Origin of Species edition’s intelligent design intro criticized

SASKATOON (CUP) — Students who received a free copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species on the University of Saskatchewan’s campus this month might be surprised to find an introduction by intelligent design proponent Ray Comfort.

On November 9, an unknown group handed out several copies to passers-by at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. The books are also being handed out at the University of Alberta on November 24.

Comfort and Living Waters Publications are targeting North American universities during November to give “future doctors, lawyers, and politicians [...] information about intelligent design,” according to their website. Intelligent design and creationism are beliefs opposed to Darwinian evolution, positing that a supernatural creator had an active hand in life on Earth.

Torien Cafferata, president of the U of S Freethought Alliance, a campus group for scientific integrity and secularism. He said he’s concerned that the books were handed out “in a weaselly kind of way.”

Steve Newton, public information project director for the California-based National Center for Science Education, said Comfort and supporters plan to distribute the books to 100 American universities on November 19 and 24, and to Canadian universities on November 24, the 150th anniversary of the first publication of On the Origin of Species.

Cafferata said he thinks they may have changed their plans due to pressure from secularist groups like the Freethought Alliance.

“They learned that a lot of secularists’ societies were planning a counteroffensive, like to celebrate evolution on that day. We were planning to find out where they were planning to release the book, then we would set up next to them and have all the supportive facts for evolution.”

Jose Andrés, an evolutionary biologist at the U of S, said that one of his issues with Comfort’s introduction in the Living Waters Publications version is that it’s inappropriate for the scientific topic of the book.

The introduction talks about religion and “solving life’s more important questions.”

“All of that has nothing to do, absolutely nothing to do, with the origin of the species or with any biological textbook,” Andrés said.

“It’s fine by me, and I’m happy to read that as the introduction to a religious book, but not as the introduction to a piece of work that has to do with science.”

In the version of Orgin of Species discussed for campus distribution on the Living Waters website, however, nothing has been removed from Darwin’s original work.

Warren Kirkland, the U of S Students’ Union president, echoed Anderson’s sentiments, saying anyone can hand things out on campus and that as long as they’re being respectful and no one has complained, it isn’t an issue.

“The University is about embracing different views and thoughts,” Kirkland said.

Cafferata said he’s most worried about the students who pick up the book and think Comfort has a valid argument against evolution.

Robert Luhn, director of communications for the National Center for Science Education, a group defending the teaching of evolution in public schools, argued that the introduction has “bad science, bad history and bad theology.”

“[Comfort] makes completely spurious claims," Luhn said. "There’s no transitional fossils? There are transitional fossils in museums all over the world.”