Letter Writing Tips

The State of Ohio is in the midst of producing academic content standards for Ohio's public schools. As of this writing (23 January 2002), the Ohio Board of Education is seriously considering forcing the Science Academic Content Standards Writing Team to rewrite Ohio's Science Standards to include intelligent design (ID), and to "force" the Science Academic Content Standards Advisory Committee to accept those standards.

I would also request those who can write letters to the editors of your local paper, hitting one or two of the issues below, please do so. As Eugenie Scott (National Center for Science Education) pointed out to me, papers might not publish all the letters coming to them, but if they receive many letters on one topic they will publish at least a few. If they receive one or two letters they are likely to pass them over for other topics of greater interest.

The areas I would suggest addressing in letters to government officials include:

• Failure of ID as a science. ID is not in the scientific literature. ID is not supported by scientists. There are no reliable methods for conducting ID research and the methods suggested by William Dembski, Michael Behe, etc. are rejected by scientists.
• Necessity of including evolution >>>AND<<< the concepts recognized by scientists (germ theory of disease, gravity, atomic theory in chemistry all in; ID, evil spirits causing disease, geocentricism all out). This helps make the broader issues clear, and that it is not just evolution that we are interested in seeing taught well.
• The importance of listening to the scientists and science educators who have put in a lot of time writing, reviewing and advising to give Ohio good science standards. Remember, this was done for the Ohio Board of Education at their request!
• Teaching intelligent design creationism does not improve creative thinking and critical thinking because teaching junk does not improve thinking. Teaching junk only waste time and clutters up the curriculum.
• False claims about the Santorum amendment. The Santorum amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Authorization Act (the "Education Bill") was actually stripped from the bill before passage and only exists in a Conference report. It carries no waight of law. For more information on this top see the section of our site under Santorum Amendment.

Thank you for your time and best wishes to all,


Steve Edinger