Creation Of A Controversy

(The American Prospect)  This column was written by Chris Mooney.

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Here we go again.

Newspapers and TV chat shows have been buzzing lately with news of the latest "controversy" in Kansas, over evolution and "intelligent design." Analogies to the famous Scopes trial of 1925 have been rampant, despite the seemingly obvious fact that in Kansas there is no trial. Rather, a series of trial-like hearings have been engineered by the creationist majority on the state's board of education, which aims to create the semblance of a "controversy" over evolution to justify changes to state educational standards. No controversy exists, however, in the forum where scientific debates are properly hosted and refereed: scientific publications. Accordingly, the scientific community has boycotted the hearings.

There's nothing new about attempts to create a "controversy" over evolution by misrepresenting and selectively citing scientific information. However, the Kansas situation is distinguished by the fact that a little-noticed, but increasingly central, aspect of the new anti-evolutionist strategy has taken center stage in this state's dispute. In Kansas, criticisms of evolutionary theory have been accompanied by a direct philosophical assault upon the nature of science itself.

Kansas's previously proposed science standards had appropriately defined science as "the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us." Anti-evolutionists want to change this language to the following: "Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building, to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."

This may seem harmless at first glance. But the change carefully removes any reference to science's search for natural explanations in favor of "more adequate" explanations, creating a opening for creationists to insert the supernatural. Such a change reflects the fact that the new generation of anti-evolutionists has launched an attack on modern science itself, claiming that it amounts, essentially, to institutionalized atheism. Science, they say, has a prejudice against supernatural causation (by which they generally mean "the actions of God"). Instead, the new anti-evolutionists claim that if scientists would simply open their minds to the possible action of forces acting beyond the purview of natural laws, they would suddenly perceive the weaknesses of evolutionary theory.

Anti-evolutionists are trying to bring religion back into the picture with this maneuver and to free up science teachers to speak to their classes about matters involving the supernatural. But religion isn't all they may bring back. As far as I can tell, keeping an open mind about supernatural causes would also mean that when you or I investigate claims that a house might be haunted, we should be on the lookout for a ghost. Similarly, it would mean that when we look into reports of a weeping icon, we should get ready to investigate a paranormal event, rather than a mere case of pious fraud. And so on.

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