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Concept
Santorum Amendment
Summary
The Santorum Amendment was a failed proposed amendment to the 2001 education funding bill (which became known as the No Child Left Behind Act) that promoted the teaching of intelligent design while questioning the academic standing of evolution in US public schools. (It was proposed by Republican Rick Santorum (then a United States Senator for Pennsylvania.) In response, a coalition of 96 scientific and educational organizations wrote a letter to the conference committee, urging that the amendment be stricken from the final bill and arguing that evolution is regarded as fact in the scientific fields and that the amendment creates the misperception of evolution not being fully accepted in the scientific community and thus weakening science education. The words of the amendment survive in modified form in the bill's conference committee report but do not carry the weight of law. As one of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns it became a cornerstone in the intelligent design movement's "teach the controversy" campaign.
The origin of the amendment can be traced back to 2000, when leading intelligent design (ID) proponents through the Discovery Institute,
a conservative Christian think tank that is the hub of the intelligent design movement, held a congressional briefing in Washington, D.C., to promote their agenda to lawmakers. Sen. Rick Santorum was one of intelligent design's most vocal supporters on Capitol Hill.
One result of this briefing was that in 2001 Senator Santorum proposed incorporating pro-intelligent design language, crafted in part by the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, into the No Child Left Behind bill. It portrayed evolution as generating "much continuing controversy" and not widely accepted, using the Discovery Institute's Teach The Controversy method.
In proposing the amendment, Santorum addressed the Congress:
Santorum then went on to quote David DeWolf, a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, as how the Institute's agenda was justified and would benefit students.
Official source
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