[Nagtnews] NAGTNews - Vol. 4, No. 5 October 2005

Keith McKain GeoSci64 at comcast.net
Sat Oct 8 17:27:39 CDT 2005

[...]

4.) From the President - Re: Intelligent Design Article
July 28, 2005

Fellow NAGT members,

    Many of you have likely read the article in the May 2005 issue of
JGE entitled "Who Believes What?  Clearing up Confusion over Intelligent
Design and Young-Earth Creationism [Ross, JGE, v. 53, p. 319-323]." 
Several members of the Executive Committee and Council have received
inquiries and questions about this article.  Some object to the content;
others question the appropriateness of the subject.  There are also
questions as to how the article was reviewed and selected for
publication as well as anxieties expressed that publication of this
article in some way legitimizes creationist or intelligent design (ID)
theories of evolution.  A few even suggested that the article be
retracted.  In addition, concerns were raised by some on the basis of
the fact that the author is listed as a fellow of the Center for Science
and Culture (CSC), a program of the Discovery Institute dedicated to
challenging Darwinian evolution and to promoting ID.  These are
important questions and the Executive Committee and Editor of JGE have
agreed that it might be helpful for me to respond in the interests of
keeping our members fully informed of our publication policies and
practices and to keep the conversation in the open.

    First of all, the Executive Committee has emphatically recommended
against any consideration of retraction of the article in question. 
Second, we want publicly to support the Editor's decision to publish
this article and, furthermore, to indicate that he has our full
confidence.  I explain these decisions at some length below.

    Why have we reached these conclusions?  NAGT is committed to
academic freedom and open intellectual inquiry within the normative
paradigm of science.  These goals are in our strategic plan of 2003 (see
http://nagt.org/files/nagt/NAGTStratPlan.pdf).  This means, in my own
words, that we are obligated in all that NAGT does as either sponsor or
partner to critical analysis of ideas and equal access to our programs
and publications for authors whose work meets the rigorous standards of
the traditions of science.  What does that mean?   Each of us might have
our own different definitions, but I think it is safe to say that a
broad consensus of NAGT members would characterize these traditions as a
commitment to:

    *  the scientific method
    *  unfettered critical thinking
    *  openness to new and challenging ideas
    *  evidence- and observation-based testing of all ideas

   
    In addition, NAGT stands firmly with other earth science societies
in opposing unscientific doctrines like creationism and ID, especially
when they posit that organic evolution is not a scientifically proven
theory.  Mike Gibson, NAGT Councilor-at-Large, is working on an NAGT
Statement on Evolution that will be similar to that of the
Paleontological Society (http://www.paleosoc.org/evolutioncomplete.htm)
and of GSA (http://www.geosociety.org/aboutus/position.htm) for
discussion and possible approval at the October Council meeting.
   
    Does the article in question meet our standards?  We think so.  The
author uses a cladistic analysis to classify belief systems as they
relate to evolution.  He makes no effort to establish the primacy of any
single system.  JGE has published papers with comparable goals in the
past (see Wise, D.U., 2001, Creationism's propaganda assault on deep
time and evolution," v. 49, p. 30-35 or Dutch, S.I., 2002, Religion as
belief vs. religion as fact, v. 50, p. 137-144).  The Ross article takes
a stand that is implicitly agnostic with respect to creationism and ID. 
This may bother some; they might interpret this to imply that
unscientific systems are equivalent in some ways to Darwinian
evolution.  This concern would be fair enough were an analysis of the
validity of competing belief systems the purpose of the article.  It is
not.  The article is a classification schema for helping teachers better
understand where their students may be "coming from" as they, the
students, study evolution in science classes

    Is the article appropriate for JGE?  Some may see the content as too
philosophical, perhaps even too close to the culture wars for comfort. 
However, our Instructions to Contributors are explicit
(http://www.nagt.org/nagt/jge/instructions.html):

[t]he Journal of Geoscience Education publishes papers related to
pedagogical, educational, historical, philosophical, and cultural,
aspects of all the geosciences, including such related fields as
geophysics, geochemistry, oceanography, astronomy, meteorology, soil
science, and environmental sciences. Broadly speaking, it is the
objective of the Journal to improve geoscience instruction at all levels
and in all settings. Although material published in the Journal should
somehow be related to instruction, review papers on topics that are
experiencing significant change will be considered.

Others may feel that there is a "political" agenda behind the article,
particularly in light of the author's public affiliation with the CSC. 
However, this agenda is neither explicit nor implicit in the article
and, again, we have published similar articles before.  Furthermore, we
feel that it is inappropriate for us to reject articles that otherwise
meet our standards based solely on the author's affiliations.  This is
too close to censorship to meet our standards for fair and open
discourse.  Thus, the Executive Committee feels that the Editor and his
appointed reviewers, including a well-known paleontologist, correctly
applied our criteria in accepting this article for publication. 

    Do we all agree with everything said in the article?  Probably not. 
But, that is the give-and-take of science.  Which brings us to the next
question.  Should we be encouraging comments, rebuttals, discussions,
angry letters to the editor?  Normally, and by "normal" I mean the realm
of normal scientific discourse, we might say we should and would; but
there is an aspect to this particular circumstance that argues caution. 
Some proponents of non-scientific theories like creationism and ID have
a public strategy to use our mode of scientific discourse as an entering
wedge for the promulgation of their own, nonscientific ideas .  They
have made their intentions clear to use the medium of scientific
publication to further their own political agenda.  Hence, rebuttals in
scientific journals to articles such as the one that concerns us here
will be characterized by them as prima facie evidence that there is an
active debate among scientists as to the validity of Darwinian evolution
.  We could, then, play into their hand even when we engage in the
normative practice of correcting wrong science.  A scientist rebuts an
incorrect statement with respect to ID or creationism; the author rebuts
the rebuttal; and the proponents of ID tout this as proof of an on-going
debate within the scientific community over the substance of Darwinian
evolution.

    Hence we have not encouraged such a response.  We do, of course,
encourage additional articles that may address and challenge incorrect
or simplistic ideas in this, as in any article, published in JGE.

    Geoff Feiss, President
NAGT