Well done, Winford

Mr James disagrees with Judge Jones ruling that Intelligent Design not be included in US high school biology curricula as an alternative to evolution because it has no testable hypotheses. He believes that while this may be the case now, we might still be able to see this change in the immediate or near future. Mr James also believes that the Judge unnecessarily blasted ID for being unscientific on the grounds that it was currently untestable. Mr James prefers his children be exposed to both Evolution and Intelligent Design in a biology class since to do otherwise would be willful ignorance of alternatives.

James, to his knowledge knows of no experiment or observation which demonstrates that a species gets biologically more complex, and knows of no new species being created from an existing one.

There are in fact numerous experiments and observations of exactly the thing James does not know about.

As an example I would refer him to: Weinberg, JR et al 1992: Evidence for rapid speciation following a founder event in the laboratory. Science 46(4): 1214-1220: A number of worms were separated from a population and bred for several generations. Thereafter, it was shown that the resulting population could not interbreed with the original one it was separated from which provides direct evidence of speciation.

The biology class is a place where the scientific method of observation, hypothesis generation, testing, and application of resulting knowledge is taught and demonstrated. Intelligent Design is a construction containing none of these things.

It is a hypothesis for which there is no research, applications, testing or interpretation of the corresponding results.

To include ID in a biology curriculum would be to allow it to escape the detailed critical scrutiny of the scientific community and give it a free pass as accepted knowledge.

We would be sending the message to the next generation of scientists that it is ok to cheat if a hypothesis is popular with everyone but there is no way to prove it. Such double standards would eventually corrupt scientific research and erode the benefits which have raised life expectancies, eradicated disease, and propelled mankind forward on every front.

E PARGASS

Valsayn