FOX News Story: Eliminate Evolution?

The following article was written by a member of the IDEA Center staff, Ryan Huxley in response to "Eliminate Evolution?," on the Hannity & Colmes portion of the FOX news show.

Dear Mr. Hannity and Mr. Colmes:

I am writing on behalf of the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center, based in San Diego, California. I am writing to you in response to the show which aired on Friday, August 23 2002 (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,24927,00.html). If you wish to have another viewpoint separate from that of Scientific Creationism and Evolution, our group would be happy to talk/correspond with you. You may have heard about intelligent design theory given the current controversy in the Ohio State Board of Education.

In general, we do not think that the teaching of evolution should be removed from classrooms. In fact, we support evolutionary theory being taught, provided it is taught with it's underlying assumptions and counterevidence. Too often, it is taught as "fact," when there are many assertions and extrapolations being made that cannot be substantiated given that it is a historical science. These "facts" often seem to be little more than extension of an underlying naturalistic philosophy, rather than actual pieces of evidence that are the result of scientific data. Also, counterevidence, of which there is an abundance, is often censored from the discussion of evolution. In the interest of academic freedom, we feel that evolution should be taught, but that both it's strengths and weaknesses be discussed. This line of reasoning follows the recent guidelines for biological education suggested in the No Child Left Behind act, signed into law last January by Pres. Bush. [Editor's note: We recommend viewing our Santorum Amendment Resource for more information regarding this area of the conference report supporting this bill.]

Unfortunately, any criticism of evolution is often immediately considered to be only religiously based, regardless of the scientific merit of the arguments being made. At the very least, both supporting and contrary evidence should be presented in the classroom for evolutionary theory or any other theory being taught. While science may not have the ability to comment on metaphysical concepts or beliefs, it can often have metaphysical implications, with evolutionary and intelligent design theory being excellent examples. Both intelligent design and evolution are genuine scientific theories, which should have both supporting and contrary evidence investigated in the science classroom, so that our students can learn to think critically about these issues.