Last year, Portland State University graduate student Barbara
Shaw was in Powell’s, browsing the science section, when she saw
something odd.
“I noticed that there were a lot of these intelligent design books
in the evolution section,” says Shaw, who’s researching the evolution
of sloths, anteaters, and armadillos as she works on her Ph.D. “I took
one of each, and it was about a three-foot stack. I thought, this is
wrong.”
Books on intelligent design—or, the idea that “certain
features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an
intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural
selection,” according to the conservative Christian Discovery Institute
think tank, a leading proponent of the notion—shouldn’t be in the
science section, Shaw argues.
“They’re not science. Intelligent design by its very definition is
invoking supernatural powers,” she adds. The problem is, libraries and
bookstores use the Dewey Decimal or the Library of Congress’ systems to
shelve books, and both systems lump intelligent design books in with
science. A more appropriate Dewey Decimal location would be the
“science and religion” section, Shaw argues.
Indeed, the issue of whether intelligent design is science or
religion—and, specifically, whether it should be taught in public
school science curriculums—has been addressed in the federal
courts, with Judge John E. Jones III ruling in December 2005 that
intelligent design “cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and
thus religious, antecedents.”
After speaking with a friend who’s a Multnomah County
librarian—who was also running into confusion over how to shelve
books on intelligent design—Shaw and other graduate students
launched a petition calling on the Library of Congress to “to
re-classify [intelligent design] books into sections other than the
science section.” She plans to present the petition on “Darwin
Day”—Charles Darwin’s birthday—in February 2009. (In the
meantime, Shaw has heard there are “guerilla evolutionists” around the
country who sneak around libraries and bookstores, re-shelving
books.)
In the past few months, the petition—online at sciencea2z.com—has zipped around
scientists’ email lists, and racked up signatures from over 800
scientists, and over 600 “informed citizens.”