Intelligent Design: Creationism in a lab coat

For those of you who have not yet heard of Intelligent Design, let me warn you now that it is not a scientific theory.  It is a philosophy.  Ever since Charles Darwin wrote The Origin of Species people have been waging a losing campaign against his scientific theory of evolution by focusing on the gaps in the theory, despite the ongoing scientific observation, evidence and intense peer review that support and extend Darwin's findings.  Many of those original gaps have been closed through research findings and observation, but there are still gaps that scientists around the world are inspired to fill through the continued use of strict scientific methods.

It is those decreasing number of gaps that Intelligent Design philosophers philosophize about.  They aren't out to totally debunk evolution.  Some of them even support certain elements of evolution, but they claim natural selection is not the ultimate answer to the "where do we come from" question, and that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause" or a supernatural being, although I've never heard an ID philosopher use the term "supernatural being" or even God.  They are very careful to only use terms like "intelligent cause" and "intelligent design."

After the teaching of Creationism was banned from public school science classrooms across the nation due to the 7-2 decision made by US Supreme Court in the Edwards vs. Aguillard case in 1987 (the two dissenters were Scalia and Renquist,) the anti-Darwinists understood they had to reframe their argument in order to gain access into the science class.  They went and put some white lab coats on, adopted new language and opened up an institute in Seattle, WA.

They've been extremely successful at getting the debate on to the agendas of many school boards across the nation and at putting evolutionary biologists on the defensive.  Instead of using scientific evidence (they don't have any) to get their philosophy into the science class, they've been appealing to the public's sense of fairness by insisting that alternative theories to evolution should be considered by students.  In denying students this information, they claim we are ignoring constitutional neutrality regarding the origins of life.

They use words and phrases like objectivity, constitutional neutrality and evidence of design.  All ID articles written by their philosophers use these words and phrases repeatedly and for now, like the rest of the conservative agenda, they are making headway.

It would seem fair to have students study all perspectives, but we would be failing our children and the very institution of science if we allowed unscientific theories into science classes.  Science needs evidence to support itself, and evidence does not come in the form of philosophical musings. 

We would also be failing our country by allowing ID into science text books.  While India and China are becoming more competitive, and pumping out an highly educated citizenry, we can't afford to have some crackpot institute up in Seattle forcing itself into the science classrooms of America.

Hopefully this debate won't end up on the school boards' agendas in Oregon, but if it does we need to be prepared by getting out of the defensive mode.  We have science on our side.

And don't forget when you rest your weary head on your fluffy pillow tonight that Darwin loves you.

Comments

[Anish]

Not only does Darwin love you, but he won't judge you. And he won't send you to hell (or heaven) or reincarnate you as a dog. Actually, come to think of it, Darwin just doesn't care. 'cause your life is completely meaningless (from a cosmic sense). Yup, you don't have any special significance or place in this universe nor are you created in someone's image or (Plato's) Idea. You don't really matter. Put that in you pipe and smoke it before your head hits that fluffy pillow tonight.

[Neo]

Richard Dawkins has an excellent description of a certain class of opposition to evolution (Darwinian adaptive selection, or other variants), a class that includes ID.

Dawkins calls this "Argument from Personal Incredulity".

To wit, "(I) personally cannot imagine how a particular complex structure or function could have evolved in small steps from a less complex structure/function, nor can (I) personally imagine the adaptive superiority of any of the intermediate stages; therefore, just by virtue of the failure of (my) imagination and (my) inability to do science, said evolution could not have occurred".

AfPI is closely tied to "God of the Gaps". Intelligent Designers are fond of calling attention to "irreducible complexity"; the only problem here is that today's "irreducible complexity" becomes tomorrow's mundane school-textbook explanation. Michael Behe (poster-turd of the ID movement) made much of the many examples of irreducible complexity he cited in his book---within a year of the publication of the book, almost all his examples were shown to be reducible and simple.

Such is the process of scientific explanation: what seemed incomprehensible to the previous generation, becomes well-understood by the current, and part of mother's milk for the next (so much so that the young whippersnappers shake their heads in amazement that their grandparents could have been so dumb as to miss the most obvious explanations).

While serious scientists were slogging away finding answers and providing explanations, Behe and his creationist cretin cohorts could do nothing more than fart nonsense.

Of the many criticisms that can be brought up against intelligent design, AfPI is my favorite. It combines a suitable degree of levity and withering sarcasm with a bald statement of the core of these arguments (personal incredulity). AfPI is also as much as one needs to use against anti-evolutions of all breeds---these people are mental defectives or moral degenerates, and using facts and science on them is a waste. In fact, identifying AfPI is sufficient criticism of most bogus arguments in any discussion or field of stufy (politics being a good example).

BTW, it strikes me that AfPI is the obverse of RCC (Reality Creating Community). Followers of AfPI believe that some aspect of the external universe is ontologically prohibited as a consequence of their own thoughts. The RCCers believe that they create ontology merely by belief and assertion. A well-matched pair.

[Sid]

Good point about how one generation's mystery is the next's discovery of that mystery as being "a mundane school textbook explanation."

That's the whole point, isn't it? At one time people thought solar eclipses to be the wrath of god, and now we know what solar eclipses are. There a fewer mysteries and more answers, but that doesn't mean there isn't still a ton of discovery for eager scientists to engage in. It's that discovery that IDers and many others are afraid of.

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