Given the discussion that’s been going on around the Acton site over the last week or so,I’m pointing out this timely piece (now archived) in yesterday’s St. Paul Pioneer Press, co-written by Todd Flanders, an Acton adjunct scholar and headmaster of Providence Academy. Flanders’ co-author is Dr. Yvonne Boldt, chair of the science department at the academy.

In “The origin of the biology debate Intelligent design movement says the science isn’t settled on how life is shaped,” (now archived) Flanders and Boldt ask some critical questions, “Should students be led to assume that science demands philosophical materialism? Should students be led to assume that science is settled in favor of randomness and dumb accident in the origins of life?”

In regard to the Darwinist/Intelligent Design controversy, they ask, “why should schools, indeed public schools, not teach this academic dispute? Should educators insist that dominant theories be immune from criticism, much as in an earlier time the Inquisition insisted against Galileo? Surely, in science education first and foremost, the notion that you can’t use evidence to criticize is a bad idea.”