The "Teach the Controversy" campaign of the Discovery Institute seeks to promote the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design (a variant of traditional creationism) as part of its attempts to discredit the teaching of evolution in United States public high school science courses..Does Seattle group "teach controversy" or contribute to it? Linda Shaw. The Seattle Times, March 31, 2005.Small Group Wields Major Influence in Intelligent Design Debate ABC News, November 9, 2005"ID's home base is the Center for Science and Culture at Seattle's conservative Discovery Institute. Meyer directs the center; former Reagan adviser Bruce Chapman heads the larger institute, with input from the Christian supply-sider and former American Spectator owner George Gilder (also a Discovery senior fellow). From this perch, the ID crowd has pushed a "teach the controversy" approach to evolution that closely influenced the Ohio State Board of Education's recently proposed science standards, which would require students to learn how scientists "continue to investigate and critically analyze" aspects of Darwin's theory." Chris Mooney. The American Prospect. December 2, 2002 Survival of the Slickest: How anti-evolutionists are mutating their message Teaching Intelligent Design: What Happened When? by William A. Dembski"The clarion call of the intelligent design movement is to "teach the controversy." There is a very real controversy centering on how properly to account for biological complexity (cf. the ongoing events in Kansas), and it is a scientific controversy."Nick Matzke's analysis shows how teaching the controversy using the Critical Analysis of Evolution model lesson plan is a means of teaching all the intelligent design arguments without using the intelligent design label.No one here but us Critical Analysis-ists... Nick Matzke. The Panda's Thumb, July 11, 2006 Scientific organizations (including the American Association for the Advancement of Science) point out that the institute claims that there is a scientific controversy where in fact none exists."That this controversy is one largely manufactured by the proponents of creationism and intelligent design may not matter, and as long as the controversy is taught in classes on current affairs, politics, or religion, and not in science classes, neither scientists nor citizens should be concerned." Intelligent Judging—Evolution in the Classroom and the Courtroom George J. Annas, New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 354:2277-2281 May 25, 2006"Some bills seek to discredit evolution by emphasizing so-called "flaws" in the theory of evolution or "disagreements" within the scientific community. Others insist that teachers have absolute freedom within their classrooms and cannot be disciplined for teaching non-scientific "alternatives" to evolution. A number of bills require that students be taught to "critically analyze" evolution or to understand "the controversy." But there is no significant controversy within the scientific community about the validity of the theory of evolution. The current controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution is not a scientific one." AAAS Statement on the Teaching of Evolution American Association for the Advancement of Science. February 16, 2006Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals. A Position Paper from the Center for Inquiry, Office of Public Policy Barbara Forrest. May, 2007."Such controversies as do exist concern the details of the mechanisms of evolution, not the validity of the over-arching theory of evolution, which is one of the best supported theories in all of science." Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition United States National Academy of Sciences
The campaign was started with the 1999 article "Teaching the Controversy: Darwinism, Design and the Public School Science Curriculum", which was published by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics. The Discovery Institute is a conservative Christian think tank based in Seattle, Washington."The Board relied solely on legal advice from two organizations with demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions, the Discovery Institute and the TMLC."Ruling, page 131 Kitzmiller v. Dover. The overall goals of the movement are "to defeat scientific materialism" and "to replace [it] with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God". It claims that fairness requires educating students with a "critical analysis of evolution"Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools by Eugenie Scott, Glenn Branch. Beacon Press, 2006. Page 30. in which "the full range of scientific views",Key Resources for Parents and School Board Members Discovery Institute staff. August 21, 2007. evolution's "unresolved issues", and the "scientific weaknesses of evolutionary theory"CSC Questions about Science Education Policy Discovery Institute staff. are presented and evaluated and in which intelligent design concepts such as irreducible complexityNot in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools by Eugenie Carol Scott, Glenn Branch. Beacon Press, 2006.Page 35. are presented.
The scientific community and science education organizations have replied that there is no scientific controversy regarding the validity of the theory of evolution and that the controversy exists solely in religion and politics. A federal court has agreed with evaluation of the majority of scientific organizations (including the American Association for the Advancement of Science) that the institute has manufactured the controversy they want to have taught by promoting the false perception that evolution is "a theory in crisis" by falsely claiming the theory is the subject of wide controversy and debate within the scientific community."ID's backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class. This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard." Ruling, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, page 89Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals. A Position Paper from the Center for Inquiry, Office of Public Policy Barbara Forrest. May, 2007. In fact, intelligent design has been rejected by essentially all of the members of the scientific community,"ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community" Ruling, page 64 Kitzmiller v. Dover."Not a single expert witness over the course of the six week trial identified one major scientific association, society or organization that endorsed ID as science."reoRuling, page 70 Kitzmiller v. Dover. including the numerical estimate of 99.9 percent of scientists.Finding the Evolution in Medicine National Institutes of Health
In December 2005, a federal judge ruled that intelligent design is not science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents".Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, Conclusion (pages 136-138) The federal ruling also characterized "teaching the controversy" as part of a religious ploy."has the effect of implicitly bolstering alternative religious theories of origin by suggesting that evolution is a problematic theory even in the field of science." . . . The effect of Defendants’ actions in adopting the curriculum change was to impose a religious view of biological origins into the biology course, in violation of the Establishment Clause. Conclusion, Page 134 of 139
Origin of the campaign name The term "teach the controversy" originated with Gerald Graff, a professor of English and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago,"To Debate or Not to Debate Intelligent Design?" by Gerald Graff, Inside Higher Ed, September 28, 2005. as a reminder to teach that established knowledge is created in a crucible of debate and controversy. To the chagrin of Graff, who describes himself as a liberal secularist, the idea was later appropriated by Phillip E. Johnson, Discovery Institute program advisor and father of the ID movement. Discussing the 1999–2000 Kansas State Board of Education controversy over the teaching of intelligent design in public school classrooms, Johnson wrote "What educators in Kansas and elsewhere should be doing is to 'teach the controversy'." In his book Johnson proposed casting the conflicting points of view and agendas as a scholarly controversy. Johnson's usage differs fundamentally and disingenuously from Graff's original use of the concept. While Graff advocated that a comprehensive understanding of what are considered to be "established" concepts must include teaching the debates and conflicts by which they were established, Johnson appropriated the phrase to cast doubt upon the very process and results of the scientific method of establishing knowledge through debate and conflict based on facts determined by experimentation.The Crusade Against Evolution, Evan Ratliff, October 2004, Wired magazine
The phrase was picked up by the Discovery Institute affiliates Stephen C. Meyer, David K. DeWolf, and Mark E. DeForrest in their 1999 article "Teaching the Controversy: Darwinism, Design and the Public School Science Curriculum"Teaching the Controversy: Darwinism, Design and the Public School Science Curriculum David K. DeWolf, Stephen C. Meyer, Mark E. DeForrest. Foundation for Thought and Ethics, October 1, 1999 published by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics. This foundation also publishes the pseudoscientific intelligent design biology textbook Of Pandas and People suggested as an alternative to mainstream science and biology textbooks in the Critical Analysis of Evolution lesson plans proposed by proponents of the Teach the Controversy campaign.
Development of the strategy Comparisons of the drafts of the intelligent design textbook Of Pandas and People before and after the 1987 Edwards v. Aguillard ruling showed that the definition given in the book for "creation science" in pre Edwards drafts is identical to the definition of "intelligent design" in post Edwards drafts; cognates of the word creation—creationism and creationist, which appeared approximately 150 times were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase 'intelligent design'; and the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in Edwards that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes.Ruling - context, pg. 32 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.
The campaign was devised by Stephen C. Meyer and Discovery Institute founder and President Bruce Chapman as a compromise strategy in March 2002. They had come to the realisation that the dispute over intelligent design's (lack of) scientific standing was complicating their efforts to have evolution challenged in the science classroom. This strategy was designed to move the focus onto an approach that stresses open debate and evolution's purported weakness, but does not require students to study intelligent design. The intention was to create doubt over evolution and avoid the question of whether the intelligent designer was God, while giving the institute time to strengthen their purported theory of intelligent design.Battle on Teaching Evolution Sharpens Peter Slevin. Washington Post, March 14, 2005 Another advantage of this strategy was to allay teacher fears of legal action.Forrest and Gross(2004) p206
Employment of the strategy