Eugenie C. Scott

Eugenie Scott.

Eugenie Carol Scott (born October 24 1945) is an American physical anthropologist who has been the executive director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) since 1987. She is a leading critic of creationism and its offshoot, intelligent design.

Biography

Academic career

Scott grew up in Wisconsin and first become interested in anthropology after reading her sister's anthropology textbook. Scott received a BS and MS from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, followed by a PhD from the University of Missouri - Columbia. She joined the University of Kentucky as a physical anthropologist in 1974 and shortly thereafter attended a debate between her mentor James A. Gavan and the young earth creationist Duane Gish which piqued her interest in the creation-evolution controversy. She also taught at the University of Colorado and at California State University, Hayward. Her research work focused on medical anthropology and skeletal biology.

In 1980 Scott was at the forefront of a succesful attempt to prevent creationism from being taught in the public schools of Kentucky. From this grassroot effort in Kentucky and other states, the National Center for Science Education was formed in 1981. Scott was appointed the NCSE's executive director in 1987, the year in which teaching "creation science" in American public schools was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard.

Scott was elected to the California Academy of Sciences in 1994. She served as president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists from 2000 to 2002. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002 and was its chair. She is also a member of Sigma Xi.

Scott has received many awards from academic organisations. In 1999 she was awarded the Bruce Alberts Award by the American Society for Cell Biology. In 2001 she received the Geological Society of America's Public Service Award. She received the 2002 Public Service Award from the National Science Board for "her promotion of public understanding of the importance of science, the scientific method, and science education and the role of evolution in science education". In 2002 the American Institute of Biological Sciences awarded her the first Outstanding Service Award. Scott also received the 2002 Margaret Nicholson Distinguished Service Award from the California Science Teachers Association.

Scott has been awarded honorary degrees by McGill University in 2003, by Ohio State University in 2005 and by Mount Holyoke College in 2006. In 1993 the University of Missouri honored her as a distinguished alumna.

Scott and her husband, Thomas C. Sager, a lawyer, reside in Berkeley, California. They have one daughter.

Worldview

Scott was initially brought up in Christian Science by her mother and grandmother, but later switched to a Congregational church under the influence of her sister; she describes her background as liberal Protestant. Scott is now a secular humanist; in 1998 she received the American Humanist Association's Isaac Asimov Award in Science and in 2003 was one of the signers of the third humanist manifesto, Humanism and Its Aspirations. She is also a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. In 2003 she was awarded the "Defense of Science Award" from the Center for Inquiry for her "her tireless leadership in defending scientific evolution and educational freedom".

The NCSE is religiously neutral and has members who hold a variety of faith-based beliefs or no beliefs at all. Nevertheless, both Scott and the NCSE are criticized as being "atheistic" by creationist groups.

Authorship

Scott is widely considered to be a leading expert on creationism (including intelligent design), as well as one of its strongest opponents. Her book Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction was published by Greenwood Press in 2004 and then in paperback by the University of California Press in 2005. It has a foreword by Niles Eldredge.

She also co-edited with Glenn Branch the 2006 anthology Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design is Wrong for Our Schools.

Less seriously she has co-authored with Glenn Branch and Nick Matzke a 2004 paper on "The Morphology of Steve" in the Annals of Improbable Research which arose from the NCSE's Project Steve.

Media appearances

Scott says that her job "requires coping with science illiteracy in the American public". Journalist Joel Stein describes her job as "repeating [herself] and combating the willfully ignorant". In 2006 she was awarded the Anthropology in the Media Award by the American Anthropological Association for "the successful communication of anthropology to the general public through the media"..

Scott has been profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle, Stanford Medical Magazine, etc.

She has had interviews in Science & Theology News, CSICOP, Americans United, etc

She also acted as the education spokesperson for the 2001 PBS: Evolution TV series

Scott has taken part in numerous interviews on MSNBC and the Fox News Channel, debating various creationist and Intelligent Design advocates. On 29 November 2004, Scott debated astrophysicist Jason Lisle of Answers in Genesis on CNN. On May 6, 2005 Scott debated Stephen C. Meyer of the Discovery Institute, on The Big Story with John Gibson.

In 2004, the National Center for Science Education was represented by Scott on Penn and Teller's Showtime television show Bullshit!, on the episode titled "Creationism, on which Dr. Scott offered scientific views about the creationist and intelligent design movements. She noted "it would be unfair to tell students that there is a serious dispute going on among scientists whether evolution took place" because there is no such debate between scientists. She further noted that "a lot of the time the creationists... they'll search through scientific journals and try to pull out something they think demonstrates evolution doesn't work and there is a kind of interesting rationale behind it. Their theology is such that if one thing is wrong with the Bible you have to throw it all out so that's why Genesis has to be interpreted literally. They look at science the same way. If one little piece of the evolutionary puzzle doesn't fit the whole thing has to go." Scott then explained, "that's not the way science is done."

Church-state separation

In 2005, Scott and other NCSE staff served as scientific and educational consultants for the plantiffs in the monumental case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, which originated in Dover, PA. Judge John Jones ruled strongly against teaching intelligent design or creationism in the public schools.

Establishment clause of the US Constitution which separates church and state. Scott serves on the National Advisory Council of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and on the National Advisory Council of Americans for Religious Liberty. In 1999 Scott was awarded the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award for "for tirelessly defending the separation of church and state by ensuring that religious neutrality is maintained in the science curriculum of America's public schools", and in 2006 was one of the three judges chosen to make the awards.

California Wild Controversy

In 2005, Scott was party to a libel suit in which she was accused by Larry Caldwell of Quality Science Education for All of making false claims in an article published in California Wild, the magazine of the California Academy of Sciences. The points alleged to be false made by Scott were details not central to the subject and conclusions of the article, but Intelligent Design proponents characterized them as a "false smear" a "campaign of disinformation" and showing a "pattern of making false claims and character attacks" Although the suit did not name California Wild as a defendant, its editor, Keith Howell, agreed to remove the online link to Scott's article and to publish a letter from Caldwell as well as a letter from Scott containing corrections.

Scott's letter corrected mistakes in the article, principally that it was not Caldwell but an unidentified citizen who had submitted creationist books to the Roseville school board as had been reported, and that Caldwell ally Cornelius G. Hunter was the person described in the article by a scientist as having a "gross misunderstanding of the nature of science" in analyzing the Holt textbook. The letter also corrected the date of the Georgia evolution disclaimer and the spelling of Jonathan Sarfati's surname. The NCSE then published a version of the article showing the corrections.

External links

• NCSE page

Transcripts

• the science show - Eugenie Scott talking with Robyn Williams about Project Steve.