Last modified: 22 March 2006
My concerns about Intelligent Design (hereafter “ID”) increased dramatically back in 2002, when the American Museum of Natural History hosted a forum during which evolutionary biologists debated ID folk. As you might guess, the audience was packed with pro-evolution supporters, and most people I spoke to left the event with the impression that intelligent design had been trounced—and on an argument-for-argument basis, it had. But I didn’t feel nearly so sanguine: the ID rhetoric is very impressive, and Michael Behe and William Dembski presented a slick facade, even in the face of fairly articulate opposition. I tried imagine myself as a smart but not particularly scientifically-literate observer, and I could see why school boards have been tricked into swallowing these specious arguments. Beware!
At any rate, for good info on combatting the spread of ID, as well as understanding the flaws in its arguments, I recommend the National Center for Science Education web site.
My concerns about ID have only grown over time (court victories notwithstanding). When I articulated essentially the above sentiments a few years ago, some of my colleagues in the planetarium field expressed reservations about attacking ID too swiftly, suggesting that the proposal has some intellectual merit. (One post to DOME-L went so far as to recommend the “Reasons to Believe” website, which scared me; however, the recommendation also underscores my observation about ID’s frightfully good rhetoric. I’d use the aforementioned site to understand the rationalizations used against evolution, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a resource or anything credible… Nice that they link to APOD, though. Websites like “Reasons to Believe” really disturb me: on the surface, they maintain a reasonable facade, but once you scratch the surface… Yikes!) What disturbs me most, of course, is that ID sells itself as science. The following comes directly from the Intelligent Design Network website:
“Intelligent Design is a scientific disagreement with the claim of evolutionary theory that natural phenomena are not designed. ID claims that natural laws and chance alone are not adequate to explain all natural phenomena. Evidence that is empirically detectable in nature suggests that design is the best current explanation for a variety of natural systems, particularly irreducibly complex living systems.
“Intelligent Design is an intellectual movement that includes a scientific research program for investigating intelligent causes and that challenges naturalistic explanations of origins which currently drive science education and research.”
And that’s not far enough for some… Under “Evidence for Design” on “Reasons to Believe” is an article entitled “More than Intelligent Design,” in which someone with a Ph.D. (in what, I don’t know) writes, “Experience persuades me that the time is right for a direct approach, a single leap into the origins fray. Introducing a biblically based, scientifically verifiable creation model represents such a leap. It packs both a scientific and a spiritual punch.”
Obviously, this is how ID proponents sell their work to your local school board—as science, not religion. As I’ve said previously, the arguments of theirs that I’ve seen (and heard, directly from ID’s major proponents when they spoke at my institution) are claptrap. Should ID be “stopped” from doing their research? If they can find funds to do it, I guess not. But they should be stopped from selling this bill of goods to folks like those on the Kansas Board of Education or the Dover School Board.
In response to the above argument, one writer replied: “Science and religion have different goals, and it is sad to see one try to dictate anything to the other.”
Which basically echoes Stephen J. Gould’s “non-overlapping magesteria” concept, which is a safe intellectual route along which to proceed, but it has its flaws. Without going into great detail, I’ll heartily recommend the chapter “Evolution and the Roulette Wheel” in Stephen T. Asma’s Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads: The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums. (Actually, I’ll heartily recommend the entire book, even the chapters on taxidermy and wet preservation.)
In fact, I believe Asma discusses the difference between logical possibility (i.e., “you can’t necessarily rule out the idea of…”) and empirical evidence. Which is what this whole discussion is all about, really.
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