ID education: coming soon nearby

The Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (formerly the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture) has announced, at its blog here that it will run its ID Education Day for the fourth time, in Tacoma, Washington, on the 6th of November. The theme will be "Creepy Crawly Complexity". I hadn’t been aware of this, but it was run most recently in Spokane, Washington in March, with nearly 500 students attending.

For the past few years, we’ve held our most popular student event, ID Education Day, in Spokane, WA, and the excitement keeps growing! This past March, nearly 500 students from Central and Eastern Washington and North Idaho joined us, including one school that traveled nearly three hours to attend. To keep the momentum going and to serve the students of Western Washington, we’re excited to host our second "Creepy Crawly Complexity" ID Education Day in Tacoma on Thursday, November 6, from 9:30 am to 2:00 pm.

Their description:

This is a fantastic field trip opportunity for middle and high school students in homeschool and private school settings to interact directly with scientists and learn about the complexity and diversity of insects, spiders, and worms. Students will get to hear special presentations from philosopher of biology Paul Nelson on the miracle of butterfly metamorphosis and the complexity of the roundworm, biologist Pedro Moura on the phyla Arthropoda, Annelida, and Nematoda, and megadrilologist George Damoff on the elaborate design of the earthworm and its role in ecosystems.

(A megadrilologist is not a specialist in very large mechanical drills, but in earthworm biology). As we might expect

The goal of the event will be to introduce students to the concept of intelligent design, to share updates from the field of zoology, and to think critically about the evidence (or lack thereof) for Darwinian evolution. In the panel Q&A, students will be encouraged to engage with our presenters to discuss the implications of their presentations for culture and worldview, helping them develop critical thinking skills and (in many cases) bolster their faith.

I do not know what the admission cost might be, or the requirements for one’s background. The link for the course is here.

I wonder whether the presentations and arguments will get beyond "gosh, aren’t these beasts amazingly complex? How could that happen except by Design Intervention?"

Paul Nelson’s argument apparently goes a bit beyond that, being an argument that development of embryos implies that the developmental process has foresight into what further-developed forms will need. His argument is that this foresight could not be a property of natural selection, so Design Intervention is implied. On a creationist website he is quoted as saying that

If you have a biological system which requires foresight [such as metamorphosis], you can be sure evolution did not do it!

There was a similar argument in May at Evolution News (the previous name of Science & Culture) by David Klinghoffer (see my counterargument here), who has written a book publicizing the arguments of Richard Sternberg that when developmental processes seem to aim at an idealized form, that is impossible by normal evolutionary processes and implies that the development refers to a Platonic ideal form in an supernatural realm. It completely ignores the possibility that there is genetic variability for developmental processes, and the individuals that succeed in achieving function leave more genes to their descendants. Arguments like Sternberg’s and Nelson’s seem to be the new argument-du-jour of the DI. See also Eric Hedin’s recent post at Science & Culture along similar lines (here).

Nelson’s (and Sternberg’s) argument seems to be central to the new wave of "ID Education". Do the teachers mention the much simpler and more straightforward explanation using the ordinary processes of evolutionary biology? Why do I suspect that they don’t?

It is clear that the Discovery Institute is working to spread their arguments among home school curricula and in private schools that dismiss evolution. Should we suspect that they hope to spread their arguments into public schools? In the past, when they were accused of that, they disclaimed any such intention. For example, in 2005, they took the position, as Casey Luskin (posted at their website), that

It’s Constitutional But Not Smart to Teach Intelligent Design in Schools

The changes since 2005 have largely been in a far-right federal government coming to power, the Supreme Court majority allowing many blatant violations of the separation of church and state, and states with right-wing governments feeling empowered to plaster public-school classrooms with their favorite religious icons.

I would not be surprised if the Discovery Institute changed its tune. In which case, we will be seeing the new curriculum, coming soon to public-school classrooms near you.