Five years ago, a federal judge ruled that the teaching of “intelligent design” (ID) in public school science classes was unconstitutional. ID is usually presented as an alternative to Darwinian evolution, in that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.” In his ruling, Judge Jones held that ID is not science and “cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.” (For what it’s worth, Jones, a Republican and Lutheran, was appointed by President George W. Bush.)
The very concept of science was challenged in the case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, in which advocates of ID sought to fundamentally redefine science to include supernatural explanations, arguing that ID is a scientific theory under their new definition. Most scientists, seeing their role as trying to explain what was previously thought to be mysterious, would argue that supernatural explanations explain nothing, and that “unexplained” is not the same as “unexplainable.” “We don’t yet know, but we’re working on it,” is a better response than, “We don’t yet know, so it must be supernatural.”
Of ID’s many problems, I think the most blatant is that it’s a modern restating of the well-known (and trivial) “God of the Gaps” argument, that where there is a gap in scientific knowledge, it can only be filled with the acts of an Intelligent Designer. The refutation is pretty obvious: Since the Designer has to be smarter than the acts she/he/it performs, you’re simply substituting one gap in knowledge with another, the riddle of what or who created the Designer.
Here are some of the conventional yardsticks for a theory to be judged “scientific”:
Consistent (gravity works the same here as in a distant galaxy, today and next year)
Parsimonious (the explanation has to be simpler than what it’s explaining)
Predictive (you can test the theory by predicting the results of future experiments)
Falsifiable (if the theory is wrong, this can be shown by observation or experiment — see photo)
Correctable (it can be modified in the light of observations that do not support it)
Progressive (it refines previous theories — Einstein’s relativity is more accurate than Newton’s gravity)
Provisional (it does not assert certainty, reminding us that science is a process, not a set of beliefs)
The more of these criteria a theory meets, the more scientific it is. And if, like ID, it meets none, that’s not science, that’s religion. And if you teach it as science in a public school, you’re in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Coming from the UK, where the monarch is officially the Defender of the (Anglican) Faith, Barry Evans (barryevans9@yahoo.com) thinks the separation of church and state is pure genius.
This article appears in Fifth and Goals.
Well said…and well done, Barry. I’d like to add a little bit to that, if you don’t mind. It might help some of your readers put things in context.
Most people don’t realize that ‘Intelligent Design’ was invented to serve as a political strategy… NOT as ‘science’. Its expressly-stated purpose is to undermine science education and to sabotage science (which the ID-inventors refer to as ‘methodological naturalism’) itself. All of this can be ascertained by reading the foundational document of Intelligent Design… the ‘Wedge Strategy’. It is also informative to Google for Barbara Forrest’s article/book, "Creationism’s Trojan Horse."
It is also worthwhile to be aware of the typical man-in-the-street’s basic (mis)understanding of ‘science’, wherein a ‘theory’ is a half-baked idea which… if and when it gets ‘proven’… grows-up to become a ‘law’ of science.
First… theories DO NOT grow-up to become ‘laws’… EVER. A so-called ‘law’… apart from having a bad choice of names… is generally a consistent mathematical relationship which we’ve been fortunate enough to NOTICE, in nature.
Next… theories do not get ‘proven’… EVER. ‘Proof’ is for logicians, mathematicians, coin collectors, and distillers and brewers of alcoholic beverages… NOT for scientists. In science, proof is applicable in the negative sense, only; i.e., scientists design experiments in an attempt to prove that their theories and hypotheses are WRONG. NOT being wrong ‘proves’ nothing… it merely increases confidence that they are on the right track.
A useful and reliable ‘theory’ is the highest level of scientific achievement, occupying a MUCH higher level of importance than mere ‘facts’…. and theories do not make-up facts… theories EXPLAIN facts. Take biological ‘evolution’, for example. The genetic makeup of populations of creatures/organisms changes, over time. That is a ‘fact’… one that is undisputed within the scientific community. There’s a word for ‘changes, over time’: evolves. So… that is the FACT of biological evolution… the genetic makeup of POPULATIONS of creatures/organisms (the GENE POOL) changes, over time (evolves). The ‘THEORY of Evolution’ EXPLAINS the FACT of biological evolution… it tells us HOW the genetic makeup of POPULATIONS of creatures/organisms (the GENE POOL) changes, over time (evolves).
To reinforce what Barry said… "God did it" explains nothing.
I find no fault in the presentation of this subject. The problem is that nowhere in all the definitons and general statements is there anything that can show the origin of anything, especially the origin of any specified species. Nowhere in any discussions or in everyday life has it been shown that the progeny of a defined species is not the same species of its parents.
I am not defending Intelligence Design but I am hoping the evolutionists could present their case in a more intelligent manner. And before they attempt to explain natural selection they should realize that selection requires intelligence. James E Gambrell
So, how did life begin, in the first place?
What was there, before there was a “there?”
Just wondering . . .