Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (French: (le) conseil de recherches en sciences humaine en Canada) (SSHRC/CRSH) is a Canadian federal agency which supports university-based training and research and training in the humanities and social sciences. It was formed in 1977.
Intelligent Design Controversy
In 2006 Brian Alters was denied funding for a research project into the negative effects of the intelligent design movement in Canada by the SSHRC. The SSHRC reason for the rejection included the statement that "Nor did the committee consider that there was adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of Evolution, and not Intelligent Design theory, was correct." This was reported in Nature and by the NCSE. Alters spoke about it in an interview that was published in the magazine Humanist Perspectives. In the same issue of the magazine can be found other contributions regarding this controversy. Since the controversy has never been resolved, Humanist Perspectives has continued to follow events through several issues and has now devoted an entire webpage to the affair.
The Skeptical Inquirer published a recent review of the controversy in its Jan./Feb. 2008 issue .
On April 11, 2006 SSHRC issued its own statement regarding the Alters' incident. It has now been removed from SSHRC's website, but can be found here .
SSHRC acknowledged that the committee statement was poorly formulated but offered no clarification. Brian Alters requested such a clarification, but the request as gone unanswered .

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