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Saturday, September 17, 2005

With Friends Like These

A group of 38 Nobel winners, led by Elie Wiesel (Elie Weisel?!) have written a letter to the Kansas State Board of Education asking them to keep any criticism of evolution out of the state science standards.

Thirty eight Nobel winners might sound like a powerful voice advocating on behalf of evolution, but we shouldn't be too hasty to allow ourselves to be impressed. The letter contains these words:

Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.

Thirty eight Nobel winners, 34 of them scientists, signed off on this definition. Why is this remarkable? Two reasons: The first is that this statement accurately defines Darwinian evolution, but it does not define a scientific theory. How can the claim that evolution is unguided and unplanned ever be subjected to testing? What experiments or observations would count for or against it? The answer, of course, is that there are none. These brilliant scientists are in effect calling for schools to teach metaphysics in public school science classes while at the same time demanding that a competing metaphysical theory, Intelligent Design, be banished from science classes because it can't be scientifically tested.

The second problem with this definition is that it contradicts the assurance that evolutionists keep offering to the public that there is no real conflict between evolution and religion. Evolutionists like Eugenie Scott, president of the National Council for Science Education, spend a good deal of time seeking to allay parents' concerns that their children will be given the impression in their science classes that God is either non-existent or irrelevant. If, however, The Nobel winners' definition is correct, and it certainly does define Darwinism, then the truth is out, and Scott and her accomplices must be beside themselves wondering why they need enemies with friends like these.

The evolutionists, or at least the Darwinian variety, may have thirty eight Nobel Prize winners on their side, but it doesn't seem to be helping the cause much.