Because of the debate that is going on about intelligent design I was wondering what Stephen Jay Gould, the famous paleontologist, would say about it. Then I recalled a letter I had published in Time Magazine in September 1999. The letter addressed a similar debate going on while Gould was alive. It was about the first time the Kansas board of education was thinking about whether to remove evolution from the curriculum:
"Stephen Jay Gould, in his viewpoint on the decision of the Kansas board of education to remove evolution from the state's science curriculum [Aug. 23], stated that we should be embarrassed by those who want to suppress the teaching of evolution. Nevertheless, we should be grateful to the Kansas board for the service it has rendered. It has instigated a debate in which we evolutionists can re-examine and reaffirm our beliefs and, in the process, educate. The controversy reminds us that America's greatness doesn't necessarily lie in the country's beliefs but in the discourse about them".
I think the same holds true with the present day debate .
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