BOB ABERNETHY (anchor): Darwin's theory of evolution is not only widely accepted as scientific truth. Many of its proponents also think it is the only theory of the development of life that should be taught in science classes in public schools. Evolutionists insist that no other theory is truly scientific.
Those arguments continue to provoke sharp debate with religious creationists, who want students also to learn about the biblical account of God's creation of everything, in the beginning, just as it is.
In recent years, there's been a new turn in the evolution-creation argument. The creation theory itself has evolved into the "theory of intelligent design." It says life forms are so complex they could not possibly have evolved by accident: there had to be an intelligent designer. Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from Burlington, Washington.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: In the long-running war between
creationists and evolutionists, the Washington farm community
of Burlington is one of the more recent battlefields.DAN MELEAR (Theory of Intelligent Design Supporter): If you raise the question of origins, then let it be fair and open and let everybody come and consider.
DE SAM LAZARO: On the one side, those who say it's only fair that the two theories or beliefs about the origin of life be taught side by side.
DAN MELEAR: And so it's fair and people can walk away with more information and make better personal decisions.
DE SAM LAZARO: On the other side, a group of parents who say creationism has no place in the science classroom.
MR. KEN ATKINS (parent activist): Roger DeHart was teaching creationism. And I've never been a big fan of creationism. I've always been a big fan of science.
DE SAM LAZARO: Roger DeHart taught biology in local public schools for more than 20 years. But he was reassigned after some parents protested that he was teaching creationism. That would violate the separation of church and state, since the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled creationism is a religious doctrine.
DeHart says he was merely helping his students study evolution critically, and to consider an alternative theory -- namely "intelligent design."
MR. ROGER DEHART (biology teacher): So in a two-week lesson plan, I would include one day of, "Here's another viewpoint. Here's what other scientists say. They hold the [intelligent] design paradigm instead of a Darwinian paradigm."
DE SAM LAZARO: Did you ever say -- did you ever talk about God in this unit?
MR. DEHART: Never once. The age-old argument is the idea of design.
DE SAM LAZARO: The idea of design, that some intelligence was behind the origin of life, has gained prominence since the late '80s. Critics say intelligent design represents a new face of creationism.
Although they're allied politically, most intelligent design theorists depart from traditional creationists. For example, they accept that the Earth is billions of years old -- not, as a literal reading of the Bible would have it, a few thousand years old, built in seven days. And the leading proponents of intelligent design speak from the halls of academe, not from pulpits.
Michael Behe wrote a brisk-selling book called DARWIN'S BLACK BOX. He is a cellular biologist at Lehigh University.
Behe says biology's building blocks -- the basic cell, or this flagellum that helps bacteria swim -- are irreducibly complex, a term he coined.
MR.
MICHAEL BEHE (author and biologist): This is like an
outboard motor, has so many parts, no way that they could
have come about by natural selection. Take away any one
part and there is no function.DE SAM LAZARO: In other words, Behe argues it's implausible that the components came together in evolutionary steps. It's like a mousetrap, he says.
MR. BEHE: If you take away the holding bar, or the catch here or the springs or anything, it's broken -- it doesn't work at all. And it's very difficult to see how something like this could be produced step by little step, as Darwinian theory says biological systems were produced.
DE SAM LAZARO: There had to have been a design to it?
MR. BEHE: That's right.
DE SAM LAZARO: God, in other words?
MR. BEHE: Well, God would be a good candidate for a designer.
PROFESSOR KEN MILLER (Brown University): I think
the intelligent design movement is essentially a movement
against reason. It's an argument that embraces ignorance.
PROFESSOR MILLER: The Darwinian explanation for how
these complex machines were originally put together is very
simple and straightforward. And that is that natural selection
cobbled [together] these complex machines by selecting for
bits and pieces which were originally used for other purposes.
And we have perfect examples, even in the systems that Professor
Behe regards as examples of irreducible complexity.
MR. DEHART: I'm just saying there is a controversy
and students need to be aware of it. They need to be able
to discuss it intelligently. I don't believe that the other
side, the Darwinists, want that done in public schools.
They would tell you that that's "bad" science; it's illegal.
DR. SCOTT: To say nothing of God is not to say that
God is nothing, and I think that's important to remember.
