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EDITORIAL: Focus on Science: Intelligent-Design Supporters Surely Will Be Back to Take Another Shot at Evolution

Posted on: Thursday, 23 February 2006, 18:00 CST

By The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Feb. 23--The State Board of Education commendably has dropped the troubling science standard and lesson plan that called for critical analysis of the theory of evolution.

No other scientific theory received that kind of treatment, and the standard indirectly gave school districts the go-ahead to teach creationism in science classes. In light of recent legal challenges across the country, keeping such a standard was asking for trouble.

But Ohio is not out of the woods yet. The achievement committee, which consists of the school-board members who wrote the original standard, plans to meet in March to discuss replacing it.

The old benchmark for 10 th-graders said: "Describe how scientists continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory. (The intent of this benchmark does not mandate the teaching or testing of intelligent design.) "

Such wording is unnecessary in regard to science, where all theories are constantly under the microscope, so to speak.

New research constantly prompts review and revision of these theories, deepening understanding of nature's principles.

The parenthetical material in the overturned benchmark was particularly troubling. By noting that teaching intelligent design is not mandatory, it implied that teaching this latest incarnation of biblical creationism is permitted.

The wording further insinuates that intelligent design is a competing scientific theory.

Intelligent design is the idea that life is too complex to have originated without some kind of designer.

People can believe that if they wish, but it is a supernatural explanation that can't be tested in any meaningful way. Therefore, it doesn't qualify as science.

Evolution, the unifying theory of all biology, has had 147 years of accumulating evidence and peer review.

It has grown stronger, which wouldn't be the case if it were a weakly supported hunch of a few crackpots.

Intelligent design, or whatever clever name creationists think up next, can be discussed in school, but it belongs in classes dealing with current events, social studies, the history of ideas, philosophy or world religions.

Ohio students shouldn't remain in the dark about the fact that every other decade or so, those who favor a literal interpretation of the Bible challenge evolution on religious grounds.

The dispute is a part of America's history and identity, and it's important that young people understand it.

But the achievement committee should ensure that in science classes, the focus is on science.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

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