You may have heard about a petition that was being signed by scientists earlier this month against the teaching of intelligent design. The inspiration came from another petition drafted by the Discovery Institute opposing evolution. It garnered 400 signatures of scientists in four years. R. Joe Brandon, an archaeologist, decided to see how many signatures he could get from scientists in just four days by spreading the word from hisweb site.
The answer: 7,733.
“During my short, four-day experiment, I received about 20 times as many signatures at a rate 690,000% higher than what the Discovery Institute can claim,” Brandon said in a statement.
Given the many scientific societies that have vouched to the importance of evolution, this result was no big surprise. But a fresh illustration never hurts.
Originally published October 24, 2005. Copyright 2005 Carl Zimmer.