The Chronicle of Higher Education recently had a nice long article, which you can't read online unless you have a subscription, titled "On the Front Lines in the War Over Evolution". It's in the March 10, 2006 issue. The scientific community is finally realizing the need to network with non-scientists, to do grassroots work, and especially to build alliances with clergy.
Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, recently found supporters numbering in the thousands in the Christian religious community. Mr. Zimmerman leads an effort that to date has gathered 10,300 members of the clergy to sign a letter supporting the teaching of evolution.
Yay for Dr. Zimmerman and for all the clergy who have signed this letter! Go here to learn more about the clergy letter project.
What do our friends at the Discovery Institute, generals in the ID assault on science, have to say about this?
The Discovery Institute, however, discounts the clergy letter. "Religion is irrelevant to the issue," says Robert L. Crowther II, director of communications for the institute. The beliefs of clergy members, he says, do not alter the evidence for intelligent design in DNA and biological cells.
That would be a fine response except that there is no evidence for intelligent design.
But here's something that will make you really sad. According to the Chronicle article,
Aside from the recent legal battles, educators point to several other signs troubling them about evolutionary education in the United States. For example, in a study published last year, Randy Moore, a professor of biology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, reported that 20 percent of the biology teachers he surveyed in Minnesota include creationism in their classes and believe that it is scientifically valid.
Last year Ms. Froschauer's organization polled more than 1,000 science teachers, asking whether they felt pressure to teach alternatives to evolution. About 30 percent reported that they did get pressure, mainly from parents and students.
It really is a war out there. If you think college campuses are immune, think again.
The intelligent-design movement is spreading to higher education, with some colleges offering courses on the topic and clubs sprouting up on different campuses. The Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center, in San Diego, has 24 chapters at colleges and universities across the United States, including Cornell and the University of California at Berkeley.
The supporters of intelligent design are also moving beyond evolution to other areas of research that might mesh well with their guiding philosophy of a creative entity that manifests itself in nature. As its long-term goal, the Discovery Institute has vowed to push what it calls design theory beyond biology and cosmology into such fields as psychology, ethics, philosophy, and the fine arts.
In future posts, I'd like to talk a little about what other goodies we can expect from design theory, and some of the other fun stuff its proponents have going on right now besides trampling evolution.
4:56:17 PM 
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