.9 percent of scientists accept evolution" whereas intelligent design has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community. The American Association for the Advancement of Science
has stated that there is no significant controversy within the scientific community about the validity of the theory of evolution. Others have stated that Critical Analysis of Evolution is nothing but creationism and intelligent design relabeled, and therefore has no place in a science class.
The institute hopes to take advantage of the opportunity presented by some states currently revising or developing science standards in preparation for state-wide science exams required under the No Child Left Behind Act
which must be in place by the 2007–2008 school year. Viewed as an opportunity to introduce Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plans, the institute implies it will benefit schools and students with the exams required under the act.
The Discovery Institute insists that Critical Analysis of Evolution is not another attempt to open the door of public high school science classrooms for intelligent design, and hence supernatural explanations. Discovery Institute spokesperson Casey Luskin in February 2006 coined the term "false fear syndrome" of those who said it was, and said:
In July 2006 on the blog of Discovery Institute Fellow and leading intelligent design proponent William A. Dembski
, Dembski's research assistant and co-moderator of the site, Joel Borofsky, contradicted the Discovery Institute's statements:
To the claim that the Kansas science standards
had nothing to do with intelligent design but were only about teaching evolution in a "balanced" way, Borofsky responded:
In response to the reception to his comments, Dembski's research assistant felt compelled to issue a clarification that he was only voicing his personal opinion, not that of others in the movement, and that he is Dembski's "assistant on theological work, not necessarily the ID movement." However, he later admitted that he does in fact sometimes work on ID-related work.
A cornerstone in the Critical Analysis of Evolution campaign has been the institute's "Stand Up For Science" website and poll, which says is "dedicated to promoting objectivity in the public school teaching of evolution." Its poll is aimed at swaying the Kansas State Board of Education in favor institute-promoted science curricula standards that present what it calls "scientific criticisms" of the evolution, which do not exist according to the scientific community, and calls the efforts of the scientific community to maintain established and accepted science curricula as "censorship of scientific evidence in public schools."
. Such a case was the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
trial, where Judge John E. Jones III
ruled that intelligent design is not science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents". The Dover ruling also considered the practice of "teaching the controversy" and characterized it as part of the same religious ploy citing testimony that evolution is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community and is a theory which every major scientific association endorses.
In 2002 as Ohio
reviewed its science curriculum it was intensively lobbied by the Discovery Institute, including Johnson and Dembski, to include "intelligent design theory". In December the State Board of Education approved standards including "Benchmark H" and "Indicator 23", requiring "Describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory. (The intent of this indicator does not mandate the teaching or testing of intelligent design.) Intelligent design proponents then adopted a new "Teach the Controversy" strategy, and a model lesson plan was prepared including links to Discovery Institute websites and a reference to the book Icons of Evolution
by Jonathan Wells, an advocate of intelligent design. On March 10, 2004, the Board approved a set of model lessons for science including (with some revisions) "Critical Analysis of Evolution – Grade 10" which included brief sample "supporting" and "challenging" answers. It was described as providing "an opportunity for students to critically analyze Darwin's theory of macroevolution
[descent from a common ancestor]." The lesson plan and associated benchmark and indicator were removed in February 2006 after an 11-4 vote by Ohio's board of education, at least partly in response to the ruling in the Dover trial.
Martha W. Wise, the board member who proposed the removal motion, said, "It is deeply unfair to the children of this state to mislead them about the nature of science," and another board member who voted for removal cited the "Dover risk" (meaning the risk of a lawsuit) if the critical analysis lesson plan, benchmark and indicator were allowed to remain in the standards. Between March and October, 2006, a minority of the Achievement Committee of the board (especially Mrs Owens Fink, Mrs Grady, and Rev Cochran) considered alternative ways to include similar materials, including a "controversial issues" template or framework that would single out evolution, stem cell
s, and global warming
for special critique, and a more general version that attacked the definition of science among other things. In October 2006 the entire State Board of Education rejected consideration of the framework and any further attempts to force the consideration of "teaching controversial issues."
The Discovery Institute's John West called the removal vote an effort "to use the government to suppress ideas you dislike," and "an outrageous slap in the face to the citizens of Ohio." Eric Rothschild, the plaintiffs' lead attorney in the Dover trial, before the board's vote declared
Standards promulgated by the Discovery Institute were adopted by Kansas in 2005. New Mexico
adopted strongly pro-evolution science standards in 2003, but because these standards happen to mention 'critical analysis' and evolution in the same sentence, the Discovery Institute and Intelligent Design Network have since claimed (falsely) that New Mexico is "one of five states requiring critical analysis of evolution."
is that Critical Analysis of Evolution is unsound teaching based on the Discovery Institute's flawed anti-evolution creationist premise, and scientists have overwhelmingly rejected the institute's proposals.
Early drafts of the Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plan referred to the lesson as the "great evolution debate"; one of the early drafts of the lesson plan had one section titled "Conducting the Macroevolution Debate". In a subsequent draft, it was changed to "Conducting the Critical Analysis Activity". The wording for the two sections was almost identical, with just "debate" changed to "critical analysis activity" wherever it appeared, in the manner in which intelligent design proponents simply replaced "creation" with "intelligent design" in Of Pandas and People
to repackage a creation science
textbook into an intelligent design textbook. In light of this, Professor Patricia Princehouse has said that "critical analysis is intelligent design relabeled, just as intelligent design was creationism relabeled." Nick Matzke
has written what he believes shows that Critical Analysis of Evolution is a means of teaching all the intelligent design arguments without using the intelligent design label.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
, the world's largest general scientific society, comprising 262 affiliated societies and academies of science and some 10 million individuals, has consistently opposed the teaching of intelligent design, with or without language that calls into question the validity of evolution, saying in a policy statement that "the lack of scientific warrant for so-called 'intelligent design theory' makes it improper to include as a part of science education." In its 2006 "Statement on the Teaching of Evolution" it called out the Critical Analysis of Evolution argument specifically saying:
Lesson plan
A lesson plan is a teacher's detailed description of the course of instruction for one class. A daily lesson plan is developed by a teacher to guide class instruction. Details will vary depending on the preference of the teacher, subject being covered, and the need and/or curiosity of children...
promoting intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
and a tactic to promote design using Teach the Controversy
Teach the Controversy
Teach the Controversy is the name of a Discovery Institute campaign to promote intelligent design, a variant of traditional creationism, while attempting to discredit evolution in United States public high school science courses...
promoted by the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
think tank
Think tank
A think tank is an organization that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, and technology issues. Most think tanks are non-profit organizations, which some countries such as the United States and Canada provide with tax...
, Discovery Institute
Discovery Institute
The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...
, originators of the intelligent design movement
Intelligent design movement
The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...
, as part of their campaign promoting intelligent design
Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns
Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns are a series of related public relations campaigns conducted by the Discovery Institute which seek to promote intelligent design while attempting to discredit evolutionary biology, which the Institute terms "Darwinism." The Discovery Institute is the...
. It is an integral part and slogan of the Teach the Controversy campaign the goal of which is to undermine the teaching of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
in public school science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
curricula and supplement it with intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
.
A prime feature of the lesson plan is that it treats evolution as a theory which should be questioned
Critical thinking
Critical thinking is the process or method of thinking that questions assumptions. It is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, false, or sometimes true and sometimes false, or partly true and partly false. The origins of critical thinking can be traced in Western thought to the Socratic...
in science classes. The Discovery Institute's presentation of evolution stands in contrast to that of the scientific community
Scientific community
The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science. Objectivity is expected to be achieved by the scientific method...
, where evolution is overwhelmingly accepted. McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
Professor of Education Brian Alters
Brian Alters
Brian J. Alters is an Associate Professor of Education and Sir William Dawson Scholar at McGill University, where he also holds the Tomlinson Chair in Science Education and is both founder and Director of the Evolution Education Research Centre...
states in an article published by the NIH that "99.9 percent of scientists accept evolution" whereas intelligent design has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community. The American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
has stated that there is no significant controversy within the scientific community about the validity of the theory of evolution. Others have stated that Critical Analysis of Evolution is nothing but creationism and intelligent design relabeled, and therefore has no place in a science class.
Details of the campaign
The Discovery Institute's primary method for achieving their goal is to delegitimize evolution and minimize its profile in science education public school curricula via textbook disclaimers and the language of state science standards. Describing the campaign, the Discovery Institute saysThe institute hopes to take advantage of the opportunity presented by some states currently revising or developing science standards in preparation for state-wide science exams required under the No Child Left Behind Act
No Child Left Behind Act
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is a United States Act of Congress concerning the education of children in public schools.NCLB was originally proposed by the administration of George W. Bush immediately after he took office...
which must be in place by the 2007–2008 school year. Viewed as an opportunity to introduce Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plans, the institute implies it will benefit schools and students with the exams required under the act.
The Discovery Institute insists that Critical Analysis of Evolution is not another attempt to open the door of public high school science classrooms for intelligent design, and hence supernatural explanations. Discovery Institute spokesperson Casey Luskin in February 2006 coined the term "false fear syndrome" of those who said it was, and said:
In July 2006 on the blog of Discovery Institute Fellow and leading intelligent design proponent William A. Dembski
William A. Dembski
William Albert "Bill" Dembski is an American proponent of intelligent design, well known for promoting the concept of specified complexity...
, Dembski's research assistant and co-moderator of the site, Joel Borofsky, contradicted the Discovery Institute's statements:
To the claim that the Kansas science standards
Kansas evolution hearings
The Kansas evolution hearings were a series of hearings held in Topeka, Kansas, United States May 5 to May 12, 2005 by the Kansas State Board of Education and its State Board Science Hearing Committee to change how evolution and the origin of life would be taught in the state's public high school...
had nothing to do with intelligent design but were only about teaching evolution in a "balanced" way, Borofsky responded:
In response to the reception to his comments, Dembski's research assistant felt compelled to issue a clarification that he was only voicing his personal opinion, not that of others in the movement, and that he is Dembski's "assistant on theological work, not necessarily the ID movement." However, he later admitted that he does in fact sometimes work on ID-related work.
A cornerstone in the Critical Analysis of Evolution campaign has been the institute's "Stand Up For Science" website and poll, which says is "dedicated to promoting objectivity in the public school teaching of evolution." Its poll is aimed at swaying the Kansas State Board of Education in favor institute-promoted science curricula standards that present what it calls "scientific criticisms" of the evolution, which do not exist according to the scientific community, and calls the efforts of the scientific community to maintain established and accepted science curricula as "censorship of scientific evidence in public schools."
History behind the campaign
The campaign and strategy was put forth by the institute in anticipation of legal challenges arguing that the teaching of intelligent design would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States ConstitutionFirst Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
. Such a case was the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
trial, where Judge John E. Jones III
John E. Jones III
John Edward Jones III is an American lawyer and jurist from the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. A Republican, Jones was appointed by President George W. Bush as federal judge on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in February 2002 and was unanimously confirmed by...
ruled that intelligent design is not science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents". The Dover ruling also considered the practice of "teaching the controversy" and characterized it as part of the same religious ploy citing testimony that evolution is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community and is a theory which every major scientific association endorses.
State education boards
Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plans have only been accepted in a small number of states as part of new science standards proposed by the Discovery Institute.In 2002 as Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
reviewed its science curriculum it was intensively lobbied by the Discovery Institute, including Johnson and Dembski, to include "intelligent design theory". In December the State Board of Education approved standards including "Benchmark H" and "Indicator 23", requiring "Describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory. (The intent of this indicator does not mandate the teaching or testing of intelligent design.) Intelligent design proponents then adopted a new "Teach the Controversy" strategy, and a model lesson plan was prepared including links to Discovery Institute websites and a reference to the book Icons of Evolution
Icons of Evolution
Icons of Evolution is a book by the intelligent design advocate and fellow of the Discovery Institute, Jonathan Wells, which also includes a 2002 video companion. In the book, Wells criticized the paradigm of evolution by attacking how it is taught...
by Jonathan Wells, an advocate of intelligent design. On March 10, 2004, the Board approved a set of model lessons for science including (with some revisions) "Critical Analysis of Evolution – Grade 10" which included brief sample "supporting" and "challenging" answers. It was described as providing "an opportunity for students to critically analyze Darwin's theory of macroevolution
Macroevolution
Macroevolution is evolution on a scale of separated gene pools. Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution, which refers to smaller evolutionary changes within a species or population.The process of speciation may fall...
[descent from a common ancestor]." The lesson plan and associated benchmark and indicator were removed in February 2006 after an 11-4 vote by Ohio's board of education, at least partly in response to the ruling in the Dover trial.
Martha W. Wise, the board member who proposed the removal motion, said, "It is deeply unfair to the children of this state to mislead them about the nature of science," and another board member who voted for removal cited the "Dover risk" (meaning the risk of a lawsuit) if the critical analysis lesson plan, benchmark and indicator were allowed to remain in the standards. Between March and October, 2006, a minority of the Achievement Committee of the board (especially Mrs Owens Fink, Mrs Grady, and Rev Cochran) considered alternative ways to include similar materials, including a "controversial issues" template or framework that would single out evolution, stem cell
Stem cell
This article is about the cell type. For the medical therapy, see Stem Cell TreatmentsStem cells are biological cells found in all multicellular organisms, that can divide and differentiate into diverse specialized cell types and can self-renew to produce more stem cells...
s, and global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
for special critique, and a more general version that attacked the definition of science among other things. In October 2006 the entire State Board of Education rejected consideration of the framework and any further attempts to force the consideration of "teaching controversial issues."
The Discovery Institute's John West called the removal vote an effort "to use the government to suppress ideas you dislike," and "an outrageous slap in the face to the citizens of Ohio." Eric Rothschild, the plaintiffs' lead attorney in the Dover trial, before the board's vote declared
"When you see 'critical analysis of evolution,' you really need to look at what's behind that. Who? Why?" Rothschild asked, "Why is there this need for critical analysis of evolution? Why is there no call for critical analysis of plate tectonics?"
Standards promulgated by the Discovery Institute were adopted by Kansas in 2005. New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
adopted strongly pro-evolution science standards in 2003, but because these standards happen to mention 'critical analysis' and evolution in the same sentence, the Discovery Institute and Intelligent Design Network have since claimed (falsely) that New Mexico is "one of five states requiring critical analysis of evolution."
Scientific community
The consensus of the scientific communityScientific community
The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science. Objectivity is expected to be achieved by the scientific method...
is that Critical Analysis of Evolution is unsound teaching based on the Discovery Institute's flawed anti-evolution creationist premise, and scientists have overwhelmingly rejected the institute's proposals.
Early drafts of the Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plan referred to the lesson as the "great evolution debate"; one of the early drafts of the lesson plan had one section titled "Conducting the Macroevolution Debate". In a subsequent draft, it was changed to "Conducting the Critical Analysis Activity". The wording for the two sections was almost identical, with just "debate" changed to "critical analysis activity" wherever it appeared, in the manner in which intelligent design proponents simply replaced "creation" with "intelligent design" in Of Pandas and People
Of Pandas and People
Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins is a controversial 1989 school-level textbook written by Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon and published by the Texas-based Foundation for Thought and Ethics...
to repackage a creation science
Creation science
Creation Science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the history of the Earth, cosmology...
textbook into an intelligent design textbook. In light of this, Professor Patricia Princehouse has said that "critical analysis is intelligent design relabeled, just as intelligent design was creationism relabeled." Nick Matzke
Nick Matzke
Nicholas J. Matzke is the former Public Information Project Director at the National Center for Science Education and served an instrumental role in NCSE's preparation for the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial...
has written what he believes shows that Critical Analysis of Evolution is a means of teaching all the intelligent design arguments without using the intelligent design label.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
, the world's largest general scientific society, comprising 262 affiliated societies and academies of science and some 10 million individuals, has consistently opposed the teaching of intelligent design, with or without language that calls into question the validity of evolution, saying in a policy statement that "the lack of scientific warrant for so-called 'intelligent design theory' makes it improper to include as a part of science education." In its 2006 "Statement on the Teaching of Evolution" it called out the Critical Analysis of Evolution argument specifically saying:
Some bills seek to discredit evolution by emphasizing so-called 'flaws' in the theory of evolution or 'disagreements' within the scientific community. Others insist that teachers have absolute freedom within their classrooms and cannot be disciplined for teaching non-scientific 'alternatives' to evolution. A number of bills require that students be taught to 'critically analyze' evolution or to understand 'the controversy.' But there is no significant controversy within the scientific community about the validity of the theory of evolution. The current controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution is not a scientific one.
External links
- The Discovery Institute's "Ohio Science Standards Resource Page"
- The Discovery Institute's "Critical Analysis of Evolution" Model Lesson Plan
- The Discovery Institute's Ohio model lesson plan on "Critical Analysis of Evolution"
- The Discovery Institute's legal analysis of the Alabama House Substitute for SB 336
- The Dover Trap Richard B. Hoppe. "The Panda's Thumb", February 16, 2006
- The Top 10 Intelligent Designs (or Creation Myths)
- The Ohio Department Of Education L10h23 “Critical Analysis Of Evolution”; Innovative Lesson Plan Or Stealthy Advocacy Tool? Robert Day. National Association of Researchers of Science Teaching. 2006.