Skip to content

15.9 Criticisms

The theory of evolution is accepted by the vast majority of biologists and by the scientific community in general. Over 70 scientific societies, institutions, and other professional groups representing tens of thousands individual scientists support evolution education and opposing Intelligent Design. Such controversies as do exist concern the details of the mechanisms of evolution, not the validity of the over-arching theory of evolution.

Prominent evolutionary biologists such as Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne have proposed various ‘controversies’ that are worth teaching, instead of Intelligent Design. Dawkins compares teaching Intelligent Design in schools to teaching flat earthism: perfectly fine in a history class but not in science.

Critics of the “Teach the Controversy” movement and strategy are also found outside of the scientific community. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of “Americans United for Separation of Church and State”, described the approach of the movement’s proponents as “a disarming subterfuge designed to undermine solid evidence that all living things share a common ancestry.”

Be First to Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.