Jonah Avriel Cohen, "Why intelligent design theory ought to be taught" (2005)

September 1st, 2005

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Why intelligent design theory ought to be taught
> August 25th, 2005<br>
> <p>

Of the many reasons why intelligent design – an argument I reject – ought to be taught alongside evolution in our public schools, perhaps none is more compelling than the ignorance and demagoguery which is evident in our current national debate over the issue. Below are four myths you frequently come across while reading the political literature on the subject, followed by the facts.

Myth: The theory of intelligent design is a modern version of Creationism.
> &nbsp;<br> Charles Krauthammer (in Time Magazine):

“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.”

Jerry Coyne (The New Republic):

“‘Intelligent design’… is merely the latest incarnation of the biblical creationism espoused by William Jennings Bryan in Dayton.”

Richard Dawkins (London Times):

“ID [Intelligent Design]… is not a new form of creationism. It simply is creationism disguised, for political reasons, under a new name.”

Fact: The theory of intelligent design goes back at least as far as classical Greece and it has been debated in nearly every century since then. 

Our century is no different. Those who advocate intelligent design are not “disguising” anything; they are not furtive men. They are offering for your consideration an idea that has intrigued the minds of everyone from Plato to Kant, an idea that possibly began when Socrates asked:

“With such signs of forethought in the design of living creatures, can you doubt they are the work of choice or design?”

Now, because the design argument can be found in Plato’s dialogues, we can deduce that the theory not only predates the theory of creationism – which was but one religious response to Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) – it is also not wedded to Judeo-Christian scripture.

Krauthammer, Coyne and Dawkins are wrong here.

Certainly, there have been updated versions of the intelligent design theory – see, for example, Oxford professor Richard Swinburne’s article, “The Argument from Design” in Philosophy, vol. 43 (1968) – but the design hypothesis is no more modern than the Epicurean hypothesis that the universe consists solely of particles in random motion. 

Myth: The theory of intelligent design claims that the designer is the God described in the Bible. 

Eugenie C. Scott and Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education (USA Today):

“ID advocates are also coy about the identity of the designer, claiming that it doesn’t have to be God. But, token allusions to the possibility of extraterrestrial or time-traveling biochemists notwithstanding, no one is fooled into thinking that the designer is not the Designer: God.”

Fact: It is a matter of formal logic, not deception, that allows one to consistently accept the intelligent design argument while utterly repudiating the theory of creationism as well as the Bible itself and its God.

Much misinformation abounds on this point. The argument from intelligent design is an argument from the order or regularity of things in the world to a powerful non-embodied rational agent who is responsible for that order, a being or beings that may not be the God of Abraham and Jesus. As David Hume famously remarked, perhaps this world “was only the first rude essay of some infant deity who afterwards abandoned it”; maybe the deity is now deceased and our world is like a battery burning out until we are all dead like our cosmic Author. Be that as it may, you need not embrace the God of the Bible, or its notions of creation, in order to accept the notion that a divine hand, maybe even a devilish hand, is behind the workings of our universe. 

Myth: Conservatives and Christians necessarily accept the intelligent design argument.

Jean Chen (Pop & Politics):

“Intelligent design is just another strategy from conservative Christians to ban evolution.”

Fact: You can consistently be a political conservative or a devout Christian and still totally reject the argument from intelligent design.

How many are aware that, of the many critics of the design argument,
> none were more formidable than a political conservative, on the one <br> hand, and a Christian fundamentalist, on the other?

David Hume, an agnostic and a conservative, did not try to censor the
> design argument from students, as some now evidently wish to do with America&rsquo;s youth. As the honest intellectual he was, he advanced the design argument in its then most cogent form &ndash; and then critiqued it mercilessly in his classic <em>Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion<em> (1779).

In the following century, the Danish thinker Soren Kierkegaard, a profoundly God-fearing Christian literalist, also jettisoned the intelligent design argument, just as he wholeheartedly repudiated all attempts at proving God’s existence. But he did so for reasons of faith. He thought, and quite reasonably, that any such proof would undermine our freedom to choose Christianity. After all, if God’s existence could be shown to be true like a Euclidean proposition, then what would happen to that other significant article of faith which we call “free will”? If God could be demonstrated like a math problem, then wouldn’t one have to believe in Him by force of logic? Rather than by love, by choice, by gambling one’s very existence with fear and trembling on the Unknown, the very stuff of the human spirit as described throughout the Bible?

Myth: The theory of evolution and monotheism are logically at odds or, at least, inimical.

Jacob Weisberg (Slate):

“But let’s be serious: Evolutionary theory may not be incompatible with all forms of religious belief, but it surely does undercut the basic teachings and doctrines of the world's great religions (and most of its not-so-great ones as well).”

Fact: You can consistently accept the theory of evolution and still be a monotheist, seeing the hand of God in the evolutionary workings of the universe.

In 1930, F.R. Tennant wrote a magnificent book called Philosophical Theology, wherein he developed something called “The Anthropic Principle.” This principle suggested that the cosmos was fashioned for the development of intelligent life. Had there been only a slight alteration in the values of, say, the charge of the electron or the degree of nuclear force in the universe then intelligent life, or any life at all for that matter, would most likely not have developed. Tennant said it was possible to imagine a frenzied world wherein no rules held. But the actual universe was not chaotic and was evidently regulated in such a way that the evolutionary process lead to an environment in which intelligent life – think Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., Florence Nightingale – could exist. Such intellect, he thought, suggested evidence of a divine plan. Of course, Tennant’s conclusion might well have been mistaken, but he was right to point out that there was nothing obviously incompatible between the theory of evolution and the notion that a deity designed the evolutionary process itself.

Accordingly, the current idea that the “science” of evolution is logically at odds with the “faith” of intelligent design may rest on a false disjunction.

Conclusion  

The dispute between intelligent design versus a randomly ordered cosmos is age-old and fascinating and still unresolved. That smart and honest writers are now busy promulgating sheer fictions about this debate suggests that we are indeed in need of education on this topic. And that is a sufficient reason, in my opinion, for it to be taught in our schools, perhaps not in biology classes, but at least in mandatory philosophy classes, something our school systems do not demand to our national shame.

As I said at the opening, I am not persuaded by intelligent design arguments, not because the theory of evolution is unassailable – it most certainly has weaknesses – but because I don’t think anyone has successfully answered the criticisms of intelligent design offered by Hume, Kant and Kiergegaard. If those secular fundamentalists who wish to gag intelligent design theories are so worried about future generations, let them demand, then, that we also teach Hume, Kant and Kierkegaard in our public schools – rather than censorship! Our students should be exposed to this great discussion in all its dimensions, so that they can make up their own minds.

As President Bush said: “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, and the answer is yes.” That is the scientific and liberal attitude. 

Jonah Avriel Cohen recently finished his PhD in philosophy and religion at the University of London. He will be teaching Humanities at Kaplan University and can be reached at [email protected]