Intelligent Design

One of those pesky and always divisive issues has popped up this week. Earlier this week President Bush weighed in on Intelligent Design's place in schools. He told a group of Texas reporters that Intelligent Design (ID) ought to be discussed. Every article on the matter then shows Bush equivocating on ths issue, "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." Not exactly a ringing endorsement if merely for the sake of "discussion," but is discussion really the goal of Evangelical groups attempting to wedge ID into biology classes?

Before answering this question, it is important to first decide exactly what ID is. William Dembski, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute (the source of the wedge strategy), sums up the fundamental claim of ID as the belief that, "there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence." Sounds like a great idea to me. One that would be very interesting to discuss. But discussion is not the real question. In my opinion just about everything should be discussed, but that does not mean it should be taught or considered science.

If ID had a wealth of published material and data (which it does not) and was attempting to engage the scientific community through, well, science, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it. In fact one of the strongest claims against ID is that it has not been published in any peer reviewed scientific journals. ID proponents claim that this is because these journals have conspired against them. I think that this is rather ridiculous, if journals are competing for readership, and they have the chance to completely sink evolution, it would make that journal famous.

At any rate, the movement is just an attempt to veil a religious ideology in science, which is fine with me. I have no problem with a group of well educated evangelicals attempting to reconcile their faith with their knowledge. But the real question at hand is should this be taught to students. Charles Krauthammer (of all people) has the best reason for not teaching it:

The half-century campaign to eradicate any vestige of religion from public life has run its course. The backlash from a nation fed up with the A.C.L.U. kicking crèches out of municipal Christmas displays has created a new balance. State-supported universities may subsidize the activities of student religious groups. Monuments inscribed with the Ten Commandments are permitted on government grounds. The Federal Government is engaged in a major antipoverty initiative that gives money to churches. Religion is back out of the closet.

But nothing could do more to undermine this most salutary restoration than the new and gratuitous attempts to invade science, and most particularly evolution, with religion. Have we learned nothing? In Kansas, conservative school-board members are attempting to rewrite statewide standards for teaching evolution to make sure that creationism's modern stepchild, intelligent design, infiltrates the curriculum. Similar anti-Darwinian mandates are already in place in Ohio and are being fought over in 20 states. And then, as if to second the evangelical push for this tarted-up version of creationism, out of the blue appears a declaration from Christoph Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna, a man very close to the Pope, asserting that the supposed acceptance of evolution by John Paul II is mistaken. In fact, he says, the Roman Catholic Church rejects "neo-Darwinism" with the declaration that an "unguided evolutionary process--one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence--simply cannot exist."

Cannot? On what scientific evidence? Evolution is one of the most powerful and elegant theories in all of human science and the bedrock of all modern biology. Schönborn's proclamation that it cannot exist unguided--that it is driven by an intelligent designer pushing and pulling and planning and shaping the process along the way--is a perfectly legitimate statement of faith. If he and the Evangelicals just stopped there and asked that intelligent design be included in a religion curriculum, I would support them. The scandal is to teach this as science--to pretend, as does Schönborn, that his statement of faith is a defense of science. "The Catholic Church," he says, "will again defend human reason" against "scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of 'chance and necessity,'" which "are not scientific at all." Well, if you believe that science is reason and that reason begins with recognizing the existence of an immanent providence, then this is science. But, of course, it is not. This is faith disguised as science. Science begins not with first principles but with observation and experimentation.

Krauthammer's arguement is so interesting because it stresses how forcing the teaching of ID stands to harm both science and religion in the United States. This strikes at the heart of those who advocate the "natural selection" of theories, that we ought to teach students ID and actual biology, and they get to choose the best. The common defense against such a stand point is to say, "Should we teach alchemy along with chemistry and have the students decide which one is better? Of course not! because it would achieve nothing but the preversion of chemistry."

This is a position I am pretty sympathetic to. But the "natural selection" of theories arguement is more potent than the above caricature. David Adesnik at OxBlog explains:

But take a second look at that cartoon and ask yourself why alchemy, phrenology, magic and astrology aren't taken more seriously on the campuses of Harvard, Stanford and the University of Chicago. Is it because the vitriolic denunciations of secular intellectuals have persuaded people that these four pseudo-sciences are full of bunk, or is it because pseudo-sciences can't survive the laboratory competitions imposed on every competing theory by modern science?

You might say that when it comes to Intelligent Design, I prefer a Darwinian approach. Let the better theory survive. In fact, I'm even willing to let local school boards in Pennsylvania and Kansas mandate that I.D. get a fair hearing in the classroom. Let the kids read books and essays by Michael Behe and William Dembski, alongside criticism of their work. (After all, getting kids to read books about anything would be an important accomplishment for many of our public schools.)

Some of the kids who read these books will be persuaded by what they read. I'm guessing that most of them won't. And that might even be besides the point, since the moment any of these kids steps onto a college campus they will be thoroughly indoctrinated by Darwin's heirs. (I was. I don't regret it.)

But here's the real silver lining for all of those liberals who are concerned about Christian fundamentalism invading our schools in the guise of Intelligent Design. If conservatives are serious about "teaching the controversy", then perhaps they will also be willing to teach the controversy when it comes to liberal add-ons to the public school curriculum, such as birth control and homosexuality.

When it comes to education, I like to think of myself as a true liberal: let the kids sample everything, instead of waging culture wars designed to deny them access to controversial ideas.

Now this becomes a complicated issue. Those that stand for true belief in the tenants of biology and a liberal education ought to stand by any discussion. But on the other hand, those that are for the firm separation between science and religion should oppose ID. Damn, this is hard.

So where do I fall? Well in the perfect world I would stand by the tenants of a liberal education and say, who cares, teach it. But given the manner that ID would probably be implemented, any value from the liberal education argument would be lost. It would only be the first step in a process engineered to advance a modern version of creationism. That would only harm science, biology, and religion.

-Mr. Alec