"The Cavalier Daily" Monday, January 31, 2005

Opinion
Unintelligent design

Anthony Dick, Cavalier Daily Columnist 

A SCHOOL district in Pennsylvania recently made headlines by becoming the first to require the teaching of the intelligent design theory in biology classes as a possible alternative to Darwinian evolution. Similar plans have drawn attention in Georgia and other states where religious parents worry about their children being taught an accepted scientific theory that they nevertheless find to be both untrue and offensive. Given the interesting nature and intense ferocity of this dispute, one aspect that gets little attention is the way it illustrates an interesting problem with public schooling in an intellectually diverse liberal society.

It is a core tenet of liberal political theory that government should remain neutral in disputes that arise between competing philosophical or religious ideologies. This concept inspires the First Amendment's content-neutral protection of free speech and free exercise of religion, as well as the idea that church and state should be firmly separated. By extension, this paradigm includes a moral right that parents have to raise their own children as they see fit with respect to political, philosophical and religious instruction. But with children from different families attending the same regimented public schools, the state's ideological neutrality becomes difficult, if not impossible, to maintain.

Intelligent design is the theory which holds that the universe, due to its intricate complexity, must have been created by some powerful and purposive creator. This idea is dubious not only for its lack of empirical support but also because, after a few moments of reflection, it just doesn't make any sense. The theory posits that only a divine creator could account for the complexity of the world around us, but it offers no satisfactory account of how this creator itself is supposed to have come about.

Presumably, any creative entity with divine powers is at least as complex as the world it creates. So if you're starting from the premise that high-level complexity can't arise on its own, you can't just say that God created the world and leave it at that. Nor can you say that God has always existed, since you have already ruled out the possibility that something so complex could simply exist as its own cause with no further explanation.

At some point, you'll need to follow one of two paths: You must either admit that complexity can arise on its own without requiring any further explanation (in which case intelligent design theory becomes superfluous), or else you're going to need a theory (like evolution) to explain how complex systems of spontaneous order could arise from a mess of disorganized chaos.

For this reason among many others, most scientists and intellectuals today are firmly convinced that intelligent design is nothing but a desperately contrived piece of pseudo-scientific drivel, and I tend to agree. For those who are similarly convinced, it is clearly upsetting that intelligent design is being taught in some of Pennsylvania's public schools because we don't want to be forced to fund or send our children to an institution that is going to give authoritative scientific validity to a view that we find to be patently false.

But now imagine how parents who believe in intelligent design must feel. Evolution, which they believe to be a despicably false theory, is taught as fact in public schools not just in one state but in every state. As it stands, the tax dollars of millions of intelligent design adherents are being used to finance the spread of an ideology that they deeply oppose.

Now, even those of us who would like nothing more than to see intelligent design theory disappear should be uneasy with our government taking sides in this ideological dispute. First of all, in today's evangelical political climate many state schools could very quickly and easily become much more hostile to evolution. As such, it is dangerous to make the state the arbiter of what our children should be taught. But beyond this, it's just not right for the state to impose compulsory schooling that uses public funds to push one side or the other in any ongoing controversy with such deep scientific and religious consequences.

If schools were converted to a voucher system or, better yet, privatized completely, parents could choose from a competitive variety of schools with different approaches to this topic as well as other controversial subjects such as sex education, literature and politics, which cannot simply be cut out of the curriculum altogether. Short of this, it is impossible to avoid embroiling the power of the state as a partisan force rather than a neutral referee in our society's intellectual milieu.

Anthony Dick's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at [email protected].

Copyright 1995-2004 The Cavalier Daily

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"The Cavalier Daily" Friday, February 04, 2005

Letters

The facts of intelligent design

Anthony Dick states in essence that since we can't intellectually explain the origins of a creator, there must not be one ("Unintelligent design," Jan. 31). Actually, since we can't explain most of what's happening in the universe, his statement reeks of intellectual hubris.

Dick misrepresents intelligent design as a movement of Christian fundamentalists designed to debunk Darwinism. He hasn't done his homework. Present intelligent design theory has matured under the insights of such men as Michael J. Behe, Henry F. Schaefer, III and William A. Dembski, to name only a few.These men hold Ph.D.s in biochemistry, chemical physics, philosophy and mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago, respectively.

The central premise of these intellectual heavyweights is that science must be free to seek the truth wherever it leads. Intelligent design theory is a large tent holding many ideas that have developed in the wake of recent discoveries in genetics concerning DNA and in astrophysics concerning errors in the "randomness of the universe" ideology. The breadth and scope of intelligent design goes well beyond a few misguided sentences in a college newspaper op-ed piece.

I hope that Dick understands the simple issue in all of these recent debates: science in our world is tested through hypotheses, collection and examination of data and conclusions. Proponents of intelligent design posit a theory of a purposeful creator based on legitimate scientific research. They argue, fundamentally, that there is enough order in our physical world to see complexity -- a "blueprint" -- which presents an equally viable scientific theory.

And it is indeed a theory, just like evolution.

Casey Chalk

http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=22127&pid=1248

"The Cavalier Daily" Monday, February 07, 2005

Letters

Teach science, not belief

In his letter ("The facts of intelligent design," Feb. 4), Casey Chalk shows how easy it is to fall victim to the pseudoscience of intelligent design. While it has gained recent popularity in some circles, this belief has been refuted by most of the scientific community in a vast number of past and present scientific works that support evolution or dismiss the claims of intelligent design.

Chalk claims that in his Jan. 31 column "Unintelligent design" Anthony Dick "misrepresents intelligent design as a movement of Christian fundamentalists designed to debunk Darwinism. He hasn't done his homework."  However, it is Chalk who has not done his homework.

For example, William A. Dembski and Michael J. Behe, cited as experts in the field by Chalk, are fellows of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle research institute that is funded by Christian foundations and viewed by many as dedicated in part to promoting intelligent design. Dembski, one of the "intellectual heavyweights" he mentions, has claimed that "the conceptual soundness of a scientific theory cannot be maintained apart from Christ." This hardly seems like an unbiased view upon which to base any valid scientific query or assertion.

Chalk makes a last statement before ending his letter: "And it [intelligent design] is indeed a theory, just like evolution." Scientific American (July, 2002) explains why this gross fallacy Chalk perpetuates is incorrect: "According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is 'a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses.' No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution ... they are not expressing reservations about its truth."

In science, facts are used as evidence to support theories. Evolution is well supported. However, where is the scientifically tested evidence to support intelligent design?  While many intelligent design proponents try to poke holes in the theory of evolution, they have yet to provide enough valid proof to scientifically support their own belief. Intelligent design has not yet been proven a valid scientific theory and, therefore, does not belong in a classroom or science textbook. We should not allow this undeserving intrusion into the teaching of science.

Greg Nielsen

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