As a philosophy major and a former scientist, I think that something important has been left out of the discussion of "intelligent design" (over and above the fact that tsunamis, lemmings and the appendix don't argue much for intelligence). The arguments for intelligent design (ID) were not originally conceived as scientific arguments. Rather, these were always (in philosophy) arguments for the existence of god. The "watchmaker" and other design arguments were not originally designed as explanations of the world. Instead, they were used to claim that the complexity of the world proved that there is a god.

As such, there place is not in biology classrooms, but in philosophy classes (which I fear are non-existent in most US high schools). Along with the ID argument, teachers should present the many counter-arguments, such as Hume's wonderful Discussions that address this argument.

The wolf in sheep's clothing here is that the ID agenda is not presenting an alternative scientific argument, but a theological one, that argues for the existence of god. Given the importance of religion (it's killed thousands of US troops in the last few years) this is a worthy topic for high school students, but not in a biology class.

At best, I can't understand how the topic of evolution could take up more than a week of biology instruction anyway. Surely, there is more than enough to cover that doesn't touch on evolution.

If ID must be taught, let it be taught in a philosophy class that first presents logic, critical thinking and argumentation.

Also, I was surprised to hear the ID proponent on the show make claims about simplicity of ID. Ockam's razor is an important philosophical idea. The theory of evolution is the most elegant idea that mankind has ever stumbled upon. It eliminates thousands of "explanations" for ideas that don't fit nicely into theories. For its simplicity alone, it is worth favoring over competing ideas.

Listening to you all discuss the age old subject of science v. the bible, I just have to tell you that in the light of my study and personal experiences with different cultures, there "ain't no problems".

You just have to be a portrait painter painting the Commanidng General of New Delhi, India. While sitting for me, he explained that his people taught him that they were Adamites from the Pamir Plateau in what is now Tajikistan in the Himalaya Mountains. He was wearing his bangle like they've found in diggings of the earliest civilizations in Harrappa and Mohenjadaro. He introduced me to a Wing Commander in the Indian Airforce who explained that his name was not Pami (pronounced Pummy) but P. Adam (pronounced Pah-dum). When National Geographic's family Atlas hit our door, I enlarged the area under discussion- and there was the villag of Padam.

Then I found a book, "Razas des Humanas," in Portugese from Brazil- and there it was, the history of the Adamites, starting about 10,000 years ago, he said, "The Bible was never meant to be a year by year account of history - but if you know the time-frame of the geologic history of our earth, it all fits right in."

Six billion years ago, "it was dark and void". Then the gases exploded ("Let there be light") in the first Big Bang - causing the gses to recombine into different gases which then, exploded into something that could support life. According to "Australian Geographic's" map, 500 million years ago there was very simple life in the water, It was 4 million years ago before this environment could support fish. 345 million years ago the "skeeters" started and by 280 million years ago, we had spiders and cockroaches. By 195 million years ago, we had dinosuars.

Then the Bible says, "on the 6th day He created man in Our image." The Australian chart shows a black, upright walking man running around eating off trees, finding food like the animals. By 10 thousand years ago, the upright walking man had spears, a boomerang and was squatting by a fire. He developed by learning new ways to find food in his environment.

The Bible says that on the Seventh Day, God rested and noticed, "We have not a man to till the soil, so from the dirt of earth, he created Adam and gave him a partner, Eve, and a beautiful Garden of Eden to live in" which makes plausible the white people with imagination from the Himalaysas carrying Math, Astronomy, Writing, and Medicine to Egypt. These new people said they were from God and would go back when their work was done. Their mummies have never been found. They taught the Egyptians to build pyramids and line them up with the stars. I don't know the Eyptian language, but I do know Hindi, language of India, the first to come from the first written language, Sanskrit. So I am able to recognize some concepts of speech in Yoruba, 2nd oldest language of Africa, that are the same as those of the Tribe of Don, the Jews of Vienna.

Biblical stories of the tribe of Don leaving the Himalays seem true to me when I read the name of the River Don in Russia and the Danube River in Austria. To this very day, the stories of the Arab Muslims killing everyone who is not their kind of Muslim, are being played out in Iraq and Iran. In the Bible you read how these very Arab Muslims slashed their way into the Holy Land, causing those people to flee to India, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

I believe all this because I find some of the oldest names in Gaelic to be the same as names of friends in India today. This history falls into place for me, because during the years my husband was setting up American-type universities in India and Malysia, I made close Indian/Sikh, Malay/Chinese and Nigerian friends who, to this day, call me "Granma Bowie" to their children.

I have survived wonderful cultural shocks like a 10 year old Yoruba boy talking to me while I cooked supper for us all. He spoke perfect British English because his mother was a headmistress in a Roman Catholic school in Ibada, Nigeria. He was telling me of visiting grandparents in the bush who still wore no more than a rag around their middles. When I asked him if he spoke Yoruba with them, he said, "Oh, yes".

So I asked him what they said in Yoruba for a really dumb person. He told me the Yoruba words for a dumb head, which I couldn't understand, so asked him to tell me what that was in English. He said, "In English it says 'rags in the head'".

I almost fell into the frying pan, because a close Jewish friend whose parents had brought her out of the old, old settlement of Jews in Vienna to avoid Hitler, had taught me "fetzen schoedle." The Jew of Vienna have their own form of German/Czech Yiddish. When they want to curse a really dumb person, they yell fetzen schoedle!!-which means "rags in the head". The concepts of language of those people from the Garden of Eden, who carried the first language to Egypt must have spilled over into Yoruba, second oldest language in Africa, No?

I have all kinds of clues to connect geologic history and science to the Bible. Educated minister frineds like to Tottens from Tottenville, Staten Island, are related to Methodist minister of the 1700's who were there when Pastor Asbury from New Jersey started Methodism on the Staten Island farm of my mother's forbears.

The more we learn about energy/electricity, the more we understand how God, Brahma, Allah (whatever you call this director of the Universe) this supreme collection of electricty/energy creates and destroys. Ancient religion in India says Lord shiva dances in a ring of fire (electricity) and the rhythm of his steps set our hours. Scientists tell us negative/postive ions are zipping back and forth at 42,000 miles a second in every cell in our bodies, and when this electricity leaves the body to join the energy that makes up the Universe, a person is dead.

I'm 86 now, living alone on a hilltop and writing the unbelievable stories of my fabulous life - raising our boys and backing up Bob Webb, Superintendent of the U. of IL Dixon Springs Experiment Station for 26 years and then being lover, wife, legal secretary and cook for Law Professor Hank Hannah - who was G-3 of the 101st going into Holland and worked for the U.S. State Dept. setting up universisites in the Far East - while teaching Law at U. of IL and SIU for 61 years.

Please, all you highly educated and informed people in one field and one field only, please quit picking on each other. If you get the time-frame right, if you laugh at the Bible when it says the flood covered all the world because they had no airlplanes to fly over the rest of the world, it all fits together beautifully.

Now let's sing, "Let There Be Peace On Earth - and let it begin with me."

In the bond,,

(pen name) Bowie Webb Hannah

"Bowie" Verna Claire Buffinger Webb Hannah

Verna C Hannah

21841 N. Mayflower Lane

Texico, IL 62889

This is somewhat off topic, but to answer Jason's question--which is basically the age-old question "Why does God let bad things happen?"--the explanation is quite simple: If nothing bad ever happened, then this world would not be very different from the perfect world that religions such as Christianity or Islamic beliefs say awaites people after death. In order for an "imperfect" world to exist alongside a "perfect" world, it is inevitable that bad things happen the "imperfect" world. Now it is said that this world was originally intended to be a "perfect" world, which is when it is said that all life was created. But when man became corrupt, this "perfect" world was taken away. So it is the Christian belief that the world is imperfect because of mans actions. Now this isn't to say that the bad things that happen are punishment for man's action (the main punishment for that was being banished from Eden), think of them more of line that divides Earth from Heaven, while the good things that happen in this world are what seperates Earth from Hell. I also think that these bad things that happen are not neccessarily direct acts of God. I guess you could say that once God set the world in motion, things just happened.

Oh by the way, I forgot to mention in my last post that the most of that explanation was from a Christian standpoint, despite the fact that I mentioned Islamic beliefs in the beginning of it.

I just heard this program. There were two problems I had with Paul Nelson. First, he, dodged a question. When asked what verifiable predictions Intellegent Design had made, he made an obesrvation about chance in relationship to a past event. The questioner was obviously asking about any experiments that they had done to prove ID (like the chemical reation Niall Shanks had talked about). Second, he doesn't seem to have any problem with Evolution as such, he just wants a First Cause (as Aquinas would say) to be a part of the course work. Let's let Evolution be taught in Science classes and First Causers to be taught in Philosophy and Theology classes.

Dear Margot,

I heard at the end of your broadcast on the evolution versus

"intelligent design" debate that this was a rebroadcast of an April 2005 program. I wish I had caught the original, and I almost decided not to write despite your encouragement to do so. But I have experience from both sides of this debate, so I have decided to comment primarily because the play-out of this debate reveals so much about the evangelical movement and attitude.

I was raised in an evangelical household, one that remains fanatically commited although I have moved on to a mathematical and engineering career in the sciences. Evolution is a topic that is unmentionable in my parents' home unless their own view so influenced by evangelists is reinforced. This isn't uncommon in such households among those in the evangelical movement given that they consider their "relationship" with God as exclusive. The corollary that follows is that they are the only "true" messengers of the Holy message which includes the "situation" of the universe, and so if science concludes something that is different from their beliefs, it is science that is in error and should be corrected or supressed. This attitude isn't much different from that encouraged among the students of Pakistan's

madrasas, and I believe that it is as dangerous!

I knew at an early age that evolution explained the divergence and development of species including humankind. I had as a young person witnessed the escape of a crafty and quick mouse from the claws of a cat and understood that the mouse would live to propogate and pass on its traits, demonstrated in its craftiness and quickness, to its offspring. I was an avid reader and spent much time in the forests, creeks, and fields near my

home, and evolution in operation was clear to me as the result of my experience in the "wild" world.

Interestingly, if "evolutoin" is presented to my parents in other terms like "the survival of the fittest", there is no problem (in fact my Mother is fascinated with medicine and loves to talk about things like bacteria becoming adapted to disease-fighting drugs)!. But under the influence of radio-evangletists, they incorrectly interpret evolution to mean the spontaneous changing of one kind of species to another almost like the

metamorphasis of Kafka's character in the story of the same name. Now, one may attempt to make a correction in their view in the interest of assisting their understanding, but such an effort would be futile since the radio-evangelists they support are "men of God" and therefore would not mislead and would be compelled to provide the "real" truth. Thus, we see the tendency among these to accept the "facts" from whatever demigod claims divine inspiration. This explains the popularity of such commentators like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Rielly, and others who cater to the christian right. So, we see the fanatical support of George W. Bush despite his repeated demonstrations of incompetence (Some Christians that I have encountered state that they will support him "no matter what" since he is a "man of God"!).

The irony is that one can easily dispell religious objections against evolution using the Bible! Genesis describes the first, six "days" of creation with the seventh the day that the Creator rested. This may imply to some that creation was then completed, but the Bible doesn't say that. Indeed, humans know that weather, climate, and now, humankind, reworks the physical world altering its plant, animal, and human populations and species in some fashion, and so they are acquainted with destruction and creation on a scale that is smaller than the creation of the earth and universe (the "world" in Genesis). Thus, they cannot claim that creation is static as their arguments against evolution imply! Many established religions, churches, and members accept the view that creation is ongoing and that evolution is the divine method by which it continues. Are we to believe otherwise? What Christian can claim that God's role in creation is only static when at the same time he will believe, as many do, that all

disasters, changes, trials, and the personal and national responses to such are God's will and represent an active effort to punish and instruct? If the radio-evangelists were intelligent enough to study the Bible deeply rather than accept the same, prejudiced views of their traditional upbringing, they would know that their anti-evolution arguments are bogus!

I don't predict that they will come to this conclusion, however. The media-evangelists are too wrapped up in their and money and influence to take any other path.

Rick Blakley

Jason,

I am a "religious" (as much as I hate the term) person, and I find it easy to grasp the concept of inteligent design. If God did not alow us to create guns, knives, and wmd's, and do horrible things, where would our free will be? How would we make a choice to either love Him or reject Him? God doesn't want us to be mindless slaves, if there weren't things like I mentioned above, how would we choose to use them properly or not at all? And with out choice we are just slaves! -Joe

Evolution: In my own opinion is faith-based, and thus non-scientific in nature and an assumption based solely upon one mans

ideas surrounding the beginning of life not just here but throughout the universe as a whole; this man being of course Darwin. Evolution gives no absolutes as to the exact way life began just as Creation or Intelligent Design does not either and thus leaves an individual with more of a belief system than what is or can be termed scietific in form.

Creation or Intelligent Design as some would refer to it as now is also based upon a book better known as the Word of God and too can not be proven as an absolute to the beginnings of life and therefore is also faith-based.

As such both should be taught together as an elective with no right or wrong attached to it and under the classification of a hypothesis rather than a science especially since neither can be proven or disproven as an absolute, or neither should be taught.

If one or the other is taught, leaving out the other; your are actually establishing the idea the one faith-based idea is superior over the other. As such, since both would or can be considered faith-based then you are in essence promoting one religious view over the other or (evolution: Civil Religion and creation: Judeo-Christian religion). When you do this, you are in essense creating a State sponsorship of a religious point of view over other less accepted religious points of view and that what I guess that I am saying is simply, that when you do this, you also go against the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution which forbids at the federal level a State-sponsorship of religion and really also dissavow not only the freedom to exercice ones own religious views but also freedom of speech.

Tom Eichorst

Religious Liberty Activist

Bend, Oregon

The fact of the matter is Evolution is not a faith-based belief. Darwin’s theory of evolution is based on real world observations. It is not just some combination of ideas with the only proof being that a lot of people believe in it. Creationism and Intelligent Design are both ideas that have no true scientific evidence to support them but Intelligent Design also can not be disproved by science but that does not make it scientific.

Saying that the theory of evolution is faith-based is a rather silly proposition. It is not based on just any belief; it’s based on facts that can be observed in the real world. This does not make evolution fact but it certainly is not a religiously based idea.

Evolution is based on the real world and uses scientific study to try and prove. Creationism on the other hand is based solely on ones belief in it. There is no way to prove or disprove it in the real world meaning it can not be called science.

Even if you disagree with the idea of evolution you have to admit that there is at least some evidence that is based on real world observations and thus is not faith-based. Some may argue that Creationism and Intelligent Design have real world evidence but most of it can be disproved or is not scientific, such as quoting the bible. The bible is not the proven word of God nor is it proven fact so it can not be used to say the idea of Creationism and Intelligent Design is real. In my opinion there is no real world scientific observation in Creationism or Intelligent Design but evolution is based on real world observation.

In the Intelligent Design vs. Darwinism dramarama, I think it's important to consider the age of the earth itself. If you were one of those "young earth" types, who thought that the planet was only a few thousand years old, intelligent design would be much easier to swallow, because even from a darwin-y perspective, organisms as complex as us arising in such a short period of time is not feasible. But if you suscribe to the theory that the planet is several billion years old, then the darwinist view seems entirely reasonable. I mean, a lot changes in two or three billion years. So yeah, something to consider.

Intelligent Design seems to be valid to a certain extent, but it is clear that there is a lack of evidence greater than that of Darwinism. ID was taken in consideration in order to answer our most basic and most puzzling question of all "Where to we come from?" ID claims to provide evidence by means of theoretical and historical data, yet the majority of the historical data is flawed in the sense that human being exaggerate, and in the earliest days of our humanity we used to use myth to deal with our fears of the unknown and to force others into slavery. Evolution gives us a better insight by identifying certain changes in the genetic changes incurred by each species in our world. The best example of this genetic change are insects, they reproduce at a higher rate and can have several generations in the matter of days in certain species. The genetic change is most apparent in insects because of there short life spans. Where in human being and other animals the change is much slower due to the age difference, human beings tend to be long lived and some animals have longer life spans than human beings. Genetic variation is very subtle therefore harder to identify, on gene can be made up of several compounds and it can mean the difference between blue eyes and brown eyes. This can also mean the difference between a specific species being immune to a certain disease in comparison to another species. I also believe carbon dating is a flawed science at this stage, I think that the human species is older than what we tend to believe it is, we cannot expect to keep digging and find the remains of an ancestor and think that we are going to find the oldest human being every time, the earth does have its limits on what it allows to survive in its constant development and change. ID may have some good theories, but I still consider evolution to be the best source of data in the search of our origins.

The two sides of our beginnings include creationism or intelligent design and Evolution. I would like to point out that they are both simply theories that scientist or just deep thinkers have created. I agree that evolution has some physical evidence that this could be the way we humans were created, but I still think that this "evidence" is severely limited and is not enough to prove the theory remotely true. Honestly, they are both beliefs and both may never be proven in our lifetime or ever in that matter.

Going back to the original question: how far should schools go without violating the separation of church and state? The answer is that both should be briefly described (notice i did not say preached) to students. If you simply tell a student only evolution is the cause for our existence that has the same influence as creationism would. We must not limit our student’s minds. Give all options and let them choose the answer or make one up for themselves.

I'd just like to say, I beleive that the bible and evolution go hand in hand. Everyone is so determined to prove one and defeat the other, but if you really examine them, they fit together nicely. Evolution is almost certainly correct, because of the overwhelming evidence in support of it, and the lack of dissent among scientists. It remains a theory, because technically, you could never prove any theory of this nature to be absolutely true. Remember, gravity is a theory, but do you deny it? Evolution is simply too well proven to dismiss it as a radical theory, especially if you have not even learned about it, or grasped its basic concepts. It really annoys me when people argue against evolution when they don't understand the theory themselves. As for the bible, it fits in, as long as you understand that it shouldn't be taken word for word. I hate to point it out, but the bible has been rewritten, translated, and edited so many times, that we can't correctly say that it is God's exact words. Humans are not perfect, so how could we write a perfect book? I prefer to think of the bible more of God's message, not his exact words. This makes much more sense, and helps to explain many of the unrealistic stories in the bible. One should believe in them, but believe in them for the message carried in the story, not the specifics. The creation story is to me a parable that explains how the universe came to be. It doesn't mean that God created the universe in six days. It is actually pretty acurate if you think of those six days more as six eras (who said a day for God is the same as a day for us). If you look at it this way, you can have the evolution theory, without contradicting the bible story. Also, people always say that God works in mysterious ways. Perhaps God didn't create things by a wave of his hand, but maybe he created everything through the process of evolution (maybe we have begun to see how God works!). There is no good reason why evolution works the way it does ("random mutations" in the DNA that create new characteristics which give a organisms an advantage or disadvantage), but I thnk God fits in perfectly. My theory: Evolution is simply the method God uses to create variation in creatures, which eventually leads to new species surviving better than others. The bible has a great message, and science has given us great knowlege. Use them both. Science and Religion do not have to clash. It just requires an open mind, and eventually it all fits together.