Edward Sisson, Esq., during his concluding remarks at last evening’s Great Debate concerning the teaching of intelligent design in public schools argued that a great number of mainstream science textbooks permit a reading compatible with Intelligent Design. To that end, he appealed to the undergraduates in the audience by presenting a quote from the book Biodiversity, specifically from the custom edition printed especially for students of CC106: “A recent revival of the anti-evolutionary ‘argument from design’ holds that biochemical pathways are too complex to have evolved, because all intermediate steps in a given pathway must be present to produce the final product. Critique this argument,” (p.105: Campbell ‘ Reece, 2002).

This selective reading of the text may have been misleading. Neither the textbook nor the information presented during lectures by the faculty offer support for Creationism, irreducible complexity, sudden emergence theory or other mechanisms collectively referred to as Intelligent Design. The primary unifying concept of CC106 is the evolution of species by natural selection, a fact reflected in the title of the course: “Biodiversity and the Evolution of Life.” Zachary Bos Administrative Coordinator Core Curriculum Dr. John Finnerty Course Coordinator, CC106 Assistant Professor of Biology