Resumen de Teaching evolution at A-level: is "intelligent design" a scientific theory that merits inclusion in the biology syllabus?

Peter Freeland

• Charles Darwin supposed that evolution involved a process of gradual change, generated randomly, with the selection and retention over many generations of survival-promoting features. Some theists have never accepted this idea. `lntelligent design' is a relatively recent theory, supposedly based on scientific evidence, which attempts to refute Darwin's ideas. But neither its basic claim of'irreducib|e complexity', nor its supposition that nature shows universal evidence of `intelligent design', can be supported by scientific evidence. For that reason it should not form a part of the science curriculum in any school.