Re: [asa] The term Darwinism

Ted, it seems to me that there was once an "official" (or at least very close to official) ASA view on evolution - the view presented in the "Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy" booklet put out by the ASA in the mid 80s. I have a copy, as do others on this listserv, I'm sure.

The section on human evolution is completely centered on what it feels is the paucity of the evidence of the time (and, one can argue, was overly selective and misleading even at the time of its printing). The ASA has issued nothing since, so, for better or for worse this booklet stands as the last "official" word of the ASA on the matter, now some 20+ years out of date.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the possibility of another such "semi-official" booklet coming out in the future, or whether you think the climate within the ASA is such that such a publication is no longer possible. Also, if anyone has enough institutional memory, I'd be interested in hearing about the discussions leading up to the decision to publish TSCC in the first place.

Dennis

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Ted comments:

Gregory, I apologize for seeming to make a trivial point. There may well be some people *in* ASA who would take this suggestion, whether or not they are active here. There may be others who will not, whether or not they are active here. But no one *at* ASA will respond, insofar as the ASA as an organization has no view on this. Our members probably differ on this. I as president and Randy as our CEO are free to state our views as individuals, but on something like this neither of us speaks for the ASA. No one does. In that we differ quite markedly from TDI. A person could belong to both organizations (ASA and TDI), obviously -- indeed, one of our Council members (Bob Kaita) is a fellow of TDI, but the organizations have very different purposes.

I don't mean to imply, by the way, that you had deliberately chosen your words to say "at ASA" rather than "in ASA." I am guessing that you didn't. I simply want to note this for the benefit of readers who might not be aware of the subtleties here.

Ted

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Received on Mon Jul 6 14:48:03 2009