Meeting Abstract

34.4  Jan. 5  Lessons Learned from the �Intelligent Design� Trial PADIAN, Kevin; University of California, Berkeley kpadian@berkeley.edu

On December 20, 2005, Judge John E. Jones III ruled in a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania courtroom that �intelligent design� is not accepted as science by the scientific community and could not be taught as such in public school science classes. Several important lessons have emerged from this trial: 1. Whereas the ruling applies only to central Pennsylvania, it was not appealed and so is likely to have broad impact � especially because the judge issued a highly detailed opinion in order that the whole process would not need to be repeated elsewhere. 2. The decision effectively nullified further public debate on whether or not �intelligent design� is science � and therefore the Discovery Institute�s claim to being a scientific endeavor. 3. The decision is not likely to curtail the activism of antievolutionists at the local level. Evolution will continue to be labeled �controversial,� and community pressures will ensure that it will continue not to be taught in most districts where it is already not taught. 4. The emphasis of the antievolutionists in the near future is likely to be on what they call �critical thinking� � in other words, criticizing thinking that they don�t like. A major focus of the educational community must now be on educating children about what critical thinking really is. 5. The American public accepts microevolution � change within species � but it understands little or nothing about the evidence for macroevolution � how major evolutionary transitions have occurred. This is because macroevolution has never been sufficiently treated in American textbooks at any level. If scientists want the American public to understand the evidence for evolution, the textbooks must change, the state curricula must change, and scientists must be actively involved in this process in each individual state.