Thursday, October 20, 2005
ID: Fails a Simple Test
Archaeologist R. Joe Brandon has organized a massive, four-day online campaign in the scientific community in response to the Discovery Institute's ongoing efforts to include Intelligent Design content in public school science classes.
The petition, at www.ShovelBums.org, was circulated between September 28th and October 1st to scientists trained in evolutionary theory and gave them an opportunity to publicly state that Intelligent Design should not be taught in public schools within the science curriculum. The results were overwhelming -- 7,733 signatories, more than half of whom are scientists with Ph.Ds.
"I organized this project as a response to the Discovery Institute's four-year petition initiative which gathered only 400 scientist signatures opposing evolution and promoting Intelligent Design as a scientific theory," said Brandon. "During my short, four-day experiment, I received about 20 times as many signatures at a rate that was 697,000 percent higher than what Discovery Institute can claim."
Scientists who signed the petition, including 21 National Academy of Science members, nine MacArthur "genius" awardees, and a Nobel laureate, object to efforts to place Intelligent Design on par with scientific theory, Brandon said. Signatory Dr. Steve Brill of Rutgers University agrees. "To be called a scientific theory, Intelligent Design must be at the very least, disprovable. Since there is no way for Intelligent Design to be disproved, it fails the simplest test of scientific theory."
The petition, at www.ShovelBums.org, was circulated between September 28th and October 1st to scientists trained in evolutionary theory and gave them an opportunity to publicly state that Intelligent Design should not be taught in public schools within the science curriculum. The results were overwhelming -- 7,733 signatories, more than half of whom are scientists with Ph.Ds.
"I organized this project as a response to the Discovery Institute's four-year petition initiative which gathered only 400 scientist signatures opposing evolution and promoting Intelligent Design as a scientific theory," said Brandon. "During my short, four-day experiment, I received about 20 times as many signatures at a rate that was 697,000 percent higher than what Discovery Institute can claim."
Scientists who signed the petition, including 21 National Academy of Science members, nine MacArthur "genius" awardees, and a Nobel laureate, object to efforts to place Intelligent Design on par with scientific theory, Brandon said. Signatory Dr. Steve Brill of Rutgers University agrees. "To be called a scientific theory, Intelligent Design must be at the very least, disprovable. Since there is no way for Intelligent Design to be disproved, it fails the simplest test of scientific theory."
