Mark Souder: “on June 1, I received a letter that was written by seven members of the biology department and one professor of…”

“on June 1, I received a letter that was written by seven members of the biology department and one professor of psychology from Baylor University in response to my co-hosting a recent conference on intelligent design, the theory that an intelligent agency can be detected in nature, sponsored by the Discovery Institute. The professors denounced intelligent design as pseudo science and advocated what is bluntly called the materialistic approach to science. Mr. Speaker, I am appalled that any university seeking to discover truth, yet alone a university that is a Baptist Christian school, could make the kinds of statements that are contained in this letter. Is there position on teaching about materialistic science so weak that it cannot withstand scrutiny and debate? Intelligent design theory is upheld by the same kind of data and analysis as any other theory to determine whether an event is caused by natural or intelligent causes; just as a detective relies on evidence to decide whether a death was natural or murder, and an insurance company relies on evidence to decide whether a fire is an accident or arson. A scientist looking at, say, the structure of a DNA molecule goes through exactly the same reasoning to decide whether the DNA code is the result of natural causes or an intelligent agent. Today, qualified scientists are reaching the conclusion that design theory makes better sense of the data.”