Letter from Steven A. Edinger
To the Ohio Department of Education
2 April 2002

Dear President Jennifer Sheets, Martha Wise and members of the Ohio Board of Education,

I am writing to you as a founding member of Ohio Citizens for Science, a member of the Ohio Academy of Science, a faculty member in the Department of Biological Sciences at Ohio University, a citizen of the state of Ohio, a science educator with a Bachelors of Science in secondary education in biology and chemistry, and as a Ohio parent and grandparent.

At the March meeting of the Ohio Board of Education (OBE) I was given a list of scientific papers compiled by the Discovery Institute of Seattle, Washington in a document titled "BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SUPPLEMENTARY RESOURCES FOR OHIO SCIENCE INSTRUCTION". The bibliography was presented to the Ohio Board of Education by Drs. Jonathan Wells and Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute at the March 11, 2002 panel discussion concerning whether concept of intelligent design should be included in Ohio's new science standards. Dr. Lawrence Kraus of Case Western Reserve University and Dr. Kenneth Miller of Brown University both spoke about the necessity of including evolution while excluding the concept of intelligent design from Ohio's science standards. The bibliography was given to OBE, ostensibly, to call into question the validity of evolution and to support the notion of intelligent design since that was the point of Drs. Wells' and Meyer's presentation. To this end, the opening paragraph of the bibliography includes the statement:

The publications represent dissenting viewpoints that challenge one or another aspect of neo-Darwinism (the prevailing theory of evolution taught in biology textbooks), discuss problems that evolutionary theory faces, or suggest important new lines of evidence that biology must consider when explaining origins.

Ohio Board of Education member Martha Wise gave me the Discovery Institutes bibliography and asked review the scientific validity of this bibliography. This letter is a short, preliminary report on my impressions of the bibliography.

I think it is very important to first point out to you that since you received this document it has been posted on the Discovery Institute's web page. In a classic "bait and switch" move, the posted version carries a disclaimer from the Discovery Institute, which was not part of the document you received. That disclaimer, quoted in full (italics and bold print in original), reads:

"The publications are not presented either as support for the theory of intelligent design, or as indicating that the authors cited doubt evolution. Discovery Institute has made every effort to ensure that the annotated summaries accurately reflect the central arguments of the publications."

The first sentence is indeed correct as far as it goes. None of the papers cited by the Discovery Institute provide any scientific support for the concept of intelligent design. None of the authors cited have any scientific doubts about the scientific validity of the fact organisms are the product of descent with modifications (evolution), but they do have questions about the explanations of how that process works, how to investigate the process of evolution and how much weight needs to be given to the different mechanisms. The disclaimer fails to make one important point. None of the summaries of these papers or the papers themselves cast doubt on the fact organisms are the product of descent with modification (evolution). All of them are using the process of scientific inquiry to improve our methods of investigating evolution or our understanding of how evolution works or our understanding of past evolutionary events. I will return to this point later in greater detail, but before that accuracy of the second sentence needs to be addressed.

Since receiving the Discovery Institute's bibliography, I have contacted a number of colleagues to make contact with the original authors of these papers. That task that has been taken up by the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), which will forward a summary of the authors' comments to OBE. Some of the authors may also contact the OBE directly to express their views. As of this writing, all the authors who have responded to contacts renounce the Discovery Institute's misuse of their research. All of them say their work does not support intelligent design and does not question that organisms are the product of descent with modification (evolution). All of these papers have, as their goal, a better understanding of how evolution has occurred and how it continues to occur.

All of the papers listed below use the original numbering schema from the Discovery Institute's bibliography. To try giving an overview of the papers and how the process of science occurs, the papers can be placed into several broad categories based on the types of discussions they have: A. Questions On and Refinements of methodology; B. Developing a More Powerful Theory of Evolution; C. Questions About the Historic Pattern of Evolution; D. Biogenesis; E. Comparing Organisms and Technology. I will try addressing each of these in broad terms, while others may respond to the board about the specifics of individual papers or groups of papers.

As an overall perspective, most of the subjects of the papers in the bibliography and the aspects of evolution they discuss require a thorough knowledge of biology and biochemistry to understand them. It is my overall impression that most of the topics would be much more appropriate for college juniors, seniors and graduate students, and are not age appropriate for primary school students. For example imagine a 10th grade class trying to evaluate the paper "Did DNA replication evolve twice independently?" (Item 12 by Leipe, Aravind and Koonon). Evaluating that paper requires enough knowledge of DNA replication and biochemistry to be able consider subtle difference in those mechanisms and decide if they came from one ancestor or show two separate evolutionary histories. I question whether the Discovery Institute included this paper (and others) because they think 10th graders are ready to tackle this type of material, or if they included it because they think it will cause students to doubt the validity of evolution. Since it is well beyond the grasp of 10th grade students, I am certain they included it simply to try casting doubt on evolution.


Questions On and Refinements of Methodology

This group of papers (see below) seems to mostly be focused on the methods used by scientists and one or more of the following: what can and cannot be done, what does and does not work, problems with and improvements that can be made in these methods. Since most of the papers in this group focus on reconstructing phylogenetic trees (trees showing the evolution from ancestors to descendents, much like family trees) and the molecular clock, I will use that to explain what is going on in these papers.

In principle, biologists want to reconstruct the complete history of life, including every branch of the evolutionary tree and the exact times that every species (living and extinct) evolved, lived and went extinct. In practice we must be more practical, but this does mean that scientists are always looking for a newer, better method that is able to more accurately and more thoroughly determine the branches on the tree of life. That also means no matter how good our current theories, explanations and data are, scientists are always seeking ways to make them better.

The most basic premise of evolution is that plants, animals and all other organisms have evolved over time, with old organisms giving rise to new ones. This fact is written in the stone of the fossil record in which the oldest life forms are buried first at the bottom of the record and the newest ones are buried last at the top. As common experience shows, you have to put the dirt on the bottom of the pile before you can put it on the top of the pile, so what ever is buried on the bottom was buried first! Because of this, the fossil record has an inherent arrow of time. As a result of the time component the fossil record tells us which organisms lived first, second, third, etc. Although the fossil record gives us a chronological record of the history of life on earth the time scale of this clock was difficult to read until the development of radiometric dating (see "The Age of the Earth" by G. Brent Dalrymple, Stanford University Press, 1991). Even with radiometric dating you often have to date a rock just above and one just below your fossil of interest, giving a set of endpoint you know the age is within but not the exact age of the fossil itself.

On the surface it seems like an easy task to look at the anatomies of the different organisms, their positions in the fossil record and determine who evolved from whom (e.g., reconstruct the phylogenetic tree of life). For the most part that method has and still does work pretty well. But there are sound biological and geological reasons why it does not always work, particularly when you try getting to a fine level of detail. Part of the problem is that the odds of becoming a fossil are very low for all organisms, but the odds are also very unequal for different organisms. Freshwater clams, especially those inhabiting river deltas, have a reasonable shot at becoming fossils (the most common fossils in Dinosaur National Monument are freshwater clams, which were living in the mud where the dinosaurs were buried). Arboreal (e.g., living in trees) birds are very unlikely to fossilize. Common animals are more likely to fossilize than rare ones, etc. This means the fossil record is a book with pages missing. Reading the fossil record gives you the basic story, but you miss a lot of the details.

Another challenge comes from the nature and rates of evolution of specific characteristics. All of us know that cockroaches of today look very much like the cockroaches in the fossil record. All of us also know Archaeopteryx, the first unequivocal bird, had teeth, no beak, a long boney tail and "fingers" on its wings, making it look radically different from today's birds. Clearly these two body plans have evolved at different rates, which in some cases makes it difficult to determine the evolutionary ancestry. Also, the physical characteristics of organisms sometimes undergo evolutionary "reversals," sometimes organisms converge on the similar structures, etc. Because of these factors, biologists developed sets of rules and methods for determining how closely related one organism is to another. Using these rules requires a good knowledge of anatomy, thorough descriptions of the characters (features) of organisms, a lot of time and energy and so on. Isn't there an easier, quicker, more accurate way to determine the phylogenies and the times of evolutionary events? Enter molecular biology as a new tool to reach the goal of knowing the evolutionary histories of all organisms.

When molecular biology was first being used to determine the evolutionary histories of organisms, it was thought or hoped the molecules would make it simple to determine evolutionary relationships and evolutionary time scales. It was thought that DNA would have a series of small changes that would happen at a fairly constant rate, which gave rise to the concept of "the molecular clock." The thrust of these papers is, "Using molecules is not going to be as easy as we thought, and here are some things to take into consideration or change." It turns out that the DNA undergoes evolutionary "reversals," DNA does not all or always evolve at a constant rate, accidentally copying duplicate genes allows some radical changes to occur in the "extra" copy or copies, and some foreign DNA gets inserted into our chromosomes from viruses! It turns out the molecular clock for any particular gene does not necessarily run at a constant pace. Instead different segments of DNA are different molecular clocks, running at slightly different speeds. It might be appropriate to think of each gene or each segment of DNA as an individual clock and what that might imply.

Imagine having 20 clocks in your house before the development of quartz clocks such as battery operated ones, electric ones, some wind up clocks, a few 100-day clocks, water clocks and a sundial for good measure. At 9:00 AM this morning you make sure they are all set to exactly the same time. In 24 hours (as measure by your quartz wristwatch) you check the time on all 20 clocks. All of them would say it is about 9:00 AM, but probably very few would say it is exactly 9:00 AM. But if you take the average of all 20 times you will come up with a number very close to the correct time of 9:00 AM. Increase the number of clocks from 20 to 100 and you will come closer still. The thrust of many of these papers is to increase the accuracy of the phylogenies reconstructed or the time scales determined using molecules (or other methods) you need to increase the number of molecules considered, or consider both molecules and physical features (like bones), or increasing the number of calibration point used from the fossil record, etc. None of them say evolution cannot be measured by these methods or other methods, none support intelligent design and none cast doubt on evolution.

1. Ying Cao, Axel Janke, Peter J. Waddell, Michael Westerman, Osamu Takenaka, Shigenori Murata, Norihiro Okada, Svante Pääbo, and Masami Hasegawa, "Conflict Among Individual Mitochondrial Proteins in Resolving the Phylogeny of Eutherian Orders," Journal of Molecular Evolution 47 (1998): 307-322.

2. Simon Conway Morris, "Evolution: Bringing Molecules into the Fold," Cell 100 (2000): 1-11.

9. Trisha Gura, "Bones, molecules...or both?" Nature 406 (2000): 230-233.

10. Michael S. Y. Lee, "Molecular Clock Calibrations and Metazoan Divergence Dates," Journal of Molecular Evolution 49 (1999): 385-391.

11. Michael S. Y. Lee, "Molecular phylogenies become functional," Trends in Ecology and Evolution 14 (1999): 177-178.

13. Peter J. Lockhart and Sydney A. Cameron, "Trees for bees," Trends in Ecology and Evolution 16 (2001): 84-88.

14. David P. Mindell, Michael D. Sorenson, and Derek E. Dimcheff, "Multiple independent origins of mitchondrial gene order in birds," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 95 (1998): 10693-10697.

15. Paul Morris and Emily Cobabe, "Cuvier meets Watson and Crick: the utility of molecules as classical homologies," Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 44 (1991): 307-324.

16. Arcady R. Mushegian, James R. Garey, Jason Martin, and Leo X. Liu, "Large-Scale Taxonomic Profiling of Eukaryotic Model Organisms: A Comparison of Orthologous Proteins Encoded by the Human, Fly, Nematode, and Yeast Genomes," Genome Research 8 (1998): 590-598.

17. Gavin J. P. Naylor and Wesley M. Brown, "Amphioxus Mitochondrial DNA, Chordate Phylogeny, and the Limits of Inference Based on Comparisons of Sequences," Systematic Biology 47 (1998): 61-76. 18. Colin Patterson, David M. Williams, and Christopher J. Humphries, "Congruence Between Molecular and Morphological Phylogenies," Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 24 (1993): 153-188.

19. Michael K. Richardson et al., "There is no highly conserved stage in the vertebrates: implications for current theories of evolution and development," Anatomy and Embryology 196 (1997): 91-106.

20. Kensal E. van Holde, "Respiratory proteins of invertebrates: Structure, function and evolution," Zoology: Analysis of Complex Systems 100 (1998): 287-297.

Developing for a More Powerful Theory of Evolution

New theories are like new computers. As soon as you get it out of the box and learn how it works, you want a newer, more powerful one! The neo-Darwinian synthesis is not a new theory of evolution. It is an older but still very potent one. The neo-Darwinian synthesis is based on mutations in individual genes producing variations in those genes (different alleles) and the dynamics of population genetics that operate on these alleles. Depending on the size of the population and the strength of selection operating on the alleles, either genetic drift (a random process) or natural selection (a clearly directed process) will play the bigger role in determining which allele becomes dominant in the population. All this is the simplified basis for the modern neo-Darwinian synthesis.

What the neo-Darwinian synthesis does not do is: Incorporate embryology into the theory; encompass the full range of genetic changes (including the duplication of genes, which allows one copy to take on new functions); the role of regulatory genes; the role of genetic rearrangements; consider anatomical restraints; incorporate explanations of how one species splits into new species (macroevolution) and more. Theories of how these processes occur exist in biology, but they have not, for the most part, been incorporated into the neo-Darwinian synthesis. The contention here is not that the neo-Darwinian synthesis is wrong, but rather that it is an old computer (say an 8086 based machine) and biologists want a new Pentium based computer (with all the other theories about evolution as components). That is a rather daunting task which explains much of why all these separate "theories of evolution" have not been rolled up into one into one all encompassing "Grand Unified Theory of Evolution."

The other point to be made is none of these concerns eliminate or negate the role of natural selection. Our understanding of genetics now tells us there are many more and many more complicated ways to alter genes, producing genetic variation, than previously thought. Embryology (now called "developmental biology"), anatomy and biomechanics (how organisms function) now tell us much more about what is and what is not possible in living things. This new knowledge does not change the fact that natural selection will favor and perpetuate most good "changes" in organisms, extinguish most bad changes, and that some will survive or be extinguished through good or bad luck (the role of genetic drift in the neo-Darwinian synthesis). These papers are pushing for a newer, more powerful theory of evolution, not suggesting evolution doesn't happen or that intelligent design should replace it.

8. Douglas H. Erwin, "Early introduction of major morphological innovations," Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 38 (1994): 281-294.

21. Kenneth Weiss, "We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident," Evolutionary Anthropology 10 (2001): 199-203.

23. Robert L. Carroll, "Towards a new evolutionary synthesis," Trends in Ecology and Evolution 15 (2000): 27-32.

24. Douglas Erwin, "Macroevolution is more than repeated rounds of microevolution," Evolution & Development 2 (2000): 78-84.

25. Scott F. Gilbert, Grace A. Loredo, Alla Brukman, and Ann C. Burke, "Morphogenesis of the turtle shell: the development of a novel structure in tetrapod evolution," Evolution & Development 3 (2001): 47-58.

26. Olivier Rieppel, "Turtles as Hopeful Monsters," BioEssays 23 (2001): 987-991.

27. Scott F. Gilbert, John M. Opitz, and Rudolf A. Raff, "Resynthesizing Evolutionary and Developmental Biology," Developmental Biology 173 (1996): 357-372.

28. George L. Gabor Miklos, "Emergence of organizational complexities during metazoan evolution: perspectives from molecular biology, palaeontology and neo-Darwinism," Mem. Ass. Australas. Palaeontols. 15 (1993): 7-41.

29. Neil H. Shubin and Charles R. Marshall, "Fossils, genes, and the origin of novelty," in Deep Time (2000, The Paleontological Society), pp. 324-340.

30. Keith Stewart Thomson, "Macroevolution: The Morphological Problem," American Zoologist 32 (1992): 106-112.

31. Bärbel M.R. Stadler, Peter F. Stadler, Günther P. Wagner, and Walter Fontana, "The Topology of the Possible: Formal Spaces Underlying Patterns of Evolutionary Change," Journal of Theoretical Biology 213 (2001): 241-274.

32. Günther P. Wagner, "What is the Promise of Developmental Evolution? Part II: A Causal Explanation of Evolutionary Innovations May Be Impossible," Journal of Experimental Zoology (Mol Dev Evol) 291 (2001): 305-309.

Questions About the Historic Pattern of Evolution

It has been presumed, beginning at least as far back as with Darwin, that there is one ancestral lineage of life that all living things have evolved from. The presumption is logical, but is it correct? According to these authors, not necessarily. But lets stop for a moment and think about this. Suppose these authors are correct, and life originated with several different organisms, which then may have crossed or combine somehow to form new organisms, giving rise to all of us here on earth. How could that be taken as evidence against evolution? In fact, what it would do is show the process of evolution and history of life is much more complicated than we thought. Is there any reason to think separate organisms could combine to form new organisms? All of us know about lichens, which are made up of two different symbiotic organisms (fungus and algae) that function as one organism, but the story does not stop there!

All of our cells and the cells of all plants and animals contain mitochondria, which supply most of our energy. Those mitochondria used to be bacteria living in the cells of very ancient ancestors of ours. Although our mitochondria started out as a parasite in a host, or as some kind of symbiotic relationship, the two originally separate organisms are now blended into one organism. We cannot live without our mitochondria, and preparations of isolated mitochondria do not live long without us. Every green plant you see, except cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), contain chloroplasts, which use to be bacteria or bacteria like organisms living in the ancient ancestors of all green plants. Not only can different organisms be combined into a new one, we know for certain that it has happened and that our own ancestors were two different organisms who are now "blended" into one! As before, none of these papers cast doubt on evolution or provide support for intelligent design. Instead they are asking questions about how the process of evolution occurs and proposing new explanations. Time, research and peer review will tell if they are correct or not!

3. W. Ford Doolittle, "Tempo, Mode, the Progenote, and the Universal Root," in W. Fitch and F. Ayala, eds., Tempo and Mode in Evolution (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1995), pp. 3-24.

4. W. Ford Doolittle, "At the core of the Archaea," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 93 (1996): 8797-8799.

5. W. Ford Doolittle, "Uprooting the Tree of Life," Scientific American, February 2000, pp. 90-95.

6. W. Ford Doolittle, "Phylogenetic Classification and the Universal Tree," Science 284 (1999): 2124-2128.

7. W. Ford Doolittle, "The nature of the universal ancestor and the evolution of the proteome," Current Opinion in Structural Biology 10 (2000): 355-358.

12. Detlef D. Leipe, L. Aravind, and Eugene V. Koonin, "Did DNA replication evolve twice independently?" Nucleic Acids Research 27 (1999): 3389-3401.

22. Carl Woese, "The universal ancestor," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 95 (1998): 6854-6859.

Biogenesis

Biogenesis (the origin of life from nonliving constituents) is probably the area of the history of life on earth that biologists and biochemist know the least about, but the amount of knowledge increases each year. Studying biogenesis has been a part of science for a long time, even before the Stanley Miller experiments, and biogenesis has been an accepted part of scientific study for a long time. My college biochemistry text ("Biochemistry" by Albert R. Lehninger, 1970, 1975) included a chapter titled "The Origin of Life", and Lubert Stryer's new edition of "Biochemistry" contains two chapters on evolution (chapter 2, "Biochemical Evolution" and chapter 7, "Exploring Evolution"). Because there is much we do not know about biogenesis the response of the intelligent design movement and other creationists toward accepting biogenesis is, "We don't know much about biogenesis and the data on biogenesis are limited, therefore we should offer a supernatural explanation with no data as an alternative." I am not sure what to call that idea, but it certainly is not a scientific approach or argument!

The papers given below seem to be largely framing the question of biogenesis and how to approach studying it. What conditions must exist for it to occur? How might that have occurred on earth? What is the minimum number of components needed to have a functioning organism? How could interesting chemistry be organized into life? In the past viruses slightly blurred the line between life and "non-life". Viruses have a number of the properties we associate with living things, but not all of them. Viruses contain DNA or RNA, they can reproduce inside cells, they have some simple chemical responses, allowing them to infect cells, but they do not have any metabolism of their own. Most scientists say viruses are not living organisms, but if what they do is not life then what do we call it? As we learn more about prions the difference between interesting chemistry and life becomes even more difficult to define.

As the cause of "mad cow disease", as disease which can infect and kill humans, prions have become of great interest to biologists and medical researchers. Prions are proteins that, under favorable conditions, can somehow replicate themselves. I do not know of any biologist who classifies prions as living, but they do have some of the characteristics defining life. But is there something that a protein that, under the right conditions can replicate itself, might tell us about the early biochemical evolution of living things from nonliving ones? Can prions tell us something about how the prebiotic constituents of life may have behaved and how that behavior led to living things? At this point I do not think anybody knows, but the possibilities are absolutely intriguing!

All of these papers are trying to advance our understanding of biogenesis, the origin of living things from nonliving constituents. None of the papers listed below call into question evolution. In particular they do not call into question the evolution of life from nonliving components. None of them support intelligent design. All of these papers are beyond the grasp of primary school students, and the general topic of biogenesis needs to be discussed at a level appropriate from primary school students, who have not had biochemistry or college level courses in molecular and cellular biology. Biogenesis should be part of Ohio's science standards, but it needs to be taught at a level appropriate for primary school students.

35. David W. Deamer, "The First Living Systems: a Bioenergetic Perspective," Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews 61 (1997): 239-261.

36. Michael J. Katz, Templets and the explanation of complex patterns, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

37. Claire M. Fraser et al., "The Minimal Gene Complement of Mycoplasma genitalium," Science 270 (1995): 397-403.

38. Clyde A. Hutchison et al., "Global Transposon Mutagenesis and a Minimal Mycoplasma Genome," Science 286 (1999): 2165-2169.

39. Eugene V. Koonin, "How Many Genes Can Make a Cell: The Minimal-Gene-Set Concept," Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics 1 (2000): 99-116.

40. Jack Maniloff, "The minimal cell genome: 'On being the right size,'" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 93 (1996): 1004-1006.

41. Arcady R. Mushegian and Eugene V. Koonin, "A minimal gene set for cellular life derived by comparison of complete bacterial genomes," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 93 (1996): 10268-10273.

42. Scott N. Peterson and Claire M. Fraser, "The complexity of simplicity," Genome Biology 2 (2001): 1-7.

43. Leslie E. Orgel, "Self-organizing biochemical cycles," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97 (2000): 12503-12507.

44. Eörs Szarthmáry, "The evolution of replicators," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 335 (2000): 1669-1676.

Comparing Organisms and Technology

It is difficult to understand why the papers by Philip Ball (2001) and Rodney Brooks (2001) were included in this bibliography. Although the papers are very interesting they can be summarized, in an oversimplified way, as saying: Living things are more than the sum of their parts, engineers can learn a lot from the natural "manufacturing" of organisms, the complexity and functioning of organisms is impressive, or perhaps better put, stunning. I do not know of any biologist who would disagree with any of these contentions, but these contentions do not in and of themselves imply or require an intelligent designer. Neither paper suggests invoking intelligent design because of these points, nor do they suggest these points argue against evolution. The only apparent reason for including these two papers is to convince the board that scientists find the function of organisms impressive (which we do) and then convince the board to jump to the conclusion, "Therefore it must have been intelligently designed."

But this intellectual jump fails as science because for intelligent design to be concluded it must be demonstrated by measurable, quantifiable data. Nobody has developed a method to measure design. There is no meter stick or beaker or spectrophotometer that measures design and no unit that design is measured in. This is in sharp contrast to the world of engineering, where clear criteria for measuring design of human products does exist: Will this bridge stand up to an earthquake of 6.0 on the Richter scale? Is this pipe strong enough to hold the pressure of the fluid it contains? Can we build a machine to produce parts with less than a 0.01% failure rate for a reasonable cost? Etc.

Instead design in nature, like beauty, is a feeling or perception or belief. As such, it is outside of the realm of science, which is based on things that can be measures and quantified. But belief in or a spiritual perception of intelligent design is in the realms of philosophy, theology and culture. When intelligent design is properly framed as a philosophical or theological belief that does not pretend to be science and is not loaded with antievolution statements then intelligent design is in a form that is an excellent topic for a comparative religions class or better yet, a class in comparative world cultures. For the State of Ohio and Ohioans to be leaders in the global market we need to better understand the other people on the globe, including what they think, what they believe and their cultures. Beliefs in the importance of the earth and life on earth are central in most cultures, including our own. For example, Native American religions have deeply spiritual beliefs about the beauty and value of all parts of the earth and all her inhabitants. Those beliefs and values enrich Native American culture and our knowledge of them has enriched the American culture. Thomas Aquinas, Paley, Augustine and others saw the beauty, power and majesty of nature as a reflection of the hand of God, which is a wonderful theology but cannot be measured or evaluated as a science. Their philosophy and theology is the basis for the modern intelligent design movement of the Discovery Institute as well as one of the classic arguments for creationism, putting intelligent design outside the realm of science. Examining and discussing these thoughts, philosophies and beliefs along with the thoughts, philosophies and beliefs of other cultures would be an excellent topic for a class in comparative cultures as long as such a class was not seen and used as a "back door" mechanism opening the classroom to teaching intelligent design or other forms of creationism.

33. Philip Ball, "Life's lessons in design," Nature 409 (2001): 413-416.

34. Rodney Brooks, "The relationship between matter and life," Nature 409 (2001): 409-411.

Conclusion

All working scientists seek out areas in science where our knowledge is incomplete (typically referred to as "problems") to investigate and hopefully solve or at least help define the scope and methods for studying the problem. As a result, the typical scientific papers written about research projects begin by reviewing the literature and defining the problem to be investigated. Review papers, another type of scientific paper, attempt to summarize what is known about a field, but more importantly what is not known or where the field is weak and in need of further research. The goal of review papers is to nudge fellow scientists toward working on areas that are not fully understood hopefully to gain a better understanding of that area of the field.

What it appears the Discovery Institute has done is to carefully lift quotes where scientists talk about weakness in the field or areas needing more research and misused them to imply to the Ohio Board of Education that they show evolution is a failing theory. Members of the Discovery Institute hate to be compared to creationists, but misquoting scientists or quoting them out of context to try making scientists work say the opposite of what it actually says is the same tactic practiced by creationists, such as Duane Gish of the Institute for Creation Research. Scientists working at any reputable institute would be investigated for academic misconduct and blacklisted by granting agencies for doing what the Discovery Institute has done with this document.

To quote the disclaimer that was omitted from the bibliography given to OBE, "The publications are not presented either as support for the theory of intelligent design, or as indicating that the authors cited doubt evolution." One does not need to be a biochemist or molecular biologist to recognize that the Discovery Institute intentionally misled the Ohio Board of Education by giving you this bibliography at a panel discussion where their stated purpose was to convince the Ohio Board of Education of the validity of intelligent design and the weakness of evolution. The Discovery Institute has been in operation for many years with very generous endowments. What should be absolutely clear to the board is that if intentionally deceiving board members with other peoples' research is the best they can come up with to sell their position then they have no standing and nothing of validity to make there case with. The notion that intelligent design is science deserves and needs to be soundly rejected and barred from Ohio's public schools' science classrooms by the Ohio Board of Education.

I remain at your service on this issue,

Steven A. Edinger, M.S.
Physiology Lab Instructor

064 Irvine Hall
Department of Biological Sciences
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701-2979

steven.edinger.1@ohio.edu
(740) 593-9484
Fax: (740) 593-0300