Intelligent Design in Australia
Nov. 15th, 2005 02:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lyoreWell, you were going to get a wonderful post about the Clone Wars cartoons. Instead, you get this. Blame the morons trying to promote Intelligent Design in Australia. NOT HAPPY, JAN.
SMG article lives here, but you'll need to register to see it. Or you could, you know, keep reading.
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Intelligent design has been described as "advanced creationism". Even so, it is taught alongside Darwin in the science classes of more than 100 Christian and Seventh Day Adventist schools, and discussed in the religion and philosophy classes of many others, writes Linda Doherty.
Sandpipers paddle on the seashore, a butterfly flutters and an eagle soars above the clouds in the opening frames of Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Part nature documentary, with a dash of scientific thriller, the 67-minute American-produced DVD has caught the attention of principals who are screening it in science classes as an alternative to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. There are finches and flagella, proteins and computer-animated cells and interviews with the pin-up boys of the intelligent design movement as evidence of the "growing number of scientists and scholars [who] … now challenge key aspects of Darwin's theory".
"One hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Darwin transformed science with his theory of natural selection. Today, that theory faces a formidable challenge," the narrator intones. "Intelligent design has sparked both discovery and intense debate over the origin of life on Earth."
Intense debate, that's for sure - in the classrooms of Australia, the scientific fraternity and between churches. Fundamental to the furore is whether intelligent design should be taught in science classes or be restricted to religion lessons. Secular public schools won't have a bar of it, but it has strong support in about 80 Christian community schools in NSW and 23 Seventh Day Adventist schools. Catholic schools and many Anglican schools say it can be discussed in religion or philosophy classes, which deal in the exchange of ideas.
Its followers say some organisms are so complex they can only be explained by the hand of an intelligent designer. Some explicitly say God is the designer, but most advocates steer clear of religion and portray it as legitimate science that deserves to be on the science curriculum.
Unlocking the Mystery of Life is among scores of intelligent design videos and books in the United States but it is virtually the only teaching resource available in Australia, selling through Focus on the Family for $21.95. Another Christian group, Campus Crusade for Christ, is providing a free copy to every school in Australia. The federal Minister for Education, Brendan Nelson, put the DVD on the map when he revealed on August 10 that he had seen it. His comments that intelligent design could be taught in schools if parents so requested set off alarm bells with science teachers and scientists who compared it with fork-bending and flat earth theory.
"It's about choice, reasonable choice," Nelson said. But he later clarified his position to say that it should be taught only in religion or philosophy classes.
But it has high-profile supporters for inclusion in science classes, including Tim Hawkes, the headmaster of the Anglican King's School, who says the DVD has "a legitimate case to put to students, and indeed, to humankind".
The Greens have called for government funding to be stripped from any private school that teaches religious "fables" masquerading as scientific discovery. Public school teachers are similarly horrified. Chris Bonnor, the president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, said intelligent design was as wacky as "Holocaust revisionism, the 1996 interview with Elvis, the Bermuda triangle … and the shopping list of people who were seen on the grassy knoll in 1963".
Stephen O'Doherty, the head of Christian Schools Australia, which has 56 affiliated schools in NSW, says students should be able to discuss the notion that there is an "unexplained scientific hole in evolutionary theory".
"To have that discussion in class is good and leads to questions like 'how does scientific method work?' and 'what is science?'," he says.
Intelligent design is a natural fit for Christian community schools, which claim that God is the intelligent designer, says Cam Stewart, the principal of Bega Valley Christian School. Evolution is taught in his school, but so is intelligent design. To deny Darwin in the science classroom would risk deregistration by the Board of Studies and disadvantage students in public examinations. This is because evolution is well-entrenched in high school science. Last month's HSC biology paper included questions on the Flores "hobbit" people, a discovery which scientists say lends further credence to the theory of evolution.
Stewart defends the right of his school to develop students' powers of reasoning by providing them with opposing viewpoints. He recalls a similar debate 20 years ago when textbooks about uranium "were removed from schools" at the height of the anti-nuclear movement. "The aim of educators is to develop critical thinking in our students, not indoctrination of any viewpoint," he says. "Both evolutionists and intelligent design proponents draw on the same evidence but interpret through different assumptions."
William Gardner, the principal of the Southern Highlands Christian School, says a good education is about developing students to "ask good analytical questions" whether in visual arts or science. "It's not a dogmatic position," he says. "We would say, certainly, that the biblical position is that God created the world but how he did that is for you [the students] to ask the questions. Science has never been divorced from philosophy. It's been a moveable feast over the centuries. It would be unsound, educationally, to divorce it."
Seventh Day Adventist schools teach intelligent design in both science and religion classes, but students are told it is not approved by curriculum authorities. John Hammond, the national director of Adventist Schools Australia, says intelligent design provides a bridge between science and theology. "Intelligent design is a very logical way of approaching these things and the students appreciate getting both sides of the argument," he says. "We believe we are created beings … we don't shrink from our beliefs."
The official view from the curriculum authority, the NSW Board of Studies, is that intelligent design has no place on the science curriculum, because it simply is not science. Gordon Stanley, the board's president, says: "If non-government schools choose to teach aspects of intelligent design in a science class it must be in addition to, not instead of, the board's full program of science courses." He has suggested that schools are wasting their time teaching intelligent design because "it will not be tested in any public examination". Even if students espoused the theory in their HSC biology paper, for example, "it would not be considered relevant".
The state education minister, Carmel Tebbutt, who has statutory authority over both public and private schools, dismisses it as "not scientific, not evidence-based". The only avenue for teaching it in public schools is in scripture lessons run by religious organisations. Intelligent design does not even feature in the HSC subject Studies of Religion. Religion class is where many Catholic school senior students will find intelligent design from next year. It will be included in one chapter of a new textbook dealing with the history of science and the church. But it will "definitely not" be taught in science, says Seamus O'Grady, the director of religious education and curriculum for the Sydney Catholic Education Office.
The year 11 and 12 editions of the textbook, To Know, Worship and Love, say intelligent design is a philosophy that "relies on argument that may use, but do not depend on, scientific methods". "We follow the Board of Studies curriculum and we do not accept it is part of mainstream science," O'Grady says.
The Catholics are not the only sceptics among religious schools. Bryan Cowling, the principal of Thomas Hassall Anglican College at West Hoxton, says it is a "mischievous" attempt to reopen the evolution versus creationism argument. His teachers are committed Christians and he expects them to be aware of the issue so they can answer students' questions. But he won't sanction the teaching of intelligent design in science lessons. "I simply work on the premise that God is the creator but how he did it, well that's an issue for science," Cowling says. "It's mischievous really in trying to distort science … by trying to blur it into philosophy or religion."
And to put this new movement into context, Cowling says that "not one" parent of his 1000 students has asked for intelligent design to be taught, or requested that the school screen Unlocking the Mystery of Life When it turns up at his school, courtesy of Campus Crusade for Christ, he will tell teachers to have a look and see if it is "any use" for religion lessons.
"If it simply becomes a propaganda tool then I'd be very sceptical," he says.
----
If they start teaching this, I'm gonna go set up my own country. Actually, I'm gonna go research the creation myths of other religions, turn them into a pseudo-scientific theory, and then sue the States if they don't teach 'em. Yeah.
But all hope is not lost.
----
Millions of dollars in government funding should be stripped from private schools that teach the intelligent design "myth" as science, the NSW Greens have demanded.
But an advocate of intelligent design, state MP Fred Nile, said it was a "ridiculous intimidating threat" and he staunchly defended the right of schools to challenge Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in science classes.
The Greens' stance adds to growing concern among science teachers and scientists that intelligent design, growing in popularity in the US, is starting to infiltrate Australian classrooms.
Intelligent design says that some organisms are so complex they must have been created by an intelligent designer, instead of evolving through natural selection as Darwin proposed.
The Greens' NSW education spokesman, John Kaye, said public funding should be removed from schools that taught "the new form of creationism", because students would leave school not knowing the difference between science and fantasy.
"The threat by some Christian schools to tell their students that the intelligent design fable is science raises important questions about the role they are playing in our society," he said,
"Far from fulfilling a public purpose, they are intellectually crippling their children and isolating them from scientific reality."
Catholic schools have distanced themselves from the furore and will discuss intelligent design only in religion lessons, not in science classes. The executive director of the NSW Catholic Education Commission, Brian Croke, said: "For Catholic schools, intelligent design is simply a non-event."
Leading advocates of the theory are Christian community and Seventh Day Adventist schools, with many already teaching the controversial American doctrine.
Government funding figures obtained by the Greens show that about 80 Christian community schools in NSW received more than $140 million in taxpayer funding during a one-year period. They educated 25,000 students and received $98 million in federal funding in 2003 and $42 million from the State Government in 2003-04.
The 23 NSW Seventh Day Adventist Schools received $19.8 million in the same period for 4200 students - $13.3 million from the Federal Government and $6.5 million from the state.
Reverend Nile, the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, said recent discoveries from space exploration and mysteries unlocked by DNA proved there was "a plan, a design" to the world that evolution could not explain.
"It's not religion, it's not ideology. There is scientific evidence, that's the whole point," he said. "Students have a right to know in science [classes]."
----
So glad I voted for the Greens.
I can't believe this is being taught in schools. But I really hope everyone who answers biology questions in this year's HSC based on Intelligent Design fails. Miserably.
OK, just to clarify - I have no problem with the assumption that God created the world, human-kind and the Backstreet Boys, since I tend to lean in this direction myself (sometimes - it depends a lot on my mood). However, I do have a problem with the idea that there is "a hole in evolution theory", and the idea that Intelligent design is a scientific theory.
Words cannot describe how annoyed I am right now.
Random Observation of the Day - I had a hard time chosing a mood for this entry. So consider it a mix of - aggravated, nauseated, infuriated and sad. But in the end, I had to go with plain old Pissed Off.
SMG article lives here, but you'll need to register to see it. Or you could, you know, keep reading.
-----
Intelligent design has been described as "advanced creationism". Even so, it is taught alongside Darwin in the science classes of more than 100 Christian and Seventh Day Adventist schools, and discussed in the religion and philosophy classes of many others, writes Linda Doherty.
Sandpipers paddle on the seashore, a butterfly flutters and an eagle soars above the clouds in the opening frames of Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Part nature documentary, with a dash of scientific thriller, the 67-minute American-produced DVD has caught the attention of principals who are screening it in science classes as an alternative to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. There are finches and flagella, proteins and computer-animated cells and interviews with the pin-up boys of the intelligent design movement as evidence of the "growing number of scientists and scholars [who] … now challenge key aspects of Darwin's theory".
"One hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Darwin transformed science with his theory of natural selection. Today, that theory faces a formidable challenge," the narrator intones. "Intelligent design has sparked both discovery and intense debate over the origin of life on Earth."
Intense debate, that's for sure - in the classrooms of Australia, the scientific fraternity and between churches. Fundamental to the furore is whether intelligent design should be taught in science classes or be restricted to religion lessons. Secular public schools won't have a bar of it, but it has strong support in about 80 Christian community schools in NSW and 23 Seventh Day Adventist schools. Catholic schools and many Anglican schools say it can be discussed in religion or philosophy classes, which deal in the exchange of ideas.
Its followers say some organisms are so complex they can only be explained by the hand of an intelligent designer. Some explicitly say God is the designer, but most advocates steer clear of religion and portray it as legitimate science that deserves to be on the science curriculum.
Unlocking the Mystery of Life is among scores of intelligent design videos and books in the United States but it is virtually the only teaching resource available in Australia, selling through Focus on the Family for $21.95. Another Christian group, Campus Crusade for Christ, is providing a free copy to every school in Australia. The federal Minister for Education, Brendan Nelson, put the DVD on the map when he revealed on August 10 that he had seen it. His comments that intelligent design could be taught in schools if parents so requested set off alarm bells with science teachers and scientists who compared it with fork-bending and flat earth theory.
"It's about choice, reasonable choice," Nelson said. But he later clarified his position to say that it should be taught only in religion or philosophy classes.
But it has high-profile supporters for inclusion in science classes, including Tim Hawkes, the headmaster of the Anglican King's School, who says the DVD has "a legitimate case to put to students, and indeed, to humankind".
The Greens have called for government funding to be stripped from any private school that teaches religious "fables" masquerading as scientific discovery. Public school teachers are similarly horrified. Chris Bonnor, the president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, said intelligent design was as wacky as "Holocaust revisionism, the 1996 interview with Elvis, the Bermuda triangle … and the shopping list of people who were seen on the grassy knoll in 1963".
Stephen O'Doherty, the head of Christian Schools Australia, which has 56 affiliated schools in NSW, says students should be able to discuss the notion that there is an "unexplained scientific hole in evolutionary theory".
"To have that discussion in class is good and leads to questions like 'how does scientific method work?' and 'what is science?'," he says.
Intelligent design is a natural fit for Christian community schools, which claim that God is the intelligent designer, says Cam Stewart, the principal of Bega Valley Christian School. Evolution is taught in his school, but so is intelligent design. To deny Darwin in the science classroom would risk deregistration by the Board of Studies and disadvantage students in public examinations. This is because evolution is well-entrenched in high school science. Last month's HSC biology paper included questions on the Flores "hobbit" people, a discovery which scientists say lends further credence to the theory of evolution.
Stewart defends the right of his school to develop students' powers of reasoning by providing them with opposing viewpoints. He recalls a similar debate 20 years ago when textbooks about uranium "were removed from schools" at the height of the anti-nuclear movement. "The aim of educators is to develop critical thinking in our students, not indoctrination of any viewpoint," he says. "Both evolutionists and intelligent design proponents draw on the same evidence but interpret through different assumptions."
William Gardner, the principal of the Southern Highlands Christian School, says a good education is about developing students to "ask good analytical questions" whether in visual arts or science. "It's not a dogmatic position," he says. "We would say, certainly, that the biblical position is that God created the world but how he did that is for you [the students] to ask the questions. Science has never been divorced from philosophy. It's been a moveable feast over the centuries. It would be unsound, educationally, to divorce it."
Seventh Day Adventist schools teach intelligent design in both science and religion classes, but students are told it is not approved by curriculum authorities. John Hammond, the national director of Adventist Schools Australia, says intelligent design provides a bridge between science and theology. "Intelligent design is a very logical way of approaching these things and the students appreciate getting both sides of the argument," he says. "We believe we are created beings … we don't shrink from our beliefs."
The official view from the curriculum authority, the NSW Board of Studies, is that intelligent design has no place on the science curriculum, because it simply is not science. Gordon Stanley, the board's president, says: "If non-government schools choose to teach aspects of intelligent design in a science class it must be in addition to, not instead of, the board's full program of science courses." He has suggested that schools are wasting their time teaching intelligent design because "it will not be tested in any public examination". Even if students espoused the theory in their HSC biology paper, for example, "it would not be considered relevant".
The state education minister, Carmel Tebbutt, who has statutory authority over both public and private schools, dismisses it as "not scientific, not evidence-based". The only avenue for teaching it in public schools is in scripture lessons run by religious organisations. Intelligent design does not even feature in the HSC subject Studies of Religion. Religion class is where many Catholic school senior students will find intelligent design from next year. It will be included in one chapter of a new textbook dealing with the history of science and the church. But it will "definitely not" be taught in science, says Seamus O'Grady, the director of religious education and curriculum for the Sydney Catholic Education Office.
The year 11 and 12 editions of the textbook, To Know, Worship and Love, say intelligent design is a philosophy that "relies on argument that may use, but do not depend on, scientific methods". "We follow the Board of Studies curriculum and we do not accept it is part of mainstream science," O'Grady says.
The Catholics are not the only sceptics among religious schools. Bryan Cowling, the principal of Thomas Hassall Anglican College at West Hoxton, says it is a "mischievous" attempt to reopen the evolution versus creationism argument. His teachers are committed Christians and he expects them to be aware of the issue so they can answer students' questions. But he won't sanction the teaching of intelligent design in science lessons. "I simply work on the premise that God is the creator but how he did it, well that's an issue for science," Cowling says. "It's mischievous really in trying to distort science … by trying to blur it into philosophy or religion."
And to put this new movement into context, Cowling says that "not one" parent of his 1000 students has asked for intelligent design to be taught, or requested that the school screen Unlocking the Mystery of Life When it turns up at his school, courtesy of Campus Crusade for Christ, he will tell teachers to have a look and see if it is "any use" for religion lessons.
"If it simply becomes a propaganda tool then I'd be very sceptical," he says.
----
If they start teaching this, I'm gonna go set up my own country. Actually, I'm gonna go research the creation myths of other religions, turn them into a pseudo-scientific theory, and then sue the States if they don't teach 'em. Yeah.
But all hope is not lost.
----
Millions of dollars in government funding should be stripped from private schools that teach the intelligent design "myth" as science, the NSW Greens have demanded.
But an advocate of intelligent design, state MP Fred Nile, said it was a "ridiculous intimidating threat" and he staunchly defended the right of schools to challenge Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in science classes.
The Greens' stance adds to growing concern among science teachers and scientists that intelligent design, growing in popularity in the US, is starting to infiltrate Australian classrooms.
Intelligent design says that some organisms are so complex they must have been created by an intelligent designer, instead of evolving through natural selection as Darwin proposed.
The Greens' NSW education spokesman, John Kaye, said public funding should be removed from schools that taught "the new form of creationism", because students would leave school not knowing the difference between science and fantasy.
"The threat by some Christian schools to tell their students that the intelligent design fable is science raises important questions about the role they are playing in our society," he said,
"Far from fulfilling a public purpose, they are intellectually crippling their children and isolating them from scientific reality."
Catholic schools have distanced themselves from the furore and will discuss intelligent design only in religion lessons, not in science classes. The executive director of the NSW Catholic Education Commission, Brian Croke, said: "For Catholic schools, intelligent design is simply a non-event."
Leading advocates of the theory are Christian community and Seventh Day Adventist schools, with many already teaching the controversial American doctrine.
Government funding figures obtained by the Greens show that about 80 Christian community schools in NSW received more than $140 million in taxpayer funding during a one-year period. They educated 25,000 students and received $98 million in federal funding in 2003 and $42 million from the State Government in 2003-04.
The 23 NSW Seventh Day Adventist Schools received $19.8 million in the same period for 4200 students - $13.3 million from the Federal Government and $6.5 million from the state.
Reverend Nile, the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, said recent discoveries from space exploration and mysteries unlocked by DNA proved there was "a plan, a design" to the world that evolution could not explain.
"It's not religion, it's not ideology. There is scientific evidence, that's the whole point," he said. "Students have a right to know in science [classes]."
----
So glad I voted for the Greens.
I can't believe this is being taught in schools. But I really hope everyone who answers biology questions in this year's HSC based on Intelligent Design fails. Miserably.
OK, just to clarify - I have no problem with the assumption that God created the world, human-kind and the Backstreet Boys, since I tend to lean in this direction myself (sometimes - it depends a lot on my mood). However, I do have a problem with the idea that there is "a hole in evolution theory", and the idea that Intelligent design is a scientific theory.
Words cannot describe how annoyed I am right now.
Random Observation of the Day - I had a hard time chosing a mood for this entry. So consider it a mix of - aggravated, nauseated, infuriated and sad. But in the end, I had to go with plain old Pissed Off.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-11-14 04:51 pm (UTC)How do people put up with this junk? I thought these issues were over and done with by the early 1900s. But a recent poll showed that roughly 60 percent or so of supposedly knowledgeable US citizens believed in some form of "advanced creationism". Grrr. I think Kansas just allowed it to be taught along with evolution in public schools....Is Australia a nice place to live?
If some people want to believe that God created the Earth, or Zeus causes all those lightning storms, or little green Martians stole Elvis, fine, that's their right, but don't push these unfounded beliefs on impressionable children. None of those ideas is backed by any scientific evidence (that I've seen, anyways), and they don't come close to the definition of theory.
If they start teaching this, I'm gonna go set up my own country. Actually, I'm gonna go research the creation myths of other religions, turn them into a pseudo-scientific theory, and then sue the States if they don't teach 'em. Yeah.
The sad thing? You'd probably win.
My only piece of happiness is that California won't fall to the Creation side of the Force. Not while Bush seems to support it, at least.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-15 09:56 am (UTC)Australia, is a very nice place to live (apart from the heat) - except for a slight tendency to follow blindly in the footsteps of America. This would have been one place where a little originality would have been good. *sigh*
Yay for California! (Maybe I have to move there...)
no subject
Date: 2005-11-14 08:03 pm (UTC)I have to admit I never understood why the belief in evolution (or scientific principals in general) need to stand in an opposition to the belief in God (or whatever you prefer to call a higher being). I'm overall a religious person, but am not fanatic about it. And for me science has always been proof of God. I'm convinced of the evolution theory and don't really get why I can't see God at work behind evolutionary processes. (I don't think God sits there and glues mammoth and elephants together in his lab, but I'd see him as the first spark of creation which then runs its own course.)
Maybe I'm foolish/idealistic. But I just don't really see why some fundamentalist churches feel threatened by science that's based on observation and logical deductions.
I can't see intelligent design every being sucessful in Europe simply because we're way to saecularised. And yes, I'm glad about this. In my opinion, church and state don't mesh terribly well.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-15 10:01 am (UTC)The impression I always get is that some of the fundamentalists feel threatened by people seeking answers outside their religion, since, according to most fundamentalist groups, all truths must be contained within their sacred text.
Hmm. Maybe I need to move to Europe instead. Sounds like a plan.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-15 09:13 pm (UTC)Check out this website for a wonderful response to the Intelligent Design theory. It's brilliant! (I particularly love the pictures of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the graph that proves that the global average temperature is connected to the number of pirates. I also love to have one of these T-Shirts. :-))
no subject
Date: 2005-11-15 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-16 01:10 pm (UTC)Yours,
JK
no subject
Date: 2005-11-16 01:14 pm (UTC)And that's all there is to it.