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Even scientists who believe in intelligent design do not feel it is ready for prime time. Many would prefer to move forward gradually, building their case, in order to avoid a backlash. "It's premature for all kinds of reasons," says oceanographer Edward Peltzer, a senior researcher at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California. "The science is there, but the science textbooks are not. The teachers have to be trained. Its time will come. But its time is not now." The emphasis for now is on dissing Darwinism, which opens the door to other explanations without specifically invoking...
Other arguments in this new brand of anti-Darwinism focus on missing pieces in the fossil record, particularly the Cambrian period, when there was an explosion of novel species. Still other advocates, including mathematician, philosopher and theologian William Dembski, who is heading up a new center for intelligent design at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, use the mathematics of probability to try to show that chance mutations and natural selection cannot account for nature's complexity. In contrast to earlier opponents to Darwin, many proponents of intelligent design accept some role for evolution--heresy to some creationists. They are also careful...
...state legislatures. In Ohio, for instance, the institute sent representatives to the state board of education meetings last year to push for science standards that would support teaching critiques of evolution. "All we're advocating for is that if a teacher wants to bring up the scientific debate over design, they should be allowed to do that," says institute spokesman John West. In fact, Ohio modified its standards to say that evolution should be critically analyzed, which West regards as a victory...
Statewide curriculum standards for science are a relatively new target for Darwin doubters, one that has a broader impact than local school-board decisions. In addition, by working at the state level, intelligent-design advocates can largely avoid dealing with unpolished local activists who make rash religious statements that don't hold up in court. (Supporters of the Darwin disclaimer in Dover, Pa., have publicly proclaimed the country a Christian nation, a point cited in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit.) It has been only since the late 1980s and early '90s that most states have created science-curriculum standards...
Oddly enough, the President's remarks last week promoting intelligent design made Morris and many other Darwin doubters uncomfortable because they have a different timetable in mind. "His support is appreciated, but I plan to move forward on attempting to get criticism of Darwinian evolution in the science standards, not intelligent design," says Morris. Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, a leading voice on the religious right, seemed to be reading from the same script. "What we should be teaching are the problems and holes in the theory of evolution," he said in an interview with National Public Radio a few days...