We the undersigned with to express our support to the enactment of legislation in the U.S, and indeed all countries, that both allows and strongly encourages the teaching of "intelligent design", especially concerning the origin and evolution of life, in the science classroom. We understand that science is an enterprise in empirical observation, and that intelligent design is both a valid and important inference made from all the available data.

We believe that appropriate material excerpted from peer-reviewed/edited journal articles and books that advance intelligent design as an alternative to the Darwinian paradigm (and all other models involving unguided and accidental processes) should be included within the science curriculum. It is our view, and that of many scientists and engineers (1), that the claim that Darwinian natural selection sufficiently explains the diversity of life is not actually based on demonstrable facts, but is instead largely speculative and unsupported.

We maintain that many facets of living organisms are best explained by an intelligent design, irrespective of how it was actually implemented, rather than by the blind working of chance and necessity alone. We maintain that the resistance shown to this scientific interpretation from certain quarters is because of the wish to exclude any possibility of intelligent causation in Nature, on ideological grounds rather than for scientific reasons.

In spite of the irresponsible scaremongering from some critics that the presentation of the arguments for intelligent design alongside those for Darwinian evolutionism would harm public education, and serve only to confuse students, we believe that the positive experience of the states of Louisiana (2) and Tennessee (3) shows otherwise. It is our opinion that students would benefit from learning that science is not dogmatic, but is instead dynamic and open to alternative hypotheses and evidence. We thus strongly back a bill being drafted in Montana that supports inculcating an approach of critical thinking (4).

Finally, we reject the unwarranted assertion that intelligent design is religious apologetics, and would thus be unconstitutional in the United States. The design inference is something that scientists from fields as diverse as paleontology and radio astronomy use in their research. While intelligent design does have metaphysical implications, the same can also be said for Darwinian evolutionism which is regularly used by its most vocal advocates in support of atheism and materialism.

Sponsor

Links