Alliance For Science - Opinion

Rumblings of Intelligent Design in Chesterfield County, VA

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 20:28:05 -0600

Flawed Richmond Magazine Article Is No Help

July 3, 2007 -- Dick Lessard – The Alliance for Science

Recently, a distinct rumble of agitation in favor of teaching intelligent design has been heard in Chesterfield County, located just south and west of Richmond, Virginia. This became very noticeable when proceedings of the May 22nd Chesterfield County School Board (CCSB) were reported in print and on the Internet. Shawn Smith, a science supporter and Chesterfield County resident, has established a blog on this issue, and does an excellent job of summarizing the events that have transpired. Readers who haven’t been following this story are encouraged to get caught up via the many links given in Shawn’s blog.

Blogs That Address the Evolution - Creationism Issue

Sat, 04 Feb 2006 09:56:56 -0700

If you want to keep up with news and educated opinions in the fields of science, evolution and biology these are some great blogs to read regularly.
Please note, these blogs are not affiliated with the Alliance for Science or its members. The views expressed are those of the individual bloggers only.

Chesterfield County (VA) Science Education Blog: A new blog created in late June, 2007 to address the pro-science response to efforts to introduce intelligent design into the Chesterfield County, Virginia public schools.

Members' Opinions

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 22:42:37 -0700

We come from a variety of backgrounds and therefore have very diverse viewpoints, yet all of us find evolution to be sound science. We thought to highlight our diversity-- while at the same time laying to rest the myth that evolution is anti-religious-- by speaking out individually about evolution, creationism, and our personal beliefs.

In the latter part of the 16th century, Francis Bacon introduced the revolutionary idea that traditional learning (a mixture of scholasticism and magic) should be replaced with empirical and inductive principles - that which we now call science. There is little disagreement in the developed world that technology, which is the practical application of science, has led to a significant betterment of the human condition. The branch of science that deals with life is called biology. For more than a century, biology has embraced the theory of evolution to explain the diversity of species. Since the discovery of the structure of DNA in the 1950s, evolution has become the central tenet of modern biology. There is no empirical evidence for a model that is contrary to evolution that explains the progression of life. Intelligent design, which is an application of the belief in the supernatural, has no place in biology.