List of Scientific Societies Explicitly Rejecting Intelligent Design - Other Countries and International Bodies

Other Countries and International Bodies

• Council of Europe In 2007 the Council's "Committee on Culture, Science and Education" issued a report, The dangers of creationism in education, which states "The intelligent design ideas annihilate any research process. It identifies difficulties and immediately jumps to the conclusion that the only way to resolve them is to resort to an intelligent cause without looking for other explanations. It is thus unacceptable to want to teach it in science courses. It is not enough to present it as an alternative theory in order to have it included in the science syllabus. In order to claim to be scientific, it is only necessary to refer to natural causes in one’s explanations. The intelligent design ideas, however, only refers to supernatural causes" and "“Intelligent design”, which is the latest, more refined version of creationism, does not completely deny a degree of evolution. However, this school of thought has hardly provided any fuel for the scientific debate up to now. Though more subtle in its presentation, the doctrine of intelligent design is no less dangerous".

• Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Nobel Laureates Initiative This organization has 38 Nobel laureates, who wrote a letter calling upon the Kansas Board of Education to reject intelligent design. "Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection. As the foundation of modern biology, its indispensable role has been further strengthened by the capacity to study DNA. In contrast, intelligent design is fundamentally unscientific; it cannot be tested as scientific theory because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent."

• Intelligent Design is not Science Initiative This initiative was brought forth by a coalition organized by the Faculty of Science at the University of New South Wales representing more than 70,000 Australian scientists and science teachers with signatories from the Australian Academy of Science, the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies, and the Australian Science Teachers Association. "(Intelligent design) is a theological or philosophical notion... Evolution meets all (scientific) criteria but ID meets none of them: it is not science."

• Interacademy Panel Statement on the Teaching of Evolution This is a joint statement issued by the national science academies of 67 countries, including the United Kingdom's Royal Society, warning that scientific evidence about the origins of life was being "concealed, denied, or confused". It urges parents and teachers to provide children with the facts about the origins and evolution of life on Earth.

• The International Society for Science and Religion declared that "e believe that intelligent design is neither sound science nor good theology."

• Project Steve A statement signed by 1200 scientists, all named Steve. "It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to "intelligent design," to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation's public schools."

• The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Ottawa Centre, said, "The RASC Ottawa Centre, then, is unequivocal in its support of contemporary evolutionary theory that has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been refined by findings accumulated over 140 years. Some dissenters from this position are proponents of non-scientific explanations of the nature of the universe. These may include "creation science", "creationism", "intelligent design" or other non-scientific "alternatives to evolution". While we respect the dissenters’ right to express their views, these views are theirs alone and are in no way endorsed by the RASC Ottawa Centre. It is our collective position that these explanations do not meet the characteristics and rigour of scientific empiricism."

• The Royal Society "opposes the misrepresentation of evolution in schools to promote particular religious beliefs" and states "intelligent design has far more in common with a religious belief in creationism than it has with science, which is based on evidence acquired through experiment and observation. The theory of evolution is supported by the weight of scientific evidence; the theory of intelligent design is not."