Dan Vergano and Greg Toppo, "'Call to arms' on evolution" (2005)

Gerry Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, calls the letter "a good call to arms" to scientists. "I'm hoping it will give teachers the energy to make sure they stand for high-quality science teaching."

To most scientists, evolution is defined as changes in genes that lead to the development of species. They see it as a fundamental insight in biology.

Creationism is the belief that species have divine origin.

Another alternative to evolution is called "intelligent design." Proponents believe some cellular structures are too complex to have evolved over time.

Alberts complains that creationists, under the guise of intelligent design, have attempted to push evolution out of textbooks and classrooms in 40 states. The latest flashpoint is in Kansas, where an local school board contest April 5 features a candidate who supports teaching intelligent design in science classes.

The academy has only rarely strayed into school fights over evolution so it does not appear to be "meddling" in local affairs, Alberts says. But now, he says, "one of the foundations of modern science is being neglected or banished outright from science classrooms in many parts of the United States."

Says Stephen Meyer of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which promotes intelligent design: "My first reaction is we're seeing evidence of some panic among the official spokesmen for science." He says Alberts is wrong — that intelligent design is not creationism but a scientific approach more open-minded than Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Biologists retort that any reproducible data validating intelligent design would be welcome in science journals. "If there were indeed deep flaws in parts of evolutionary biology, then scientists would be the first to charge in there," says Jeffrey Palmer of Indiana University in Bloomington.

Meyer counters that scientific leaders such as Alberts block a fair hearing of evolution alternatives. "There are powerful institutional and systematic conventions in science that keep (intelligent) design from being considered a scientific process," he says.

"Oh, baloney; they aren't published because they don't have any scientific data," says Barbara Forrest of Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, co-author ofCreationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design.

In his letter, Alberts criticizes Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe, a leading proponent of intelligent design, as being representative of the "common tactic" of misrepresenting scientists' comments to cast doubts on evolution.

Behe calls this "outrageous," saying he simply points out that even establishment scientists note the complexity of biological structures.

Susan Spath, of the National Center for Science Education, a non-profit group that defends evolution, says proponents "need to work together more proactively in educating the public about these issues. The silver lining may be that this is an opportunity to enhance public understanding of science."