The Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics
and American Institutions

Science Education and Public Reason

Richard B. Miller, Director of the Poynter Center, announced in October 2006 the release of a White Paper, "Intelligent Design, Science Education, and Public Reason." We invite you to read it and ask that you distribute it widely to interested colleagues and students working in religion, science, education, and public policy.

The White Paper is the product of over a year's collaboration bringing together Poynter Center staff and faculty at Indiana University in the sciences, education, and the humanities. The paper stakes out basic scientific, theological, educational, judicial, and public policy dimensions to recent efforts to include "intelligent design theory" in science teaching and to remove evolution theory from science curricula.

This collaborative initiative began at the Poynter Center in 2005 when an informal group convened to discuss concerns among science educators about the intrusion of the culture-wars in science pedagogy. We soon began sharing materials that were circulating in scholarly and popular venues and in the press. The Center also co-sponsored a campus visit of Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education who, along with our IU colleagues, encouraged us to move forward with what evolved into a research project resulting in this White Paper.

The White Paper: Intelligent Design, Science Education, and Public Reason

We hope that it spurs interested students, scholars, and lay readers to further examine matters taken up in this publication.