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Environment
Teaching Intelligent Design
May 12, 2008
| A version of this story appeared in
Volume 86, Issue 19
Two letters in the March 10 issue of C&EN advocate teaching intelligent design (ID) (page 7). They treat ID as if it were a legitimate scientific theory. I wonder if those writers would advocate teaching alchemy or astrology? No one is saying that intelligent life does not exist somewhere else in the universe. The odds are that it does.
The theory of evolution teaches that life evolves into forms that are better adapted to the conditions of their environment. That could be more or less complex. This is the result of the way information is transmitted from generation to generation, not because some intelligent being designed it. We owe it to students to teach only the best theories of science.
Outmoded theories belong in science history, or in the case of ID, religion courses.
Donald Boos
Ocean Springs, Miss.
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