"Nature" and intelligent design

Today I ran across a thought-provoking article about intelligent design from the British journal Nature that asks “Who has designs on your students' minds?” (#434, pp 1062-1065, April 2005). The article looks at the skirmish between ID and evolution on college campuses and considers whether it belongs in the classroom.

“…. (O)thers feel that the movement deserves an airing at the university level, even if they oppose its teaching in public schools. ‘I think that college is a place for experimentation,’ says Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, a group based in Oakland, California, that promotes the teaching of evolution in public schools. If intelligent design is gaining ground on college campuses, she adds, then scientists are as much to blame as anyone. ‘I think college professors can do a better job of teaching evolution,’ she says.”

Very few scientists – if any – would deny students the opportunity to discuss ideas like intelligent design or creationism. What they object to is having that discussion in science class or somehow legitimizing what are essentially theological philosophies as science.

Lots of questions; no easy answers.