The Bush administration has demanded repeatedly that 鈥渟cientifically based research鈥� be the foundation for education programs and practices, a principle that is also spelled out in the No Child Left Behind Act.
Last week, though, President Bush told reporters that he supports allowing schools to teach the controversial concept of 鈥渋ntelligent design鈥濃�攚hich has been flatly rejected by the nation鈥檚 top scientific organizations鈥攁longside the theory of evolution.
Mr. Bush, in an Aug. 1 interview with Texas reporters, said that while such choices are local decisions, he favors that 鈥渂oth sides鈥� be taught 鈥渟o that people can understand what the debate is about.鈥�
Critics in several states and districts have recently sought to cast doubt on the bedrock scientific theory advanced by Charles Darwin, which posits that species evolve through natural selection. Intelligent design holds that life鈥檚 origins and complexities may best be explained by the guidance of an unidentified, possibly divine, master architect.
鈥淧art of education is to expose people to different schools of thought,鈥� the president said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas. The answer is yes.鈥�
As a presidential candidate in 2000, Mr. Bush publicly backed allowing the teaching of biblically based creationism alongside evolution.
But the president鈥檚 recent statements contrast sharply with the opinion of the vast majority of scientists, including the congressionally chartered National Academy of Sciences, which points to a mountain of evidence for evolution and describes intelligent design as a religious belief.
An individual with closer ties to the president also has rejected intelligent design as science: White House science adviser John H. Marburger III. In comments earlier this year in an online story in The American Prospect, Mr. Marburger said, 鈥淚ntelligent design is not science,鈥� and added, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 regard intelligent design as a scientific topic.鈥�
In an e-mail to Education Week after the president鈥檚 remarks, Mr. Marburger, who holds a Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University, stood by his comments. But he also cautioned that the president鈥檚 remarks did not present a view on whether intelligent design is a scientific theory.
鈥淭here is danger of confusing the accounts of reporters,鈥� he said, 鈥渨ith what the president actually said.鈥�
