After all these years

I cannot look upon the Universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent design, or indeed design of any kind in the details. As for each variation that has ever occurred being preordained for a special end, I can no more believe in it, than that the spot on which each drop of rain falls bas been specially ordained.

--Charles Darwin, 1870

A scientific theory stands or falls by its ability to explain and predict. Darwin's idea of evolution by natural selection rapidly persuaded scientists because it offered a brilliant and thoroughgoing explanation of the oddities, cruelties, irregularities, and patterned intricacies of the natural world. Like all successful scientific theories, the Darwinian paradigm has been modified and expanded. But its basic premise--that species have descended from common ancestors and have been modified over immense periods of time--remains unrivaled in making sense of many disparate lines of evidence.

Unlike the equally revolutionary theories of Copernicus and Galileo, however, Darwin's idea still provokes opposition in some quarters. Most recently, this resistance has been embodied by the "intelligent design" (ID) movement, whose supporters maintain that the complexity of the natural world is evidence of planning by a higher intelligence. This line of argument, familiar to theologians, is now being put forth as a scientific challenge to Darwin.

In this issue, Natural History has made the unusual move of allotting space to three of ID's leading proponents. Some of our friends and colleagues have asked why a magazine such as ours, grounded in evolutionary biology, should give ID advocates a voice in our pages. The argument goes: "You wouldn't think of having astrologers, alchemists, or Flat-Earthers write in the magazine, so why make an exception for antievolutionists?"

Our answer is simple. The latest efforts to influence the teaching of biology in the nation's classrooms are being spearheaded by those who assert that ID theory is, in fact, science. "Intelligent Design?" (page 73) offers readers the chance to evaluate, unfiltered by secondhand reports, the scientific quality of ID's propositions and to judge for themselves whether or not these propositions differ from those of evolution's old foe, creationism. In this section, each ID statement is analyzed by a respondent in the Darwinian camp. To further assess the design argument, we draw your attention to Barbara Forrest's brief overview of the intelligent-design movement (page 80) and to columnist Carl Zimmer's report on recent findings relevant to the evolution of the eye ("Crystal Balls," page 32).

Why is our culture still torn apart by these evolution wars? We leave the last, and most philosophical, word on that subject to Museum anthropology curator Ian Tattersall ("Science Versus Religion? No Contest," page 100).

COPYRIGHT 2002 Natural History Magazine, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning