[Triumf-seminars] TRIUMF Colloquium today at 14:00

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Date/Time: Thu 2006-11-30 at 14:00

Location:  Auditorium          

Speaker:   Brian Alters (McGill University)

Title:     Evolution, Intelligent Design, and SSHRC

Abstract: The occurrence of biological evolution is scientifically factual. Intelligent Design is a religious and antievolution proposition that masquerades as science, attempting -- among other things – to insert possible supernatural causation as an explanation into modern science education. Last year, a Globe & Mail poll indicated that 26% of Canadians want intelligent design taught in public schools.

SSHRC is the largest federal funding agency of science education research in Canada. In March 2006, SSHRC declined my request for funding to measure the extent to which the recent large-scale popularization of "intelligent design theory" is detrimentally affecting Canadians' teaching and learning of biological evolution. The adjudication committee’s written comments total only five sentences, the most shocking of which are: "Nor did the committee consider that there was adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of evolution, and not Intelligent Design theory, was correct. It was not convinced, therefore, that research based on these assumptions would yield objective results."

The story went worldwide in television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and scientific journals. Yet despite international press embarrassing Canadian science and science education, and the condemnation of those comments from individual scientists and large national and international scientific organizations, the SSHRC has not retracted the statement. Why? I will explore the controversy.  


Stimulants available 15 minutes before the talk.

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