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Clyde Peeling's excellent response (March 10) to a previous letter to the editor attacking evolution deserves to be supplemented. Peeling observed that Michael Behe and William Dembski, offered in the previous letter as examples of scientists who do not accept evolution, are not representative of the scientific community. He might have added that both Behe and Dembski were scheduled to testify as expert witnesses for the defendants in Kitzmiller v. Dover, the 2005 federal trial over whether a public school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, could require students to be taught about intelligent design, then the trendy branding of creationism.
Dembski withdrew from the case before testifying, while Behe was forced on the stand to concede that there was no credible evidence for intelligent design to be found in the scientific literature.
Intelligent design, as the judge presiding over the case found, "is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, and gain acceptance in the scientific community." Evolution, in contrast, is accepted, on the basis of overwhelming evidence, by the scientific community worldwide.
GLENN BRANCH
Deputy director
National Center for Science Education
Oakland, California
Submitted via Virtual Newsroom