Australia's Scientists Condemn 'Intelligent
Design'
ninemsm.com
October 21, 2005
Australia's scientific community Friday called for an alternative
evolutionary theory known as "intelligent design" to be barred from classrooms,
comparing it to spoon-bending and alien abductions.
More than 70,000 scientists and science teachers signed an open letter
urging Australia's conservative government not to allow intelligent design onto
school curricula.
The theory, advocated by right-wing Christian groups in the United States,
says that complex biological organisms cannot be explained by evolutionary
chance alone and must be the work of an intelligent designer.
It is not currently taught to Australian school students but federal
Education Minister Brendan Nelson, a Christian, revealed in August he had met a
group called Campus Crusade for Christ and would support it being taught
alongside Darwin's theory of evolution.
The scientific community's open letter said it would be gravely concerned if
intelligent design was taught in schools.
"To do so would make a mockery of Australian science teaching and throw open
the door of science classes to similarly unscientific world views - be they
astrology, spoon-bending, flat-earth cosmology or alien abductions - and crowd
out the teaching of real science," said the letter to national newspapers.
The letter said intelligent design ignored the basic scientific principle
that a theory should be testable through observation or experimentation.
"Not being able to imagine or explain how something happened other than by
making a leap of faith to supernatural intervention is no basis for any science
-- that is a theological or philosophical notion."
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