User:Filll/Exploreevolution

Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism is the name of a biology textbook written by a group of intelligent design supporters and published in 2007. It is co-authored by three Discovery Institute members, Stephen C. Meyer, Scott Minnich and Paul A. Nelson, as well as illustrator and creationist author Jonathan Moneymaker and Kansas evolution hearings participant Ralph Seelke. Creationist and "butterfly man" Bernard d'Abrera's company, Hill House Publishers (London and Melbourne), is the publisher of Explore Evolution.

Nick Matzke of the National Center for Science Education suggests that the name Explore Evolution might have been chosen to create confusion. For example, Explore Evolution is also the name of a National Science Foundation grant program for museums in the United States launched in June, 2003.

This book replaces "Of Pandas and People", the previously suggested textbook for introducing intelligent design to high school students. Discovery Institute fellows William A. Dembski and Jonathan Wells are rewriting "Of Pandas and People" as a new 360-page textbook intended for the use in colleges to be called "The Design of Life".

Promotion
The Discovery Institute is promoting Explore Evolution as a superior and comprehensive approach to introducing high school biology students to evolution:

The Discovery Institute emphasizes that the book Explore Evolution encourages critical thinking:

The Discovery Institute trumpets the fact that the textbook was "peer-reviewed" and suggests that it was written by authors with impeccable credentials:

The M. A. Program in Science and Religion and the Department of Education of Los Angeles' evangelical Christian Biola University (formerly the Bible Institutee of Los Angeles) presented a conference entitled Science Teacher Symposium - Teaching Biological Origins on August 3rd and 4th of 2007. A major thrust of this conference was to introduce and promote Explore Evolution as a textbook to teachers and others. There have been uses of Explore Evolution in various public school and college courses already, and there are plans to use it in a public school in Tacoma, Washington. “

Reaction
Sally Lehrman wrote an editorial in the Boston Globe on August 9, 2007 in which she noted that "A new high-school textbook from the Discovery Institute, Explore Evolution, claims to teach students critical thinking but instead uses pseudoscience to attack Darwin's theories." University of Minnesota faculty member PZ Meyers wrote a preliminary review after examining a copy of Explore Evolution. Meyers had a negative impression of the book. Meyers writes,

Meyers feels that, "The biology part is shallow, useless, and often wrong, and the critiques are basically just warmed over creationist arguments." Meyers also points out that Explore Evolution is only 150 pages which does not compare favorably with the 1,146 pages of Kenneth Miller and Joseph S. Levine's popular high school textbook, Biology

National Center for Science Education Public Information Project Director Nick Matzke suggests that Explore Evolution is a major signal at the vanguard the fourth stage of the creationism-evolution controversy:

Round 1: Fundamentalists ban evolution (1920s-1960s). Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) concluded this round.

Round 2: "Creation science", which was invented in 1969, and ended as a serious legal strategy by Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), although there were earlier defeats such as Hendren v. Campbell (1977) and McLean v. Arkansas (1982).

Round 3: Intelligent design, invented about 1987, ended as a serious legal strategy by Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005).

Round 4: Attack evolution and imply creationism and/or intelligent design without making explicit statements. This is the strategy used in Explore Evolution in 2007.

This is acknowledged by the Discovery Institute themselves:

consistent with the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns, "Stand up for science" and "Critical Analysis of Evolution".

John Calvert, managing director of IDnet, believes that although Explore Evolution is "enormously important," he is skeptical about its chances for success. Since 2005, IDnet has tried to bring critical analysis of evolution into the classroom. However, a setback in Kansas in February of 2007 to change science standards in the wake of the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision left Calvert doubtful: