Written Testimony of Wendee Holtcamp To the Texas State Board of Education:
Should we modify Texas science textbooks to include the strengths and weaknesses of evolution in response to pressure from the Discovery Institute and other religious groups? Resolutely, no.
I say this as a scientist (M.S. Wildlife Ecology 1993-1995, National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow/Ph.D student at Rice University, 2003), as a science educator (Biology Instructor, Kingwood College 1999-2003), as a mother of two school-age children, and as a Christian who believes that truth can be found in scripture but also in the unbiased study of the created world.
Everyone agrees we want superb quality science education in Texas. And certainty critical thinking, and understanding normal scientific controversy should and could be a part of a students science education (ie. TEKS 112.43c(3)A).
However, those who claim to advocate including the strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory (specifically the Discovery Institute fellows an Intelligent Design thinktank -- but also various other religious groups such as the Texans for Better Science Education" advocacy website by creationist Mark Ramsey of the Greater Houston Creation Association) have a clearly stated agenda to defeat materialism and replace it with a God-centered view of the world. While that sounds like a lofty goal, it must remain a cultural and not a scientific goal, because it undermines all that the scientific revolution accomplished, which is the ability to discover facts about the natural world in an unbiased, systematic manner.
Intelligent Design (ID) is misguided because it attempts to do two things: be a scientific theory, and also a movement. Scientists may have pet hypotheses, but they do not set 20-year goals to have their ideas accepted as the "the dominant perspective in science" (taken from the Discovery Institutes strategic plan). True paradigm shift as a result of groundbreaking research happens only rarely in science. Sometimes a scientist such as the monk Gregor Mendel who discovered the laws of genetic heritability may not even realize the significance of his/her own work in his lifetime.
Proponents at the Discovery Institute claim to have made a scientific breakthrough in their intellectual understanding of the natural world, via the concept of irreducible complexity, which they would like introduced into textbooks as an alternative to the evolutionary paradigm. In reality, ID has yet to achieve the status of science, because the idea is not approached scientifically. The two most well-known ID scientists (Behe and Dembski) that make up the Discovery Institutes scientific core have zero peer-reviewed scientific publications about intelligent design. Zero. Nor do any other scientists have a single peer-reviewed science publication about ID.
Yet on the Discovery Institute website, they discuss intelligent design theory. While the word theory may be used among laypeople to mean any old idea, in science, theory is defined as a widely accepted explanation supported by a large body of observations and experiments (Biology 6th ed., Solomon Berg & Martin, 2002). ID is without question NOT a scientific theory and it does not belong in textbooks as one. Whether it is even a testable hypothesis is open to debate.
Despite IDs failing to off the ground as science, ID has been tremendously successful as a religious political movement and at getting the public to support its ideas.
But truth is not a democracy. We cant vote scientific theories, or our understanding of reality, into existence by a public show of support. And we must not teach students unproven ideas as science.
We also must not weaken our students biological education by treating evolution as if it were in serious trouble as a theory, when in reality evolution has a solid, extensive body of data to support it as a theory. Support for evolution comes from genetics, biochemistry, paleontology, geology, and ecology, among others. Evolution is as close to a law as you can get in the biological sciences. If textbooks needed to be modified in any way it would be to provide stronger support for the absolute certainty of evolution, natural selection, and common descent.
Part of the reason why the ID movement has gained so much momentum is that they mix their two goals (science, and a movement to create a God-centered worldview in science). In effect, they have hoodwinked the public into thinking ID has produced legitimate, even groundbreaking, science when it has not produced any.
Science can only reveal what is in the natural world, not a supernatural God, which we discover through faith. Science works through the development of ideas and the drawing of implications, and through the testing of hypotheses. The ID movement has side-stepped the valid scientific process by drawing implications with no hypothesis testing exactly what logicians and philosophers such as Aristotle did BEFORE the scientific-revolution!
We would not accept revisionist history by deleting out the reality of the Holocaust, or our own nation's ill treatment of American Indians and African Americans. Nor can we create revisionist science that deletes out or weakens the reality of a strong and thriving evolutionary paradigm by inserting unproven, politically motivated messages from creationists.
To accept Discovery Institutes criticism of the 4 commonly used evolutionary topics in the textbooks being considered (Miller-Urey experiment on origins of life, peppered moth experiment, tree of life/Cambrian explosion, and vertebrate embryos) is misguided for several reasons. As a science writer (published over 100 articles in magazines such as National Wildlife Magazine, Audubon Magazine, Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine, ScienceNow, and Discovery Channel Online) I know that writers take commonly used examples because they are easily simplified, easily understood, and readily reinforced by previous knowledge (in this case by previous student coursework). These four evolutionary examples could be changed, certainly. But even if all four experiments were totally debunked scientifically, which they have not been, it would not weaken the paradigm of evolution -- because there are millions of individually published peer-reviewed papers on natural selection and evolution. Each study is one small piece of a puzzle. And that is the way science works.
As college-level biology instructor I want to report what I have heard from my students repeatedly and it means that already they are failing to learn the concept of evolution in high school. Over the past four years, I have my students write out a page about what they have heard about evolution before reading anything in the unit on evolution, and asking what they think the controversy is about. Around 95% say that theyve heard that evolution means that humans come from monkeys or apes. Only a very small fraction mention any other organism besides humans, and only a very small fraction mention common descent (rather than direct descent from monkeys) or natural selection. In other words, anti-evolutionist smear campaigns and spreading of misinformation have been extremely successful, while our biology education is utterly failing at teaching students about what evolutionary theory means (loosely, the common descent of all organisms through time, diversification and speciation as a result of natural selection, gene flow, mutation, change in allele frequency, and chance events).
Finally, I want to say what I can uniquely say as a Christian and a scientist. Science and the Bible offer answers to different questions. Science helps reveal how things happen and religion explains why. Fighting against science will only propel our world into a dark age, where information and truth are feared, and hidden from the common folk. What valid science reveals about God's creation must not be feared simply because we don't understand it, or because it doesn't fit what we, as human beings, think God is saying through Scripture.
Christians, and particularly Christian leaders, must be held to a very high level of truth and accountability for what we teach and say (see James 1:3). When followed properly, scientific study can reveal processes by which God used to create and sustain the world. And it is our obligation as Christians and scientists to speak the truth as best as we understand it. The scientific method and peer review system were designed to help prevent human bias from entering into research. Frankly, I believe that the creation-evolution debate has become a vitriolic feud that diverts the attention of Christians and non-Christians alike away from the gospel.
In 1999, I sent a letter with 46 signatures of Christians who are also scientists to Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family in response to their airing of anti-evolution messages. I am including that letter in my submitted testimony to provide evidence that scientists are not all anti-God, and that scientists can be Christians and believe that God is behind the creation of the world and yet accept evolution. You will recognize parts of these past two paragraphs from that letter. I would also like to submit my article, The Fish Wars: A Battle Between Two Worldviews. Or Is It? which I wrote for the American Scientific Affiliation website (a nonprofit group of scientists who are also Christians) -- http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Youth%20Page/FishWars1.html
As a scientist, an educator, a mother, and a Christian, I urge the Texas SBOE to vote to protect the integrity of our states science education, and not weaken the way evolution appears in textbooks adopted by the state. I appreciate the opportunity to submit my testimony. We have a great, free nation and we have a responsibility to its future leaders to teach them the scientific realities as we best and currently understand it.
Sincerely,
Wendee Holtcamp
Freelance Writer-PhotographerEmail: bohemian@wendeeholtcamp.com
Website: http://www.wendeeholtcamp.com