SOCIETY FOR AMATEUR SCIENTISTS
The Society for Amateur Scientists was founded to place the power,
process, and promise of science within reach of everyone. SAS links science
enthusiasts of all backgrounds and interests with world-class professional
scientists, to empower amateurs to take part in the great scientific debates
of our time as full members of the scientific community. Our mission is
two-fold: to advance science by bringing untapped talent into the field,
and to help create a more scientifically literate public.
The debate about teaching evolution and scientific creationism in the
public schools has raged for decades. Is it appropriate for an grass roots
science organization like ours to comment on this debate? Absolutely. The
Society for Amateur Scientists was founded to educate people about
how science works, what science tells us about our world, and how everyday
people can take an active part in fascinating scientific issues. Some participants
in this debate constantly distort science and misinform the public. Correcting
misunderstandings is clearly part of any educational mission.
But there is a deeper concern. Our democracy depends on an informed
and educated electorate. As science literacy suffers, so does our country.
This is truer today then ever before as the voting public is faced with
ever more technical issues about which they are asked to make informed
choices. By not opposing bad science whenever we can, SAS would be implicitly
aiding the forces of unreason to distort fundamental principles of science
in the public mind. We believe that it is vital that all scientific organizations,
including SAS, stand against bad science.
In the last 100 years, science has forged a profound understanding of
many different fields which bear on the question of our origin. Genetics,
astronomy, geology, paleontology, biology, physiology, anatomy and physics
all speak with one voice. The universe is ancient, perhaps 15 billion years
old. The earth too is ancient, perhaps 5 billion years old. And life is
ancient, perhaps 2 billion years old.
The evidence is abundant and irrefutable. Life has changed drastically
over earth's history. Since the first complex multi-cellular forms appeared
about 650 million years ago organisms have lived, died and adapted to their
environments through many violent upheavals on the planet. The one constant
has been the process of change itself-- of mutation and natural selection,
the hammer and anvil by which nature has sculpted her handiwork into the
imperfectly beautiful and intricate web of life that now covers the planet.
On the question of humanity, the data support only one conclusion--
humans arose like all other beings with which we share the earth; through
the random mutations altering our ancestors' bodies over eons, and natural
selection blindly and mercilessly cutting away the chaff. Evolution is
the great shaper of all life on earth.
Today, evolution is the unifying principle of biology. Nothing
makes sense without it. True, it remains a very active field of research
and many subtle and fascinating questions remain to be answered. However,
that life has adapted and changed through time is as well established as
the fact that the earth goes round the sun.
Evolution is science, and as such belongs in science classrooms. By
contrast scientific creationism just doesn't make the grade. None of the
arguments which scientific creationists make against evolution withstand
scrutiny and most were first refuted nearly a century ago. And the creationists
have never been able to marshal quality evidence that strongly supports
their ideas.
This statement was approved by our Board of Directors. Amateur scientists
are often fiercely independent, and some of our members do not accept evolution.
While the Board of Directors respects their views and values their input,
we wish to make it clear that SAS will never participate in creationist
research. However, we do not restrict our membership to avowed evolutionists.
As a scientific organization, we insist only that our members be willing
to consider any position that can be supported by empirical evidence. In
this we are quite unlike the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), the
primary promoter of Scientific Creationism in public school, which requires
its members to sign a statement attesting to their belief in the literal
truth of the Bible. ICR's agenda is religion concealed in the guise of
science. Their materials in particular have no place in a science classroom.
1994
Shawn Carlson, Ph.D.
Elizabeth Arsem
Paul MacCready, Ph.D.
Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.