Statement
The statement that signatories agree to reads:
Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. 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.
There have been some complaints that the statement left out the geological sciences, where evolution is an important principle as well. However, this oversight was noticed too late and it was decided that it would be more effort than it is worth to go back to correct it.
The statement also has been criticized for including a slightly inaccurate statement about common descent, in light of the work of Carl Woese, published in 2002. Woese argues that there is "horizontal transfer of genetic material" among organisms, making the evolutionary trees more complicated than had been previously thought.
Read more about this topic: Project Steve
Famous quotes containing the word statement:
“If we do take statements to be the primary bearers of truth, there seems to be a very simple answer to the question, what is it for them to be true: for a statement to be true is for things to be as they are stated to be.”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)
“The parent is the strongest statement that the child hears regarding what it means to be alive and real. More than what we say or do, the way we are expresses what we think it means to be alive. So the articulate parent is less a telling than a listening individual.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)