Neanderthal evolution

Intelligent design?

Photo borrowed from Billmon

August 5, 2005

President Bush’s recent assertion that public schools should teach intelligent design as well as evolution reintroduced a debate that has recently been confined to Kansas to the national scene. The Christian right can justifiably claim much of the credit for Bush’s electoral victory and 2004 and they have been lobbying all year for a return on their investment. There probably is not a socially conservative position that has met with more failure in the last 20 years than introducing creationism to public school children. Consequently, the religious right has cleverly repackaged the idea as “intelligent design,” which is creationism wrapped in a white jacket and glasses. With this newer, hipper creationism, America's mullahs are once again emboldened to challenge the theory of evolution, which they incorrectly perceive as incompatible with Christianity.

MYTH:  Evolution is bad science; public education needs to embrace intelligent design

Desperate to shut down debate that exposes their evolutionary theory as unsustainable conjecture, the Darwinists are using the incantations of an ideology they call science and the power of law to prevent the teaching of any concepts besides random variation and natural selection…

But Schonborn's point -- and this is what really unnerves them -- is that evolutionary theory is bad science, a misreading of nature, and that those who build theories on the basis of it are engaged in an ideological project…

-- George Neumayr, The Monkey Wrench, American Spectator, 07/29/05

REALITY

But the assertion that evolution is “a bankrupt theory” is not simply intellectually dishonest; it’s just dishonest. According to the National Academy of Sciences, “The theory of evolution has become the central unifying concept of biology and is a critical component of many related scientific disciplines. Since the National Academy of Science clearly has a liberal bias, maybe the true believers would find Charles Krauthammer’s comments more persuasive:  “Evolution is one of the most powerful and elegant theories in all of human science and the bedrock of all modern biology.” 

Much of the criticism of evolutionary teaching is that science teachers present this scientific “theory” as a fact. If evolution is not a fact, creationists/intelligent designers argue, then it should not be taught as such. This criticism ignores two crucial facts:  1) the notion of evolution refers both to an observable occurrence and to the mechanism by which nature evolved, and 2) Science uses the term "theory" differently than it is used in the general vernacular.  Evolution as a historical occurrence is a scientific fact. Evolution as a description of how life has evolved is a theory. According to renowned scientist Stephen Gould, “Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory--natural selection--to explain the mechanism of evolution”.

So clearly, evolution as a historical occurrence is fact and, therefore, must be taught in science classes. But what about this “theory,” natural selection?  Why must our school children be subjected to a theory that offends the religions of their parents? Because, as the Natural Academy of Science notes, “theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection."  Theories are not in competition with facts. Theories are systems of ideas that attempt to explain the facts at hand, so it is incoherent to compare theories to facts.  Furthermore, there are no truths in science, as there are in logic or mathematics, because science is not abstract; it is an empirical discipline. In summary, a theory is as powerful an idea as there is in science.

MYTH:  Teaching intelligent design is about exposing students to different ideas and empowering them to make critical evaluations. Darwinists are now the practitioners of intolerance

I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.

-- President Bush, Fox News, 08/01/05

While the evolutionists continue their tired celebrations of the Scopes trial, they glance anxiously over their shoulders. They are running scared, and as the list of scientists and thinkers who dissent from Darwinism grows -- the Discovery Institute lists hundreds of scientists who now regard it as an intellectually bankrupt theory -- the evolutionists will increasingly mirror the intolerance they used to bemoan.

-- George Neumayr, The Monkey Wrench, American Spectator, 07/29/05

REALITY

From a distance, this issue appears to be a traditional separation of church and state issue. You might expect to hear debates about whether the Constitution allows the public school system to advance a religious theory. In actuality, intelligent design supporters do not want to engage in this discussion because it undermines their argument that intelligent design is a science. According to intelligent designers, there are inconsistencies in evolutionary theory and that which is unexplained must be attributable to a higher power. Their argument is essentially that simple. Now, it is worth noting that scores of accepted scientific theories have gaps and, therefore, evolution cannot be debunked merely by pointing out gaps in the theory (many scientists refute whether gaps exist in the first place). But more importantly, while exposing gaps in evolution is a scientific exercise, plugging those gaps with divinity is not. The moment that an anti-evolutionist appeals to faith to plug the gaps of evolution, he/she ceases to be practicing science.    

Intelligent design is a religious theory; therefore, introducing intelligent design into public school curriculums is an affront to science and to public education. Science teachers should not be encouraged, allowed, or especially forced to give equal time to unscientific theories. Science class is reserved for learning the execution and importance of empirical study. Even if one believes that religion should be taught in public schools, he/she cannot credibly argue that religion should be taught in science class. There is nothing wrong with theological attempts to understand the material world, but when religious leaders attempt to label religious theories as scientific ones, that is a problem.