Evolution and Design
Cornell’s Evolution department has a promising new course being offered this summer, entititled "Evolution and Design: Is there Purpose in Nature?". For more details go to the EvolutionList, or for our "official position" on it, see our press release below.
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, April 9 – The Intelligent Design Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Club at Cornell would like to applaud Allen MacNeill, the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) Department, and Cornell University on this summer’s new course, BioEE 467: “Evolution and Design: Is There Purpose in Nature?”Five and a half months after President Rawlings’ State of the University address condemning intelligent design, this course is Cornell’s first to focus on the theory from a historical and scientific perspective. Based on books such as Dembski and Ruse’s Debating Design and Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, the course purports “to sort out the various issues at play, and to come to clarity on how those issues can be integrated into the perspective of the natural sciences as a whole.”
This four-credit seminar course, taught by the EEB Senior Lecturer Allen MacNeil, will also take a broader look at the historical disputes surrounding evolution.
Although we have been on opposite sides of many debates, we have always appreciated MacNeil’s commitment to the ideal of the university as a “free market-place of ideas.” We have found him always ready to go out of his way to encourage diversity of thought, and his former students speak highly of his fairness. We look forward to a course where careful examination of the issues and critical thinking is encouraged.
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Cornell offers course on intelligent design
Allen MacNeill, who teaches introductory biology and evolution at Cornell University, has just announced the course “Evolution and Design: Is There Purpose in Nature?”. I was pleased to see that this course doesn’t promulgate the ahistorical belief …
Trackback by Telic Thoughts — April 10, 2006 @ 12:48 pm
I recommend that you follow the link in the previous comment to the discussion at Telic Thoughts. We’ve had rather a lively exchange on the subject already! This summer is going to be so much fun…
Comment by Allen MacNeill — April 11, 2006 @ 1:02 am
If there is a debate of sorts. I would hope Cornell professors Dr. Psiaki and Dr. John Sanford would participate.
If you all need any pointers in debate, feel free to contact me too.
Comment by Salvador Cordova — April 12, 2006 @ 4:38 am
Actually, I hope the whole course is an ongoing debate/spirited discussion. Since the format for the course is intended to be a small-group seminar with ideally about a dozen people, I don’t see it as an appropriate venue for a large-scale moderated debate. And, from my own experience, repeated face-to-face discussions allow the course participants to get to know each other personally, which cuts down considerably on the level of personal animosity and the tendency toward ad hominem arguments.
Comment by Allen MacNeill — April 12, 2006 @ 11:24 pm
I do indeed think face-to-face debates cut down on animosity. I would suggests that if some of the students are willing, that one or two debates be recorded and broadcast on the net. It would certainly be enlightening to everyone to hear what the students have to say on either side of the issue. It would a model to everyone of a civil and reasoned discussion on these important issues.
Comment by Salvador Cordova — April 13, 2006 @ 2:32 am
I am investigating the feasibility of podcastnig at least some of the discussions/debates that take place in our class. I’ll keep everyone posted on whether this works out.
Comment by Allen MacNeill — April 15, 2006 @ 7:23 pm