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Discovery Press Release on Bush Statement

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For Immediate Release Aug. 2, 2005

President Bush’s Support for Free Speech on Evolution and Intelligent Design Draws Praise from Discovery Institute

Seattle — In a discussion with reporters on Monday, President George W. Bush supported local control on how evolution is taught but also expressed support for exposing students to different views about evolution.

“I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought,” Bush said. “You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.”

“President Bush is to be commended for defending free speech on evolution, and supporting the right of students to hear about different scientific views about evolution,” said Dr. John West, Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute, the nation’s leading think tank supporting research on the theory of intelligent design. Intelligent design proposes that some features of the natural world are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.

Discovery Institute opposes mandating the teaching of intelligent design, but it supports requiring students to know about scientific criticisms of Darwin’s theory, which is the approach adopted by the science standards in Ohio, Minnesota, New Mexico, and currently under discussion in Kansas. Discovery Institute also supports the right of teachers to voluntarily discuss the scientific debate over intelligent design free from persecution or intimidation.

President Bush’s most recent comments are consistent with what he told Science magazine in the fall of 2004. When asked whether “‘intelligent design’ or other scientific critiques of evolutionary theory [should] be taught in public schools?,” Bush responded that “it is not the federal government’s role to tell states and local boards of education what they should teach in the classroom” but “[o]f course, scientific critiques of any theory should be a normal part of the science curriculum.” (Science, October 1, 2004)

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Comments
Ed Brayton (Dispatches) Does it take a rocket scientist to figure out that Dembski doesn't faithfully parrot the Discovery Institute's party line on ID? Similarly, does it take an honest person to figure out that ID isn't a monolith whose every facet is strictly defined by the Discovery Institute? The Discovery Institute is a prominent voice in ID but no one died and gave them exclusive reign over it. William Paley preceded all the Discovery Fellows by a couple hundred years in this ID thing, by the way.DaveScot
January 6, 2006
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More ID Contradictions on School Policies We are forever being told by the Discovery Institute that they do not favor requiring ID to be taught in schools along with evolution. Bill Dembski doesn't appear to have gotten that memo because every time a politician comes out...Dispatches from the Culture Wars
January 6, 2006
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I disagree with DI's position in that I support the teaching of Intelligent Design as a theory in school. ID is every bit as much a theory and more as Darwinian evolution, if we define ID and Darwinism as a theory of inference. As a theory ID does have various hypothesis that it can research and test, i.e. Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis (PEH) by John Davison, Design-by-Contract by Albert de Roos, or Limitation of Varieties by Fernando Chavez. The point is that once it becomes a standard curriculum more research ideas will come forth. The bottom-line is that until ID makes the argument why it should be a part of the education system, Darwinists will continue to exploit this fact for their propaganda purpose. People like Paul Gross of Atheism’s Trojan Horse and Ruse will continue to misrepresent ID as a Creationist marketing campaign.teleologist
August 3, 2005
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