Last week the State Board of Education in Kansas held hearings to determine the state’s standards regarding science education. At the center of the debate were proponents of a theory called “Intelligent Design” who sought to change the state’s standards to allow the teaching of their theory alongside the scientific theory of Evolution as possible explanations for the origins of life on Earth.
Yes, you read correctly — Kansas, last week, not Tennessee, circa 1925.
But the intent of the hearings were exactly the same as the so-called “Scopes Monkey Trial” of 1925, where Creationists, headed by William Jennings Bryan, fought to discredit and banish the theory of Evolution, defended by Clarence Darrow.
The modern version, however, does have a few special twists. The fundamentalist proponents of “Intelligent Design” have learned not to call their Biblical version of creation “Creationism”; they know that any attempt to inject obvious Christian religion into the classroom will be quickly rebuffed (for now). They are trying to re-brand their doctrine by asserting that it, too, is scientific. They propose that since science cannot answer all of the questions of life, there must be a supernatural force at work. Life is too complex, they argue, to have arisen solely from natural means. No mention of God or the Bible, but some sort of “higher power” must have been involved in creating Life.
Of course, science isn’t about answering philosophical questions, it is about understanding natural mechanisms, the cause and effect questions. It is about observable actions and measurable quantities. It is about rigorous peer review and replicable experimentation. Moreover, mostly, it is about having no fixed dogma in place, rather presenting theories, testing to see if nature fits those theories, and rejecting or accepting those theories based on the results. To suppose the existence of something supernatural, unobservable, and immeasurable that must be taken on faith without question — that is the very antithesis of science — and exactly what the proponents of “Intelligent Design” want.
According to the Kansas City Star, the board members who are pushing the “Intelligent Design” agenda “want to change the way science is defined as a search for ‘natural explanations,’ because they say that represents an endorsement of naturalism and atheism.” This is an attempt to paint science as anti-religion, which is ridiculous. Science is as absolutely neutral on the existence or non-existence of God as is mathematics. Science neither proves nor disproves God, nor attempts to, for that question is out of the scope of science and better suited to philosophy and theology. Albert Einstein, the most notable scientist of the 20th Century, was a very devoutly religious man, as are countless other modern scientists.
Evolution is one of the most tested and universally agreed upon theories of modern science. Religious people who accept evolution have no problem reconciling their belief with the scientific facts. My religious friends believe that God created the universe and humankind, and did so with a toolbox of physical laws, the Big Bang, and natural selection. They accept the notion that explaining to ancient Hebrew scribes the nuclear fission of stars, planetary plate tectonics, mutations of DNA, and the mathematics of random selection over billions of years might have been a little confusing, and that “God said ‘let there be light'” might have been a simpler explanation for primitive people. When fundamentalists assert that God created the universe in six days, my friends respond, “how long is a day to God?”
Some who support “Intelligent Design” will point out that Evolution is “only a theory”, as if to say it is “a guess”. Why should a guess of natural origins be treated better than a guess of supernatural origins?
Well, theories are not guesses. They are scientific ways of explaining how something works. Then that theory is tested to see if the facts support it. Creationism, by definition, is a guess that cannot be tested, and is therefore not a theory. Evolution, on the other hand, is a guess that has been tested by the fields of chemistry, biology, geology, mathematics, zoology, paleontology, and many more -ology’s, and found to be a logical way of understanding the development of life on this planet. Besides, there are plenty of scientific theories that even the most rabid fundamentalists hold as facts. The theory of gravitation, for example, is “only a theory”; scientists cannot yet fully explain how it works at a sub-atomic level. Nevertheless, no one would refute that gravitation exists or the “laws” scientists since Newton have derived about gravitation are reliable.
There have been disagreements and refinements about some of the particulars of Evolution. Creationists pounce of these as if they were weaknesses in the theory, rather than evidence of its strength. As more fossil records have been uncovered and new techniques of dating and measurement have been perfected, the theory of Evolution has matured, but scientists are still in universal agreement as to its validity.
However, Creationist “theory”, when challenged by measurable facts and observable science, is under no such pressure to modify its tenets. It can always just say, “God did it” and be done with any messy introspection. Thus, a logical, scientific question like, “where did the estimated heat and pressure necessary to create coal come from, if not from billions of years of geologic activity?” can be dismissed by the Creationists who want to believe the account of Genesis and assert that Earth is only a few thousand years old — God did it. “Where did the estimated 4.5 billion cubic kilometers of water necessary to cover the Earth in Noah’s Flood come from, and where did it go?” — God did it. “Why is it that we find dinosaur bones deep in the earth and we find more modern looking bones in shallower digs, and there seems to be a progression of similarities and changes among the species, and dating techniques prove the dinosaur bones to be millions of years older than the mammal bones?” — God did it. Creationist theory, “Intelligent Design”, if you will, is no more scientific than ancient Greeks surmising that the rising and the setting of the sun was due to Apollo driving a sun-chariot across the sky. The Greeks couldn’t exactly stop the sun, interview Apollo, and check out his chariot.
Worse still are the sad attempts to cast doubt on Evolution by trying to poke holes in the theory with junk-science rhetoric. Sadly, a mostly-scientifically illiterate public is quick to latch on to these falsehoods, and the Creationists take advantage to say, “See, if Evolution isn’t true, then Creationism must be!” Silly statements dominate that mindset, like, “well, if man came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” (Because man and monkey and all primates descended from a common ancestor; no one ever said man was “new and improved monkey”) and attempts to enlighten the believer with realistic science are met with protests of “I didn’t come from no monkey!” Unfortunately, these people also get to vote in school board elections.
This was part of the battle the “Intelligent Design” proponents in Kansas were hoping for, and the scientific community did not take the bait. Not one scientist deigned to take part in the Kansas hearings, for to do so would be to give “Intelligent Design” credence as a scientific theory worth debating. It would be like asking Carl Sagan (if he were alive) to debate Debbie Frank (Princess Di’s former astrologer), on the validity of astrology or asking Albert Einstein (if he were alive) to debate “psychic” Uri Gellar on the validity of telekinesis.
What this is really about is a small vocal subset of religious people who hold to a strict literal interpretation of the Bible. If God said the universe took six days, then it was six days. If God said He covered the Earth in floodwaters, then it was so. If God said he made Adam & Eve, fully formed and fully human, then that’s the way it happened. There is no room for interpretation, no possibility of metaphor, and any science that contradicts those “facts” must be rebuked. Radioactive dating of Paleolithic tools must be lies. Distribution of sedimentary rock and fossil records conflicting with accounts of Noah’s flood must be falsehoods. Findings of Cro-Magnon, Homo-Erectus, Australopithecine, and Neanderthal fossils must be misunderstood. God said it, they believe it, that settles it!
Unfortunately, this is but a small battle in an increasing war on Enlightenment principles from Fundamentalist forces. If the “Intelligent Design” proponents win this battle, it is not just the schoolchildren of Kansas that suffer, but the very bedrock of modern Western civilization begins to crumble. Science and reason are what have made this country great and prosperous, and a retreat towards Christian Fundamentalism will soon place us on a fast track to irrelevance in a global, technological economy. Already our students stagger far behind their worldwide counterparts in math and science education. A decision for “Intelligent Design” will only design even less-intelligent kids.
