I recently had the occasion to listen to a public lecture at McGill University by Dr. Brian Alters, the only Canadian expert witness called in the Dover, PA Intelligent Design trial.
Dr. Alters holds the Tomlinson Chair in Science Education at McGill, he is the author of several
books on biology and education, and he holds an appointment at Harvard University, where he once debated IDer
Ken Ham.
Dr. Alters commented on the outcome of the Dover Monkey Trial by saying the decision was "a major defeat for the proponents of a religious concept that attempts to introduce supernatural causation into science, where it simply doesn't belong."
So why do I care?
I recently had the opportunity to engage a creationist on a private forum, and I can attest first-hand that I would rather engage a six year-old child in debate over an appropriate bed-time than debate a committed creationist. Words fail me. When asked a simple question "Why," in this case why was she doggedly claiming that Albert Einstein was a Christian Scientist and that both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking supported Intelligent Design, this paragon of debate answered with the following comment (sorry, can't link to a private forum):
In response to your question of why? That's a little harder to answer, but probably the greatest reason for the controversy regarding this issue is due to current debate over what "theory" should be taught to students in our grade schools.
This controversey is currently the subject for heated debates and cases in our court system, all over our country...right now!
So what should we be teaching our children in school? Well, despite my personal "beliefs", in my personal opinion, Darwinism is going to have to emerge as the clear winner--hands down!
And this is because it is confusing and simply not practical to teach all the various "theories" on this issue--ranging from all the many variations of "intelligent design", "young world creationism", the Flying Spagetti Monster (have you been touched by his noodly appendage?), Pink Unicorns (bless her tiny hoofs,)...and that's not even starting to get into all the various beliefs on "how mankind came into existence", held by all the many, many, widely varying world-wide religious beliefs held by all the many different human beings who inhabit our planet!
Very simply, Darwin's "theory" on evolution does happen to be the most widely accepted, most scientifically developed--and most importantly, nonreligious, theory that has been developed to date!
There comes a time when you have to stop debating, stop "second guessing yourself", and make a decision to PICK ONE!
And Darwin's "theory" on evolution is pretty much about the only solution that we will all be able to live with--without being accused of "favoring" one religion over another, or end up having to teach them ALL!
However, that is not to say that Darwin's theory is the ONLY one, or that the entire scientific community is in 100% agreement, or that an entirely new "theory" may not one day arise.
In one post, this person manages to say everything that is wrong with the ID movement. The only reason it is failing, she says, is that they (the IDers) can't agree on
which religious myth to teach in the place of science. Now this sort of thing has been going on for years in the US, and normally Canadians take their typically smug and superior detached and amused stance (I plead guilty). Nor would I bother writing a diary to say "neener-neener." We thought we were immune.
However, Dr. Alters dropped a bombshell at his March 29 McGill lecture.
First, I shall say that Dr. Alters, as Tomlinson Chair at McGill, has a substantial budget for education research. Now, researchers submit proposals that are routinely turned down for a variety of reasons, they generally don't make a fuss about it. But last year, Dr. Alters made a proposal for a research project that would "study the effects of the popularization of "intelligent design" on Canadian students, teachers, parents, administrators, and policymakers," which, given the ID controversy and politicization in the US, seems like a worthy undertaking. Why the bombshell? The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada rejected his research proposal citing inadequate "justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of evolution, and not intelligent-design theory, was correct."
It seems that the creationist rot is spreading far and wide, including the Canadian Government bureaucracy. I am appalled. It is too soon to tell whether this represents a shift in policy at the highest levels of Canadian government, but there are well-known young-Earth creationists in our new PM Stephen Harper's cabinet, and we need to keep an eye on these nutters.
I am especially grateful to Frederick Clarkson for his sterling reporting on the Religious Right/Wrong and their agenda, and to Darksyde for his "Know Your Creationists" series.