Eugenie Carol Scott (born October 24, 1945) is an American physical anthropologist who has been active in opposing the teaching of young Earth creationism and intelligent design in schools. She coined the term "Gish gallop" to describe a fallacious rhetorical technique of overwhelming an interlocutor with as many individually weak arguments as possible, in order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument.
From 1986 to 2014, Scott served as the executive director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit science education organization supporting teaching of evolutionary science. Since 2013, Scott has been listed on their advisory council.
Scott serves on the Board of Trustees of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Scott is a member of the Board of Advisers for the publication, Scientific American. She is also a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) and GWUP.
Scott was born in 1945 in La Crosse, Wisconsin. She grew up in Wisconsin and first became interested in anthropology after reading her sister's anthropology textbook. She was raised in Christian Science but later joined a Congregational church.
Scott received a B.S. in 1967 and an M.S. in 1968 from the University of WisconsinâÂÂMilwaukee. She was an instructor in anthropology at California State College at Hayward from 1968 to 1970, then received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Missouri in 1974. She developed an interest in creationism in 1971 while a graduate student, and became fascinated with creation science literature. Her thesis at Missouri was titled, "Dental Evolution in Pre-Columbian Coastal Peru".
Scott's research work focused on medical anthropology, and skeletal biology. In 1970, Scott became an associate professor of anthropology at Sonoma State College. She then left the college and worked as a teaching assistant in anthropology at the University of Missouri from 1971 to 1974.
In 1974, Scott joined the faculty of the University of Kentucky as an assistant professor of anthropology. That same year, she attended a debate between her doctoral advisor, James Gavan, and biochemist creationist Duane Gish which piqued her interest in the creationâÂÂevolution controversy. She recalled that, after the debate, "we were greatly dismayed [...] The scientist talked science, and the creationist connected to the audience and told good jokes and was really personable. And presented a lot of really bad science". The event made her realize that creationism was "a movement that could have really serious consequences for science and science education".
In 1980, Scott worked to prevent creationism from being taught in the public schools of Lexington, Kentucky. Scott was appointed the executive director of the National Center for Science Education in 1987, the year in which requiring the teaching of creation science in American public schools was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard. Scott announced that she would be retiring from this position by the end of 2013, doing so on 6 January 2014. Her place was taken by Ann Reid.
Scott is a secular humanist and describes herself as a nontheist. In 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that, "Scott describes herself as atheist but does not discount the importance of spirituality." In 2003, she was one of the signatories to the third humanist manifesto, Humanism and Its Aspirations.
Scott is an expert on creationism and intelligent design. Her book Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction was published by Greenwood Press in 2004 and then in paperback by the University of California Press in 2005. Niles Eldredge wrote the foreword in the first edition. A second edition of the book was published in 2008 and in paperback in 2009. The foreword to this edition was written by John E. Jones III, who was the presiding judge in the Kitzmiller v. Dover court case.
She co-edited with Glenn Branch the 2006 anthology '.
In 2006 Jon D. Miller, Scott and Shinji Okamoto had a brief article published in Science entitled "Public Acceptance of Evolution", an analysis of polling on the acceptance of evolution from the last 20 years in the United States and compared to other countries. Turkey had the lowest acceptance of evolution in the survey, with the United States having the next-lowest, though the authors saw a positive in the higher percentage of Americans who are unsure about evolution, and therefore "reachable" for evolution.
Scott described herself as "Darwin's golden retriever".
Scott has been profiled in The New York Times, Scientific American, The Scientist, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Stanford Medical Magazine. She has been interviewed for Science & Theology News, CSICOP, Church & State, and Point of Inquiry. Her commentary has been published by Science & Theology News, and Metanexus Institute.
Scott has taken part in numerous debates on MSNBC and Fox News.
In 2004, Scott represented the National Center for Science Education on the Showtime television show ', on the episode titled "Creationism", where she offered philosophical views about the creationist and intelligent design movements.
In 2005, Scott and other NCSE staff served as scientific and educational consultants for the plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case regarding the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. Judge John Jones ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. Scott said that "we won decisively" and "in triplicate", and "we had the better case." About the merits of the case, she said, "Within evolutionary biology, we argue about the details... and the mechanisms," but "we don't argue about whether living things descended with modification from common ancestors, which is what biological evolution is all about.... The Dover School Board wanted students to doubt whether evolution had taken place."
As of 2023 Scott has been the recipient of 10 honorary degrees.
Scott's husband, Thomas C. Sager, is a lawyer. They have one daughter and reside in Berkeley, California.
Scott is a backyard beekeeper with two beehives, and is interested in colony collapse disorder and an advocate of amateur beekeeping.