Eugenie Scott

Eugenie Scott in 2022

Eugenie Scott (born October 24, 1945) is an American physical anthropologist who has been active in opposing the teaching of young Earth creationism and intelligent design in schools. From 1986 to 2014 Scott served as the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education.

Quotes

Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools (2006)

All quotes are from the trade paperback first edition, published by Beacon Press, ISBN 978-0-8070-3278-7
Co-edited with Glenn Branch. Scott wrote only the first chapter. The authors of the other chapters are named with the first quote from each.
Italics as in the book. Bold face added for emphasis.
  • The proponents of the latest tactical assault on evolution simply invent a new spin to describe their position or find new legal attacks. The rhetoric is designed to cover up the unquestionably religious motivation they have.
  • Dogma doesn’t build better medical devices; good science does.
    • Foreword (p. xi)
  • In special creationism, living things do not share common ancestry….common ancestry is the fundamental difference between special creationism and evolution.
    • Chapter 1, “The Once and Future Intelligent Design” (p. 7; ellipsis represents the elision of a half paragraph of details)
  • Creation science argues that there are only two views, special creationism and evolution; thus, arguments against evolution are arguments in favor of creationism. Literature supporting creation science is based on alleged examples of evidence against evolution, which are considered not only proof against evolution but also positive evidence for creationism. Understandably, there is nothing in the creation science canon providing a positive scientific case for the sudden emergence of the universe in its present form at one time, let alone for its specific doctrines a six-thousand-year-old Earth and universe, the occurrence of a worldwide flood responsible for the fossil record and geological features such as the Grand Canyon, and the impossibility of evolution except within sharp limits.
    • Chapter 1, “The Once and Future Intelligent Design” (p. 7)
  • The critiques of evolution offered in such ID literature, however, is recognizable as a proper subset of the critiques offered by creation science literature, and they are no more valid.
    • Chapter 1, “The Once and Future Intelligent Design” (p. 21)
  • ID advocates complain that their views are rejected out of hand by the scientific establishment, yet they do not play by normal rules of presenting their views first through scientific conferences and then to peer-reviewed journals and then in textbooks.
    • Chapter 1, “The Once and Future Intelligent Design” (p. 22)
  • Significantly, the first publication to use the phrase intelligent design was not a theoretical paper but a high school textbook, Of Pandas and People! Ordinarily, one does the research first and then produces the textbook.
    • Chapter 1, “The Once and Future Intelligent Design” (p. 23)
  • To anyone familiar with the history of the antievolution movement, the attacks on evolution are perhaps the most obvious link between ID and earlier forms of creationism.
    • Chapter 1, “The Once and Future Intelligent Design” (p. 23)
  • ID, like creation science, has goals that are primarily religious.
    • Chapter 1, “The Once and Future Intelligent Design” (p. 24)
  • The actual point of the peppered moth example—that it illustrates how camouflage, a common adaptation that appears designed, can evolve through a simple natural process—is always completely ignored.
  • To a biologist, the “it’s just microevolution” argument is painfully obtuse.
    • Chapter 2, “Analyzing Critical Analysis: The Fallback Antievolutionist Strategy” (p. 49)
  • In the creationist concept of created kind—and the creationist demand to “Show me macroevolution”—we have a classic example of the movable-goalposts strategy for winning. Any amount of evolution that can be demonstrated to the creationists’ satisfaction is effectively by definition microevolution within a kind. No matter how extensive the documented change is, the macroevolution goalposts are always out of reach. The inviolable biblical kind is protected with strategic vagueness.
    • Chapter 2, “Analyzing Critical Analysis: The Fallback Antievolutionist Strategy” (p. 51)
  • The objections to evolution are not serious scientific arguments; they are superficially investigated and poorly reasoned talking points.
    • Chapter 2, “Analyzing Critical Analysis: The Fallback Antievolutionist Strategy” (p. 56)
  • Important to note is that Johnson is not trained as either a scientist or a theologian, nor has he ever practiced either discipline. His analysis of evolution is therefore based upon his own reading of the lay literature to which he has access and the interpretation on the scientific literature by popularizers. As a result, neither this book (Darwin on Trial) nor his subsequent ones provide a satisfactory scientific critique of biological evolution. Nor does it break new ground theologically. Nonetheless, its publication led to a large following, and he has had an active career on the lecture circuit as a result.
  • To be scientific in our era is to search for solely natural explanations.
    • Chapter 3, “Theology, Religion, and Intelligent Design” (p. 75)
  • Thus, it seems clear that intelligent design should be considered a religion for First Amendment purposes.
    • Chapter 4, “From the Classroom to the Courtroom: Intelligent Design and the Constitution” (by Jay D. Wexler; p. 88)
  • Three of intelligent design’s most damaging constitutional problems: its singling out of evolution education for reform, its explicitly religious background, and it status as unsuccessful science.
    • Chapter 4, “From the Classroom to the Courtroom: Intelligent Design and the Constitution” (p. 90)
  • The first problem with this argument (“teach the controversy”) is that there is no scientific controversy about evolution, and the second problem is that intelligent design doesn’t qualify as a scientific theory.
    • Chapter 5, “Evolution in the Classroom” by Brian Alters; p. 108)
  • By now it should be clear that “teaching the controversy” is not about the concern for good pedagogy but about advancing the antievolution agenda.
    • Chapter 5, “Evolution in the Classroom” (p. 109)
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