Results of The Four Day Petition:

7733 Scientists Agree on:

A Scientific Support For Darwinism
And For Public Schools Not To
Teach Intelligent Design As Science

The Four Day Petition, whose name A Scientific Support For Darwinism is an allegorical reference to the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, a petition that took four years to generate just over 400 signatories. This project, The Four Day Petition, ran from Sept 28th , 2005 to October 1st , 2005. R. Joe organized the Four Day Petition with no outside funding or professional societies assistance and generated 7,732 verified signatories of concerned scientists, all by word of mouth (well e-mail actually). Of those signatories 6,965 are US residents including 4066 with a PhD. Please note - The corrected entries have not yet been placed in this online database and therefore you may see some duplicates still on this web site.

My genuine thanks to the thousands of you who felt strongly enough about this petitions statement to make the time during those four days to pass the word onto your personal network of peers. The response to your efforts was tremendous. Your efforts resulted in a response 1809% higher than the Discovery Institutes at a rate 697,000% faster. It is also interesting to note that the Discovery Institute budget is $4,000,000 a year while mine is, well non existent J These results are not bad my friends, not bad at all.

In the week following the Four Day Petition an additional 3,000-4,000 names were added, however these numbers are not being included as part of the official tally for the Amicus curiae brief. At this point I will be taking down the link for signing the petition.

The first Press Release about this petition was sent to PrNewsWire on Oct 21st.

You can read the original PRESS RELEASE on PrNewsWire.

Information about this important petition was cut from a story the NY Times ran Feb 21st Few Biologists but Many Evangelicals Sign Anti-Evolution Petition. Fortunately many of you signatories contacted the editor Kenneth Chang and he add a discussion on this petition in his Q&A section.  While Kenneth was aware of this petition he could never clarify why he felt the need to cut it from his online article.

Your help is still needed This petition is funded solely by myself with no professional organizations support. If you would like to help see this petition be released as a national press release please contribute a couple of bucks using this link below. The commercial press release companies charge $500-$1500 and as this is outside my field of expertise I would need to use one of these. In addition funds are needed for future legal documents, etc... If you are uncomfortable sending money electronically I can be reached via mail at: R. Joe/Shovel Bums LLC PMB 121 1215 Polaris Parkway Columbus, Oh 43240 Please consider chipping in a few bucks.

 

* This petition is organized, funded, and run solely by the founder of Shovel Bums, R. Joe. It has no outside affiliation or funding.
* Your personal information is not resold or distributed
* The Discovery Institute took four years to get 400 professionals signatures opposing Darwinism!
* The Four Day Petition received over 325 signatures in its first 4 hours.
* I need volunteers to help scan the list for duplicate & fake entries . Thanks to all who have volunteered! I have plenty now and will be contacting them ASAP.
* I need quotes immediately for the press release about this petition from notables in related fields. If you are, or are in contact with, someone appropriate please point them towards this page and them contact me.
* Click Here to find out why I used the politically loaded term "Darwinism" instead of "Evolution" in the title.
* Click Here to view the final petition entries

Graph by Mark Siddall showing the rate of signatures on the petition.

What Happens Now? The official version of the petition that will be presented to the media in a press release this coming week and submitted as an Amicus curiae legal document if any future Intelligent Design court battles occurs is officially cut off of 4:09PM Oct 1st, 2005. However because of the popularity of this petition I will not be shutting it down. Instead, after the final tally is made there will be a link to that official document here. On this page the entry form for the petition will stay active as a running tally and public display of our concerns.

I need to stress that this petition does not mean that scientific issues are decided by majority vote. For example NCSE rarely promotes such petitions that rely for their effect on sheer number. In a situation such as having locals sign a petition about a local issue a petition is useful, numbers matter there; but trying to amass a huge pile of signatures from various people makes it seem as though these issues should be decided by majority vote. What this petition does show is that this statement is the consensus of informed scientific opinion. Our media, which is oddly portrayed as liberal by the conservative media, a catch 22 if there ever was one, often overlooks the huge consensus of scientists against the presentation of "intelligent design" as fact in the science classroom: That's what these signatories represent.

So sign the petition today and keep spreading the word about this petition among your professional peers , any relevant mailing lists you might be on, and appropriate web sites & Blogs! Just cut and past this link in your e-mail:

What I do need from you is to continue sharing the link for this page (below) with your peers, students, professors. These people need to see this illustration of the fact that they are not alone in their views and the rest of the scientific community stands with them.

http://shovelbums.org/component/option,com_mospetition/Itemid,506/

The Petition A Scientific Support For Darwinism And For Public Schools Not To Teach "Intelligent Design" As Science This petition is in response to the Discovery Institute's petition "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" signed, since 2001, by 400 scientists, as of July 2005. That petition is presented to t he public as a scientific endorsement of the religion-based concept of Intelligent Design over Darwinism (read more). Unfortunately, the majority, 83%, of these "scientists" are not schooled in the fields that utilize evolutionary theory in detail, nor even in science, and they are not qualified to present their ideas in a way other than personal opinion. We feel this petition is misleading the public, and we use this petition to show that: Our Petition "We, as scientists trained in fields that utilize evolutionary theory, do not consider Intelligent Design to be a fact-based science appropriate for teaching in public schools because it is theistic in nature, not empirical, and therefore does not pass the rigors of scientific hypothesis testing and theory development. As such, we petition that Intelligent Design not be presented in public schools as a viable science within the scientific curriculum." This petition does not represent an atheistic or exclusionary scientific school of thought, and we do not endorse Intelligent Design, or other religious subjects, being prohibited from discussion in the appropriate classroom setting. Indeed many of us belong to religious denominations, and we respect and support individuals' rights to put evolution, the origins of the universe, and life, into a context that they understand as defined by their religion. Science, however, is not designed to explain or debunk religious concepts that are based in faith, and, as such, religion-based concepts should not be taught as science. If you are a concerned scientist, anthropologist, archaeologist, etc., I appreciate you making the time to sign this petition. Where will the petition go? After four days (as a metaphor for the four years it took for the Discovery Institute's petition) I will print off a copy of this list and be sending it to the judge of the Dover, PA ID case. The judge of course will not be able to consider it because it was not submitted as an Amicus curiae brief prior to the trial, but simultaneous to the submission to the court I will be notifying the media of this petitions existence (with your help). If the case goes to the Supreme Court I will then submit the petition following proper procedures. If you run a related web site/blog/mailing list you can help our by linking to this petition page. If you have any ideas or suggestions for how to best use this petition please contact me here Petition Closed You can view the official results of the Four Day Petition Here. petition_against_id_as_science.pdf   Click Here To Sign The Petition

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