Critical Analysis of Evolution - Details of The Campaign

Details of The Campaign

The Discovery Institute's primary method for achieving their goal is to delegitimize evolution and minimize its profile in science education public school curricula via textbook disclaimers and the language of state science standards. Describing the campaign, the Discovery Institute says

As a general approach, Discovery Institute favors teaching students more about evolution, not less. We think students deserve to know not only about the strengths of modern evolutionary theory, but also about some of the theory's weaknesses and unresolved issues. In other words, students should be taught that evolutionary theory, like any scientific theory, continues to be open to analysis and critical scrutiny. According to opinion polls, this approach is favored by the overwhelming majority of the American public, and it has also been endorsed by the U.S. Congress in report language attached to the No Child Left Behind Act Conference Report.

The institute hopes to take advantage of the opportunity presented by some states currently revising or developing science standards in preparation for state-wide science exams required under the No Child Left Behind Act which must be in place by the 2007–2008 school year. Viewed as an opportunity to introduce Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plans, the institute implies it will benefit schools and students with the exams required under the act.

The Discovery Institute insists that Critical Analysis of Evolution is not another attempt to open the door of public high school science classrooms for intelligent design, and hence supernatural explanations. Discovery Institute spokesperson Casey Luskin in February 2006 coined the term "false fear syndrome" of those who said it was, and said:

This is simply another instance of Darwinists attempting to oppose critical analysis of evolution by pretending that it is equivalent to teaching intelligent design. This is a political tactic based upon misinformation, misrepresentation, emotions, and false fears."

In July 2006 on the blog of Discovery Institute Fellow and leading intelligent design proponent William A. Dembski, Dembski's research assistant and co-moderator of the site, Joel Borofsky, contradicted the Discovery Institute's statements:

My hope is that ID will be taught properly in Kansas. Having been born and raised there I would love to claim to be from the first state to teach ID. There is a lot of movement among science high school teachers to never teach ID, even if it becomes a law because "we don't know how to teach philosophy". It would be nice to see them learn. I worked in a school and grew tired of hearing them speak of how it's wrong to point out the weaknesses in Darwin's theory because, "even if it is weak, it's still the best theory out there."

To the claim that the Kansas science standards had nothing to do with intelligent design but were only about teaching evolution in a "balanced" way, Borofsky responded:

It really is ID in disguise. The entire purpose behind all of this is to shift it into schools...at least that is the hope/fear among some science teachers in the area. The problem is, if you are not going to be dogmatic in Darwinism that means you inevitably have to point out a fault or at least an alternative to Darwinism. So far, the only plausible theory is ID. If one is to challenge Darwin, then one must use ID. To challenge Darwin is to challenge natural selection/spontaneous first cause...which is what the Kansas board is attempting to do. When you do that, you have to invoke the idea of ID."

In response to the reception to his comments, Dembski's research assistant felt compelled to issue a clarification that he was only voicing his personal opinion, not that of others in the movement, and that he is Dembski's "assistant on theological work, not necessarily the ID movement." However, he later admitted that he does in fact sometimes work on ID-related work.

A cornerstone in the Critical Analysis of Evolution campaign has been the institute's "Stand Up For Science" website and poll, which says is "dedicated to promoting objectivity in the public school teaching of evolution." Its poll is aimed at swaying the Kansas State Board of Education in favor institute-promoted science curricula standards that present what it calls "scientific criticisms" of the evolution, which do not exist according to the scientific community, and calls the efforts of the scientific community to maintain established and accepted science curricula as "censorship of scientific evidence in public schools."