MARCH 14, 2005

EDUCATION
Intelligent design vs. evolution in the public schools

STATE BY STATE
• The National Science Teachers Association maintains a list of 59 state and local chapters of science teachers.
• The Discovery Center for Science and Culture maintains a list of state-specific intelligent design policies.

IN THE NORTHEAST
• Karl Giberson directs the Forum on Faith & Science at Gordon College in Wenham, Mass., and is a professor at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Mass. He has published over a hundred articles, reviews, and essays and written or co-written four books: Worlds Apart: The Unholy War Between Science and Religion, Species of Origins: America's Search for a Creation Story, Oracles of Science: Celebrity Scientists Versus God and Religion, and Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution (2008). His 5th book, The Anointed: America's Evangelical Experts (with Randall Stephens) is forthcoming from Harvard University Press. He was the editor-in-chief of both Science & Theology News and Science & Spirit until 2006. He is critical of intelligent design theory, charging that it is a religious belief because the "intelligence" referred to is always God. Giberson has lectured on science and religion at Oxford University, the Vatican, as well as many American universities and colleges. Contact 617-847-5702, gibersok@gmail.com.
• John Jefferson Davis is a professor of Christian thought at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass. Contact via Anne Doll, director of communications, 978-646-4141, adoll@gcts.edu.
• Ron Sala is a Unitarian Universalist minister at the Unitarian Universalist Society in Stamford, Conn. On the Sunday before Darwin Day 2005 he preached a sermon titled "The Case For and Against 'Intelligent Design.'" Contact 203-348-0708, ron.sala@uusis.org.

IN THE EAST
• Anne Clifford is a Catholic nun and associate professor of theology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Penn. She says what is needed in the current debate is not the replacement of natural science with theistic science, but a dialogue between scientists and theologians. Contact 412-396-6530, clifford@duq.edu.
• Galen Guengerich is a co-minister at All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City, where he preached a November 2004 sermon that outlined several concerns, including the teaching of creationism.He ended with a call for parishioners to pick an issue that mattered most to them, including science education, and encouraged them to fight back fundamentalism by fighting for that cause. Contact 212-535-5530, galen@allsoulsnyc.org.
• Bertha Spahr is head of the science department at Dover Area High School in Dover, Pa. She and seven other science educators sent the local board of education a letter stating they would not abide by the district's ruling to include intelligent design in the science classroom. Others who signed were Jennifer Miller, Robert Linker, Robert Eshbach, Leslie Prall, Brian Bahn, David Taylor and Vickie Davis. Contact 717-292-3671.

IN THE SOUTHEAST
• Michael Ruse is a professor of philosophy at Florida State University in Tallahassee and author of Can a Darwinian be a Christian? The Relationship Between Science and Religion (Cambridge University Press, 2004). He says evolution belongs in the science classroom while intelligent design can be taken up in the context of current affairs or history. In his forthcoming book, The Evolution-Creation Struggle (Harvard University Press, May 2005), he writes that while intelligent design is infused with religion, some Darwinians have made evolution their religion by pushing it as a kind of secular humanism. Contact 850-224-6811, mruse@mailer.fsu.edu.
• Ben Bridges Sr. is a Republican in the Georgia House of Representatives who introduced HB 179 in January 2005; it would require the teaching of critiques of and alternatives to evolution wherever evolution is taught. Contact 404-656-0152, bbridges@legis.state.ga.us.
• Scott Flamand is a biology teacher at Buchholz High School in Gainesville, Fla., where he led his classes in a two-day Darwin Day celebration that included student artwork, poetry and viewing of the film Inherit the Wind and the PBS series Evolution. Contact 352-331-0035, flamans@sbac.edu.
• Sara Harding and Nancy Morvillo are professors of religion and biology, respectively, at Florida Southern College in Lakeland. Together, they are co-directors of the Florida Center for Science and Religion, which hosts events designed to engage the central Florida community in discussions of science and religion. Previous events have focused on evolution. Contact Harding at 863-680-4185, sharding@flsouthern.edu, and Morvillo at nmorvillo@flsouthern.edu.

IN THE SOUTH
• The University of Tennessee in Knoxville held its annual Darwin Day celebration on Feb. 9 and 10, 2005. Contact Mark Cadotte, mcadotte@utk.edu.
• Barbara Forrest is a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, La., and co-author of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (Oxford University Press, 2004). (Read the first chapter, posted at TalkReason.org.) She says the debate over intelligent design and evolution is necessarily a religious, and not a scientific, one because intelligent design is a religious, not a scientific, belief. She continues that because intelligent design is an essentially religious viewpoint, it therefore draws in constitutional questions relating to the separation of church and state, making it a legal debate as well. Contact 985-549-2109, bforrest@selu.edu.
• John Angus Campbell is a professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Communication at the University of Memphis and a fellow at the Discovery Institute. He is co-editor of Darwinism, Design and Public Education (Michigan State University Press, 2003). Contact via Robert Crowther, director of communications, Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, 206-292-0401 ext.107, rob@discovery.org.
• Niall Shanks is the author of God, the Devil and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory (Oxford University Press, 2004) and a professor of philosophy at East Tennessee State University. Contact 423-929-6622, niallshanks@earthlink.net.

IN THE MIDWEST
• Gayle Woloschak is a molecular biologist and a professor of radiology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. She is director of "The Epic of Creation," a lecture series that approaches the origins of the Earth through both scientific and religious perspectives at the Zygon Center for Religion and Science at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. Contact 773-256-0670, g-woloschak@northwestern.edu.
• Taner Edis is an assistant professor of physics at Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo., and co-author of Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism (Rutgers University Press, 2004). Contact 660-785-4583, edis@truman.edu.
• Michael Zimmerman is dean of the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. In 2004, he organized a letter-writing effort among Wisconsin clergy to ask Grantsburg, Wis., school officials to keep evolution at the center of the district's science education. The district had earlier agreed to include alternative theories to be taught, but then reversed itself. About 200 clergy from Baptist, Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist and other churches wrote letters to school administrators asking them not to single out evolution for "special scrutiny." Contact 920-424-1210, mz@uwosh.edu.
• Wayne Cooper, a Missouri state Republican representative, and six co-sponsors have filed a bill that would compel science teachers to spend equal time on intelligent design and evolution. Contact 573-751-1119, wayne.cooper@house.mo.gov.
• Douglas Rudy is director of Science Excellence for All Ohioans, a group that supports the teaching of alternatives to evolution. He says there is no religious content in intelligent design and believes that both theories can and should be taught in the same classroom. Contact drudy@sciohio.org.

IN THE SOUTHWEST
• Raymond Arthur Eve is a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington. He classifies the current debate as more political than religious, and has data to show that people's attitudes towards intelligent design and other manifestations of creationism are strongly predicted by other social attitudes they hold, such as attitudes toward homosexuals, prayer in school, pornography, abortion, etc. He is also the co-editor of Chaos, Complexity and Sociology: Myths, Models, and Theories (Sage Publications, 1997), which examines the new science of chaos and complexity mathematics that shows how complex systems, such as the human eye, can evolve from simple mathematical rules without direct intervention by an intelligent agent. Contact 817-272-2661, eve@uta.edu.
• J. Budziszewski is a professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin and a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Contact via Robert Crowther, director of communications, Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, 206-292-0401 ext.107, rob@discovery.org.
• Matt Young is the co-author of Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism (Rutgers University Press, 2004). He teaches physics at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colo. Contact 303-273-3862, mmyoung@mines.edu.
• Walt Brown is director of the Center for Scientific Creation, based in Phoenix, Ariz., and was part of a 1998 panel that advised the local board of education on science standards and evolution. He has said he does not endorse the teaching of religion in public schools but is critical of the state's science standards because, he says, they are one-sided in favor of evolution. Contact 602-955-7663.

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST
• Paul Chien is a professor of biology at the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit university, and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Contact via Robert Crowther, director of communications, Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, 206-292-0401 ext.107, rob@discovery.org.
• John Mark Reynolds is an associate professor of philosophy at Biola University, a Christian university, in La Mirada, Calif., where he is also the founder and director of the Torrey Honors Institute. He is also a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Contact john@johnmarkreynolds.com.
• Richard Weikart is an associate professor of history at California State University, Stanislaus in Stanislaus, Calif., and a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He has lectured on the subject "Does Darwinism Devalue Human Life?" Contact via Robert Crowther, director of communications, Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, 206-292-0401 ext.107, rob@discovery.org.
• John Schneeberger is with the Bitterroot Human Alliance in Hamilton, Mont., and has advocated against the inclusion of intelligent design in Darby public schools. Contact 406-370-3230, schnee@montana.com.
• Mark Perakh is a professor emeritus of physics at California State University, Fullerton. He is author of Unintelligent Design (Prometheus Books, 2004). Contact 760-751-9932, marperak@cox.net.