Nancy smiled. “OK, I’m with you. No Intelligent Design in the biology curriculum for now. But this whole issue makes me think that our science faculty needs to be better prepared to answer questions from parents and students about the topic. Since you’ve already done some of the homework, could I convince you to take a little summer stipend for your trouble and give a professional development presentation to the science faculty in August? I think it would be great if you took an in-depth look at one specific claim of Intelligent Design, explained it really well from its supporters’ point of view, and then gave a clear presentation of the criticism of it from the scientific community’s point of view. How about tackling that flagellum thing? It came up all the time when I was surfing the web.”
Nicole agreed. Who couldn’t use a little extra spending money on a teacher’s salary? Plus, she loved microbiology and molecular biology in college, so the flagellum topic was right up her alley. “Sure, I’ll do it,” she said. “Just make sure there’s plenty of coffee and doughnuts for my colleagues when I present. Full stomachs make for happy listeners.”
Research the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum and the criticisms of these claims. Include a conclusion that describes any predictions that Intelligent Design makes on this topic, and describe an experiment that could confirm or nullify the Intelligent Design hypothesis. Report your findings as an oral presentation using visual aids to enhance your communication process. Be sure to provide enough background for the audience to understand the context of the argument—for example, it would be important to include a discussion of the structure of the bacterial flagellum.
The following are just a few of the many resources available on the Internet.
For information on the structure of a bacterial flagellum, see:
For Michael Behe’s argument, see:
For the views of a critic, see:
Originally published at http://www.sciencecases.org/id/id4.asp
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