Etzioni replies to my harsh criticisms.

You may recall that Etzioni baldly claimed that "no fact about evolution is the result of an experiment" and "And by the way, the scientists that claim that they conducted experiments to prove their point? They didn’t." I said the man was a phony, a fraud, and a fool, since those claims are completely wrong, and the only way anyone could make them is if they were utterly oblivious to what has been going on in biology for the past century.

Here's his new defense:

I asked why not use the comparison between evolution and intelligent design, in science classes, to show students the difference between a theory supported by scientific facts and those that are not? When I was a student, granted a long time ago, we were told that there were those who BELIEVED in flat earth theory (which was promoted by the Church), and then we were asked to view ships coming in over the horizon. It was noted that if the earth was flat, the ships would look small but all of their parts would show. However, given the earth's curve, we first see the smokestacks, then the upper deck, and so on. Other observable data were provided. We thus learned not only that the earth was round but also that some theories, promoted by true believers, are without scientific merit. Why not accept the challenge in this case?

Note that there are several peculiarities here that reinforce my earlier assessment of his knowledge of science.

• With few exceptions, no educated person has promoted the idea of a flat earth since at least the third century, and the earth was observed to be round at least as early as the sixth century B.C. I doubt that Dr Etzioni is almost 3,000 years old, or even 1,800 years old.
• After dismissing evolution with the false claim that there are no experiments in the field (hmmm, didn't I just post a summary of some experiments?), his instructive example, a piece of evidence for a round earth, is not an experiment. It's an observation. At least it's good to see he can occasionally escape his naive and narrow understanding of how science is done.
• I can offer a perfectly analogous example of evidence for evolution, one that was provided in the 19th century. When we observe the distribution of fossils preserved in the rocks, we see a succession of novel forms. The earth has a long history of continuous change, well documented and consistent in its observed patterns. Dr Etzioni might want to talk to some school children—there are always a few who can rattle off lists of dinosaurs and their geological ages.
• These kinds of examples of the evidence for evolution are everywhere, and can be found in long lists on the web. We go over them again and again. When someone asks us, we happily reply with all kinds of examples—at a meeting where the invited speaker failed to show up, I was once asked to give an impromptu one-hour lecture on evo-devo to a group of students. It was no problem. Of course, when someone doesn't ask, but instead announces, against all reason and in defiance of whole libraries full of documentation, that there is no experimental evidence for evolution, we're also smart enough to know that he isn't looking for explanations. He's asking for an ass-kicking.
• Good science teaching is done by critical examination of the evidence. If Dr Etzioni had taken any science courses, or read any of the popular books on evolution, he would know this. Science classes are not about telling students to memorize dogma—we leave that to the Sunday schools,.
• If Dr Etzioni were ever to look in on a geology class, he'd learn that they might (but not necessarily) spend a little time discussing the history of the discipline, and they may briefly mention the idea of a flat earth or a young earth as a quaint and thoroughly outmoded concept. Similarly, I spent a little time in my genetics class discussing the old idea of pangenesis. What is appropriate is to briefly mention antiquated ideas and move on to more productive and informative discussions of our current understanding of the world. I could easily spend more time trashing garbage ideas like creationism, but that isn't what the ID crowd is asking for: they want it treated respectfully, as a serious and useful way to study science. It isn't.

That last point is an important one. Look at what the Intelligent Design creationists all demand. Two things: 1) critical examination of flaws in evolutionary theory, and 2) instruction in their favored hypothesis, Intelligent Design. The first is superfluous, as we already provide it, as well as we can—it's difficult to provide intelligent criticism if you don't understand the ideas in the first place, as creationists and Etzioni have shown us, so we do have to invest a fair amount of effort in getting the basic ideas across before we start on the missing or flawed bits of the story. The second is notable because of what they don't demand: critical examination of the flaws of ID. If some problems in evolution (which, I've noticed, none of these guys ever mention—they always bring up wacky stupid nonsense which is not a problem) leave them so distressed that they have to politic for relief, they ought to be even more irate at the glaring deficiencies of the Intelligent Design hypothesis.

They want to "teach the controversy." OK, let's be honest about it then, and mandate a new teaching standard:

Students will learn about the serious, unrecoverable flaws in hypotheses that purport to explain life's history by invoking supernatural beings or unobserved extraterrestrials. The strengths of and support for the theory of evolution, which has superseded them, will be explained in the context of the scientific method, the use of observation skills, and an appreciation for the rules of logic and evidence.

That's one way to get Intelligent Design creationism into the curriculum that I could support.

In many ways, the reason we don't talk about creationism much in science classes is for the same reason we avoid talking about religion in the schools. It's a strategy to protect old superstitions from the kind of shredding they would get if they were treated as serious academic subject.

(EvolutionBlog weighs in on Etzioni, too.)