Basler chair defends scientific method
Visiting professor discusses intelligent design and evolution
Guy Kramer
Issue date: 1/25/07 Section: News
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Kampis' lecture, titled "Intelligent Design Theory and the Poverty of Anti-Science Thought", focused on the debate between supporters of evolution and those who insist that living things were created by an Intelligent Designer.
The Intelligent Design movement holds that living organisms are too complex to have arisen through random mutation and natural selection, and therefore must have been designed by some outside entity.
While ID supporters have long sought to have their theory taught in higher education, Kampis believes the science classroom is the last place ID should appear.
"ID pretends to be an alternative form of science, but to me is really a combination of creation theories," Kampis said. "Supporters of Intelligent Design don't take the normal route to creating a theory. They don't write peer reviewed papers or present research at scientific seminars."
Kampis, who readily admits Charles Darwin is one of his lifetime heroes, was critical of the methods used by ID supporters. "When they can't explain a phenomenon they immediately claim that it must be the work of God. This is just giving in," he said.
Kampis briefly described the main supporters of the Intelligent Design movement.
Dr. Phillip Johnson, ID founder and longtime critic of Charles Darwin, rejects the concept of natural selection and has referred to evolution as "the creation myth of the modern age."
"The first thing I noticed about it is that it contradicts the book of Genesis. It actually contradicts a whole lot more than that because, as the scientists define evolution, it is inherently a purposeless, mindless process that produced human beings as an accident," Johnson wrote in a recent article.
Johnson co-founded the Discovery Institute, a think tank that promotes the teaching of ID in the science classroom. According to the institutes "wedge" document, "Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 3
Steve Scarborough
posted 1/25/07 @ 6:38 AM CST
I congratulate ETSU on having a discussion on such an interesting topic. As a parent of a prospective student, I want our public schools to do nothing more than promote thinking and the evolution discussion certainly does that. (Continued…)
E. Marshall Buckles
posted 1/25/07 @ 3:34 PM CST
I guess that both Intelligent Design people and evolution people would look at me with derision, however, "God created the heavens and the earth" works for me no matter how it was done. (Continued…)
Peter Sipos
posted 1/31/07 @ 4:31 PM CST
It's interesting to see that half of this article, intending to cover Dr. Kampis' lecture, is about introducing Intelligent Design, while the rest tries to depict the professor as a follower of Darwin. (Continued…)
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