Geoscientists and educators take on antievolutionists

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-10/gsoa-gae101705.php

Here's one way to win a debate: Start an argument with folks who aren't
particularly talented debaters. Then keep them on the defensive with
complicated, highly philosophical spurious attacks and baffling red herring
arguments. Finally, before they have finished responding, pull the rug out
from under them with a well-planned political end-run that trumps the whole
debate.
That basically sums up the strategy being employed by the Intelligent
Design (ID) movement as it continues to attack public science education
across the U.S., say scientists and science educators. How to counter these
attacks in the classroom, at school board meetings and on the national
level, is the focus of two expansive sessions with 24 wide-ranging
presentations on Sunday and Monday, 16 and 17 October, at the Geological
Society of America Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City.

Among the first mistakes scientists and educators make is actually arguing
with ID proponents in politically-staged events, says Lee Allison, Senior
Geologist for the Kansas Geological Survey. Not only does that allow the ID
promoters to control the debate, but it pits scientists and educators
against highly trained professional ID debaters, and implicitly lends
credibility to their anti-evolution manifesto.

"Even the best science teachers are not prepared," Allison said. Allison
has been involved in defending science education standards in Kansas, where
the ID movement has concentrated its efforts at the state level. In his GSA
presentation titled, "Evolution in Kansas: It's the Politics, Stupid!",
Allison outlines the case ID proponents recently made to the already
anti-science-leaning Kansas State School Board. He rebuts their arguments,
which are:

1) Evolutionary Theory is facing a crisis. (It isn't.)
2) Science, as is, is inherently Godless (It isn't) and therefore a
religion.
3) Science errs in not including supernatural power to explain things. (It
wouldn't be science if it did.)

If this is the case, why are school boards scattered throughout the country
accepting the ID arguments? One reason is that for years many scientists
thought they could stay out of the unpleasant fray, says paleontologist
Carol Tang of the California Academy of Sciences.

"If we liked debate, we would have been lawyers," said Tang, who helped
organize one of the GSA sessions. In her own GSA presentation, she points
out how the ID debate is no longer just something biologists have to
contend with, and that scientists in an ever widening range of fields rely
on the principles of evolutionary theory. Geoscientists, for instance, have
long used fossils to measure the age of rocks - a vital tool in oil
exploration. The new fields of geobiology and astrobiology depend on the
principles of evolution observed on Earth to search for and define life
elsewhere in the universe. "Geologists think this is something we don't
have to deal with," said Tang. But that is increasingly not so, she said.

So how does a scientist or teacher defend evolution against trained
attackers? "Don't," suggests geoscientist Donald Wise from the University
of Massachusetts. Instead, go after the deep flaws in ID. Take the human
body, for instance, he says in his GSA presentation. It's a great argument
against ID. Anyone who has ever had back pain or clogged sinuses can
testify to this. Our evolutionarily recent upright posture explains our
terrible back problems better than ID, and our squished, very poorly
"designed" sinuses don't function at all well and are easily explained by
the evolutionarily rapid enlargement of our brains.

Wise's advice to scientists and educators is to: 1) get off the defensive;
2) focus on the ample weak points of Intelligent Design; 3) keep it simple;
4) accentuate it with humor; and 5) stick to irrefutable facts close to
evolution and relevant to voters.

Convincing voters is vital because the ID movement is not, as many people
think, a local grassroots movement. It's a well-funded national movement
that uses a full range of local, state, and national strategies to supplant
science and have nonexistent "evidence against evolution" taught in the
classroom, says Eugenie Scott, Director of the National Center for Science
Education. Scott focuses on the three strategic levels that science is
being attacked in her GSA presentation "Multiple Levels of
Antievolutionism."

WHEN AND WHERE

* Evolution in Kansas: It's the Politics, Stupid! (Lee Allison)
Monday, 17 October, 11:45 a.m. - Noon, Salt Palace Convention Center,
Ballroom J
View abstract:
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/finalprogram/abstract_93894.htm

* Not Just for Biologists Anymore: The Evolution Controversy Impacts
Geoscience and Space Science Education (Carol Tang)
Sunday, 16 October, 8:15 - 8:30 a.m., Salt Palace Convention Center
Ballrooms AC
View abstract:
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/finalprogram/abstract_97555.htm

* Intelligent (Incompetent?) Design Versus Evolution: New Tactics for
Science (?) (Donald Wise)
Monday, 17 October, 11:30 - 11:45 a.m., Salt Palace Convention Center,
Ballroom J
View abstract:
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/finalprogram/abstract_92960.htm

* Multiple Levels of Antievolutionism (Eugenie Scott)
Monday, 17 October, 8:45 - 9:00 a.m., Salt Palace Convention Center,
Ballroom J
View abstract:
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/finalprogram/abstract_96289.htm


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View all session abstracts:
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/finalprogram/session_16171.htm
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2005AM/finalprogram/session_16049.htm

Additional resources:

* Hot Topics panel: Kansas, Intelligent Design, and the National Attack on
Science
Wednesday, 19 October, 12:15 - 1:15 p.m., Salt Palace Convention Center 250
A/B

* Separate GSA Tip ***, 05-41, Antievolutionism Addressed by Top
Geoscientists and Educators, dated 14 October 2005


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