Tallahassee Scientific Society

Recognizing that the concept of intelligent design (ID) represents a serious threat to the quality of science education in Florida and throughout the United States, the Board of Directors of the Tallahassee Scientific Society adopts the following resolution:

WHEREAS intelligent design was found in the 2005 federal court case Kitzmiller et al v. Dover Area School District to be the religious-based doctrine of creation science masquerading under another name and, specifically, not a scientific theory;

WHEREAS the teaching of creation science as a suitable alternative to standard science instruction in public classrooms was banned on constitutional grounds by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987;

WHEREAS, to date, ID proponents have failed to offer any credible scientific evidence to support their claims about life's origins or proposed any scientific means of testing these claims;

WHEREAS the vast majority of scientists throughout the world hold that evolutionary theory is the only testable scientific theory in existence on how life developed over time and therefore is a major unifying force in contemporary science;

WHEREAS the theory of evolution is among the most tested theories in the life sciences and is supported by volumes of evidence in such fields as anthropology, genetics, biochemistry, developmental biology, comparative anatomy, immunology, geology, and paleontology;

WHEREAS the most eminent scientific societies in the United States, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Physics, the American Geophysical Union, the National Association of Biology Teachers, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology — a consortium of 22 national scientific organizations with a combined membership of 85,000 scientists — have all passed resolutions condemning the promulgation of ID as science and as part of science education;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the TSS supports the teaching of evolutionary theory as the only plausible scientific approach yet known to understanding the biological, chemical and physical underpinnings of how life developed and changed over time;

THEREFORE BE IT ALSO RESOLVED that the TSS opposes any reference to ID in Florida science education textbooks or science classroom instruction as anything other than a theological concept worthy of study only in such courses as religion, philosophy or history;

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that in the name of promoting public scientific literacy the TSS is committed to combating any effort aimed at placing ID, creation science or any other religion-based belief system on the same intellectual and scientific footing as the theory of evolution in any science education setting in Florida or elsewhere.