Evolution and Intelligent Design

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Evolution and Intelligent Design:
Perspectives and Resources

From Serendip and the Center for Science in Society

Perspectives

The Life of Faith is Not a Life Without Doubt, January 2005

Intelligent Design and Falsifiability, February 2005

Fundamentalism and Relativism: Finding a New Direction, April 2005

Intelligent Design and the Story of Evolution: No Need for Drawing Lines in the Sand, September 2005

Rethinking Science in Society, September 2005

Evolution and Human Antiquity, October 2005

No Need for Drawing Lines in the Sand: An Update, October 2005

"Soul Making": A Project of Intelligent Amendment, October 2005

Science as Storytelling, December 2005

Science as StoryTelling or Story Telling? A Conversation About Science Education ... and Science, December 2005

Judge Jones’ final Memorandum Opinion on Intelligent Design and the Dover Board of Education, December 2005

Online Forum, continuing from September 2005

Intelligent Design and Evolution: A Significant Issue in Science and Public Policy, February 2006

Interactive Materials

The Game of Life, explores whether order can emerge from randomness.

The World of Langton's Ant: Thinking about "Purpose"

The Free Will Problem

On Beyond Newton: From Simple Rules to Stability, Fluctuation and Chaos

Other Educational Materials

Evolution by Natural Selection, "a simulation [suitable for high school biology students] involving different color beans on different color and texture habitats and student feeders equipped with different types of feeding implements. Students learn how different adaptations contribute to differences in survival and reproductive success, which results in changing frequencies of genotypes in the populations."

Science As Story Telling in Action: Evolution, notes and participant comments for a session on evolution for K-12 teachers

God and Evolution, participant comments from an earlier similar session
Evolution in the Classroom, participant comments from an earlier similar session

Introduction to Biology: Basic Concepts, a college course with notes and student comments

The Story of Evolution and the Evolution of Stories: Exploring the Significance of Diversity (2005), a college course that "experiments ... with two interrelated and reciprocal inquiries: whether the biological concept of evolution is a useful one in understanding the phenomena of literature (in particular: the generation of new stories), and whether literature contributes to a deeper understanding of evolution."Includes student comments and three sets of student web papers.
Previous offerings: Spring 2004.

The Story of Evolution, Part I, session notes
The Story of Evolution: Whence Cometh Purpose/Meaning/Language/Choice/Morality/Altruism/Comfort?, session notes
Dennett's Ideas (Dangerous and Otherwise) About Evolution and Life, session notes
Student comments on "What Evolution Is"
Student comments on "Darwin's Dangerous Idea"
My Great-Grandaddy was a Monkey, a picture book for kids created by course students

Philosophy of Science, Ideals of Scientific Explanation and the Nature of Its Objects, a college course

What is Evolution (and science)?

Science can actually take the place of the human eye and (attempt to) describe places and times outside of human scales.

Random variation (reproduction with variance) and natural selection (differential reproductive success) helps to make sense of

clustered diversity
geographic variation
interdependence
"adaptiveness" (without normative judgement or hierarchy)
practical matters, such as plant/animal domestication, the development of antibiotic resistance, human variations having medical and other significances

What is Intelligent Design?

Intelligent design is the theory that the theory of evolution is simply not explanation enough for the complexity of the world and that all organisms must be the product of careful and conscious design (Miller). It declares that organisms were built, just like the machines we build today, and that they were not the end results of a process of random mutation or natural selection.

Visit the Forum for Online Discussion

The Broader Context

Science as Storytelling in Action, What is Science?
Science and Spirit,
What is the Relation Between Science and Religion?
- Science and Religion, Faith and Revision: A Conversation
- The Physical and the Spiritual: A Conversation About "How To Get Through the Veil"
Science and Culture on Serendip, What is the Relation Between Science and Culture?
Center for Science in Society, What is the Relation Between Science and Society?
Writing Descartes: I Am, and I Can Think, Therefore ...,
What is the Relation Between Thought and Action?

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