Santorum Spreading Santorum
Republican Senator Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania is probably the loudest political voice for incorporating tenets of “intelligent design” creationism into biology education. He is infamous for introducing a Phillip-Johnson drafted amendment to the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act Authorization Bill, which was later renamed the No Child Left Behind Act. This amendment contained the following language:
It is the sense of the Senate that (1) good science education should prepare students to distinguish the data or testable theories of science from philosophical or religious claims that are made in the name of science; and (2) where biological evolution is taught, the curriculum should help students to understand why the subject generates so much continuing controversy, and should prepare the students to be informed participants in public discussions regarding the subject.
Although the amendment was passed by the Senate, the conference committee eventually stripped the language from the law after vociferous protests from the scientific community. Even though his amendment failed, Santorum continues to support the anti-evolution movement. The current Newsweek profiles him as a powerful voice, an emerging leader of the “new faith-based GOP,” and potential candidate for president. According to the article, “[e]volution, he says, should be taught in public schools, but only as a still-controversial scientific theory that ‘has holes.’”
With creationist shenanigans happening in his own back-yard, he could not resist speaking out in support of them. However, Santorum’s op-ed drastically misrepresents what’s going on in Dover.
The fact is that the Dover Area School District will continue to teach evolution and prohibit the teaching of intelligent design, creationism or the presentation of any religious beliefs.
This is a questionable statement indeed, but one that the school district’s lawyers from the Thomas More Law Center are actually trying to use. What is factual is that the Dover Area School Board has actually amended the biology curriculum to include the following statement:
Students will be made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin’s Theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, Intelligent Design. The Origins of Life is not taught.
Maybe it’s just the literalist in me, but that sure doesn’t look like a statement prohibiting the teaching of intelligent design. Apparently the Thomas More Law Center’s idea of education holds that it is possible for teachers to make pupils “aware” of something in science class without it being “taught.” It is worthwhile to note that Santorum is on the advisory board of the Thomas More Law Center, a conflict of interest which he failed to mention in his op-ed.
The school board simply has presented a balanced curriculum that makes students aware of the controversies surrounding evolution.
Once again, Santorum is misleading. Dover’s school board has yet to present any new curriculum which implements “balance” in biology classrooms. Instead, they require that biology teachers read a nay-saying statement to the class. Dover’s teachers have noticed this lack of implementation and have asked the board for explicit guidelines for responding to student questions and have refused to be involved in formulating such guidelines. Their position is essentially “we’ll teach whatever crap you tell us to teach, but we’re not going to help you figure out what that crap will be.” There is good reason for the lack of implementation in the curriculum; there is nothing of substance in “intelligent design” to teach. It is hard to develop a curriculum when there is nothing to teach.
But is there a real scientific dispute? Absolutely. Recently, over 300 scientists, including scholars from Yale, Princeton, MIT and the Smithsonian, signed a public statement declaring that they were “skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life” and encouraging “careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory.”
What exactly does Santorum think the statement disputes? Biologists have known for over a century that random mutation and natural selection are not sufficient to entirely explain the complexity of life, which is why concepts like genetic drift, gene flow, and isolation are found in the biological literature and textbooks. Furthermore, no scientist would argue that evidence for any scientific theory should not be carefully examined. But suggesting that “Darwinian theory” (whatever that is supposed to be) is in special need of scrutiny is wholly unwarranted and offensive to the scientists who – unlike anybody associated with the ID movement – are constantly advancing our knowledge of the history of life. The constant pimping of the Discovery Institute’s statement and signatures does not establish the existence of a scientific dispute. Instead, it establishes that the pundits have serious shortcomings in their biology education.
Now we can ignore the literal statement and instead look at the message that the majority of signers, the Discovery Institute, and hacks like Santorum intend to send with the list, i.e. that there is a scientific dispute over evolution. Not every disagreement amongst scientists amounts to a valid scientific debate, dispute, or controversy. Scientists are people like everyone else and may share disagreements about politics, religion, history, English, literature, food, wine, movies, or any innumerable subjects, but such disagreements are not scientific. Similarly, no scientist is an authority on everything, and scientists speaking outside their realm of expertise do not establish that there exists a valid scientific dispute. Clearly the existence of scientists who simply disagree with a scientific consensus does not amount to a scientific or even academic disagreement. In addition, Skip Evans has raised other criticisms of the Discovery Institute’s list. Perhaps the realities of the Discovery Institute’s anti-evolutionary list can be best gauged by comparing it to the the list of over 500 scientists named “Steve” who state “there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence.”
A 2001 Zogby poll shows that 71 percent of Americans believe that “biology teachers should teach Darwin’s theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it.” Even more overwhelming is a 2004 Steinberg Poll showing 73 percent of California voters believe that biology teachers in public schools should teach the scientific evidence for and against Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Such opinion polls are questionable because they ask loaded and leading questions. (If national opinion polls actually drove Santorum’s politics then he would favor legal abortions because nearly 60% of Americans do.) But perhaps the more important observation is that nearly 100% of all working biologists would say that there exists no scientific evidence against evolution. In fact, a poll of scientists in Ohio from all disciplines found that 93% were not aware of “any scientifically valid evidence or an alternate scientific theory that challenges the fundamental principles of the theory of evolution.”
If we want our students to become educated citizens, we should all support an open, engaging and broad discussion of evolution theory in our public schools.
If this is Santorum’s view of education, then I’d hate to be one of his six home-schooled children. Open discussion does not educate students if it is neither informed nor honest. An objective investigation of anti-evolution literature and politics easily demonstrates the paucity of informed or honest ideas. There is nothing more unfair than treating unequal ideas equally.