HoustonChronicle.com – ‘Intelligent design’ debate pits science, religion — Who needs science? The rapture will be any minute.
Including the theory of “intelligent design” in high school biology courses would confuse, mislead and alienate students from fields where the number of U.S. researchers is dwindling, scientists warned at a debate on the issue Friday.
Kenneth Miller, a biologist from Brown University who has written extensively on the subject, told a gathering of scientists and representatives of religious organizations that requiring teachers to introduce the theory would promote junk science.
If you wish to disprove intelligent design, visit a Wal-Mart on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It makes evolution look kinda sad also. 😉
Supposedly, “Intelligent design” isn’t a legitimate scientific theory because its validity cannot be tested.
I wish students would learn what is meant by a “valid test.” Isn’t logic and evidence the issue here and not dogma (conclusions)?
Intelligent design makes a clear empirical prediction. No matter the primordial soup of chemicals that humans might start with and the time that human observers and their progeny could wait for life to emerge out of the soup, no creatures will appear.
Clearly, proving evolution true proves “Intelligent design” to be false.
Every theory is the negation of some other theory. For all practical purposes, evolution and “Intelligent design” are opposites. Is evolution true without testing because of the way we define the word “science”?
Who validated the core doctrine of evolution theory with a reproducible experiment proving that complex life forms automatically assemble themselves from primordial soup?
The theory of evolution (ultimately) follows logically from the premise that matter/energy “just is”.
The theory of intelligent design (ultimately) follows logically from the premise that there is a creator (that is not part of the world) that “just is”.
Both theories require a starting premise about what “just is”, so why is one “science” and the other “religion”?
I’m extremely non-religious and still can’t comprehend the concept of creationism. However, I’ve been reading “The Universe in a Single Atom” by the Dalai Lama and have found his deep thinking the topic of the origin of life quite interesting. He does not feel that absolute evidence exists on any front, primarily because of the need in Buddism for a cause-and-effect process. In other words, lets’s assume that we evolved from a single cell organism. Two questions are left unanswered, where did the single cell organism come from and at what point did conciousness occur? The theory is that these cannot be just random events, something must have caused it. He makes similar arguments for Creationism (i.e., who created God) and Intelligent Design (who intervened to create the single-cell organism or facilitated conciousness). Even the Big Bang falls victim so this, since something must have existed before the giant ball of matter exploded. Excellent book for a different point of view on this topic.
For Terrell and Eugene,
Evolution doesn’t attempt to explain the BEGINING of life.
Eugene, I wish YOU understood what is meant by a testable theory.
Following the theory of evolution scientists can make predictions about things they will find. When they find those things, it is another sucessful test.
For example, to “test” the theory of gravity, astronomersand physicists made “predictions” about where the moon will be in one year, and where it will be in relation to the sun and earth. One year later, it is in the exact right spot, proving that they understand gravity, how it works, and can explain its effects.
Intelligent design has made no testable statements. Now, if they said something like “if we analyze DNA, we will see the signature of the artist, and it will look like XYZ”, and we look and it is there, that would mean something. “Our book says it, and your idea is stupid” is not a basis for science, which is why ID will NEVER be taken seriously by scientists.
I don’t understand when people say that you can’t teach intelligent design because it cannot be proved true, but then go on to say that evolution proves intelligent design false. If something cannot be proved true, it cannot be proved false either.
But, for my two cents on the matter: I am a Christian who believes God created the world through evolution. (I don’t believe the bible was meant to be taken word for word.) BUT, I also don’t believe in teaching intelligent design. I was a devout Christian all through high school and any time a teacher tried to bring in religion, it turned into a Christianity bashing session and made me feel alienated. It’s best to just leave those things outside of the class room.
Terrell – the theory of evolution says absolutely nothing about “matter/energy.” Your absurd comment proves your ignorance.
I’m a religious person but I DO NOT support teaching religion in science class. So I ‘m on your side of this issue.
But I need to point out that atheist professors share the blame for this train wreck, too. It isn’t just us religious people.
I took numerous science classes and I remember my professors taking pot shots at religion. Back then, we religious conservatives had to silently take their crap or get verbally slapped down in front of the class.
Now that the pendulum has swung, I have a hard time feeling sorry for these same professors who complain about the “climate of hostility.”
If religious people need to stay silent in science class so must the atheists. Fair is fair. If the atheists had stayed silent when they ruled the day, we might have been spared this conflict.
Further proof that intelligent design can’t exist … evangelical christians –but I think this is the same Saturday afternoon Wal Mart crowd that was already mentioned.
The problem isn’t with whether or not one teaches the concept of intelligent design. The problem is teaching it in biology or other science class. So teach it in philosophy or social studies.
This is perhaps the silliest debate adults can get involved with.
The difference between a person opposed to the idea of Intelligent Design and one who accepts the possibility of ID:
Those opposed to ID are likely philosophically opposed to the possibilities that…
1. the Cosmos may not be a closed system.
2. what can be seen and measured mechanically with the senses may not be all there is.
3. the Cosmos could be the product of ‘intention’, rather than random ‘natural’ forces.
4. if so, such an act of ‘intention’ implies beinghood which in turn may imply some form of moral imperative.
5. that an all-powerful intentional being possessing moral imperative implies the potential existence of absolute right and wrong, with the resulting enormous implications for all individuals.
(The Materialist might be open to a god who is nothing more than a super-intelligent, benignly condescendent, technologically advanced alien who sternly shakes a finger at humankind’s self-destructive tendencies, while simultaneously deactivating all existing nuclear weaponry)
Those comfortable with ID can accept or have accepted the possibility that
1. there is more to the Universe than meets the eye (human or mechanical),
2. the Cosmos is not necessarily a closed system
3. there is nothing philosophically abhorrent with the idea that there could have been a First Cause that itself is without cause (i.e. self-existent self-awareness outside this space/time bubble)
4. the nature of such a First Cause could imply intention, beinghood, and ultimate moral imperative (‘this is Good because it fits and works and is consonant with My nature, while this is not good because it does not fit, does not work and is not in agreement with My nature’)
Getting right to the end point, it’s possible that those not open to the idea of an active, intentional ‘moral principle’ of ultimate Right-and-Wrong governing the Universe would be more likely opposed to the idea of Intelligent Design.
I don’t see the problem with teaching about the ‘idea of Intelligent Design’. It now seems to be an embedded part of our culture. Education should be about ideas and learning about ideas themselves cannot be harmful. Let the merit or lack of merit of every idea be discussed freely… we teach the history of religion in school, why not the history of scientific thought, including the present ruckus over Evolutionary theory and other opposing ideas on our origins, even including the one saying the earth is supported on the backs of 4 giant turtles swimming in an endless sea…
Why is the Theory of Evolution the only scientific theory that has to be protected by a court of law?
My hunch is if an individual has ‘made his peace’ with the idea of an Ultimate moral arbiter – and ‘submitted’ to the idea that ultimate Right-and-Wrong may be a ‘core concept’ of the Universe – that this is the necessary – but not sufficient – first step to this wider view of possibilities on the nature of Nature.
(Bloodthirsty comments expected…;)
This is where I place the blame for this mess: government education. The real question isn’t “what official truth should the government systematically train our children in,” the real question is “when on earth did we put the government in charge of deciding what’s true, and how can we undo all such absurdity as quickly as possible.”
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@Akakie:
I don’t know how familiar you are with philosophy and epistemology, but “intelligent design” wouldn’t be taken seriously in such a class, because it has no substance. It is all claim and no explanation.
Just ask its proponents why complexity/elegance/beauty are solely the result of sentience? They cannot answer. In the end, the only statement from them is ‘We are right and you are wrong’.
Unfortunately, ideological zeal, at the root of all religion, breeds closed-mindedness, and at the end, you cannot reason with such minds. So these debates are pointless and unproductive.
The Rapture occurred at 11:03 am (GMT) on Sunday, June 5, 2005. One little old lady living in Miami Beach (and her dog) went up. The rest of us appear to be screwed.
Why do they insist on calling it “intelligent” design?
Did the focus group think “design” wasn’t catchy enough?
Intelligent Design is neither intelligent nor a design… discuss.
Mike Voice –
Very good point: is the term ‘Intelligent Design’ a redundancy?
You could just as well ask whether living forms and/or the Universe itself show signs or hints of what we call ‘design’. Get a bunch of mechanical engineers together and show them the animated computer models (there’s a 3D IMAX movie out) of the little protein factories zipping and unzipping DNA molecules in our cells, and see if they say whether it looks like an engineered system…
Is the Materialist open and honest enough to be able to ask this without assuming, a priori, that because ‘the universe is the product of random natural forces’ then of course there could be no ‘Design’ in the natural universe? That of course the very ‘natural forces’ responsible for existence itself could not have themselves been ‘designed?’
If the honest answer to the question is ‘yes or maybe’, then an inquiry should be made into how these aparent indications of ‘design’ got into what we have held to be a system governed by random ‘natural’ forces. But again we would be dishonest to exclude certain explanations a priori, just because they have ‘religious’ implications, or because they cannot be proven by the scientific methods currently available to us.
And this doesn’t begin to deal with how and why we ‘recognize’ what we call ‘design’.
The little nano-car in the news is easily recognizeable by us as ‘something designed’ because it structurally matches up with the Genus of man-made objects we’ve come to call ‘wheeled ground vehicle’. We look at it in it’s new context (one gazillionth the size of a human hair) and say ‘wow!’
What we have to be honest enough to ask is, could those fabulously complicated little protein machines that fabricate the DNA within our cells (as well as the code within the DNA itself) also be the products of ‘design’, albeit an alien (to us) class of design, with few or no structural parallels in our ‘macro’ world?
I.E. would it be a form of Anthropomorphic Bigotry to think that “because that’s not the way WE intentional beings build things…a protein factory or a DNA molecule could not possibly belong to the class of ‘designed objects’…”
And why can’t we have this kind of discussion in the classroom?
This all comes down the same issue: the “intelligent” design hypothesis is not a scientific theory whereas evolution is. Evolution provides predictive power. If we place a series of identical bacteria in two different environments evolution predicts that they will mutate and develop different charactersitics. “I”D provides no such predictive power. Further, ID provides no test by which we can determine which phenomena is “designed” and which is naturally occurring. Thus, “I”D does not qualify as science and as such should not be taught in science class just as we shouldn’t teach mathematics in an English class.
To Walt:
Your two lists of philosophical differences between proponents of “I”D and evolution are missing a rather core concept: proof. For example, scientists are not opposed to the possibiliy that the Cosmos is a closed system any more than they are the opposed to the possibiliy that it is not a closed system. At best, they would say that they do not have scientific evidence to support one the other. At times, there have been theories that have supported one idea or the other but not to the point of eliminating all possible evidence to the contrary. What you do not seem to understand is that a claim about natural phenomena requires proof. If you claim that life was “designed” you must provide evidence of that claim and provide a means by which we can take a random sampling of phenomena and determine if it was designed. Rather that provide evidence of said hypothesis, “I”D proponents spend most of the their time attempt to find holes in evolutionary mechanics. Their effort is wasted as it does nothing to improve “I”D’s standing a scientific theory.
To Mungojelly
If “truth” is not a requirement for teaching material, then I propose we also teach that the universe was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster in biology classes.
Consider the alternative – “Non-inteligent Design”
– it’s called government.
Evolution is a theory and will remain so until it can be tested using the scientific method. Likewise Intelligent Design remains a theory until such time as there is a direct way of testing it. Something like direct involvement from the intelligent designer in question.
So you have two theories each with it’s own set of supporters. Logically then both should be considered and taught as theory. The choice as to which side you choose should be a personal one.
Ideally it’s a decision that should be made without any prejudice to either side.
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Also why does it have to become Science vs Religion?
To say that God represents Religion and Darwin represents Science is rather prejudiced.
Darwin was a religious man. The True God is a god of science.
There are many well respected Scientists who believe in God. Likewise many religious people have a keen interest in science.
Hmm, this all sounds so familiar. Substitute “global warming” for “intelligent design” and “climate change science” for “religion”. “Science” – at least science that still contains reproducible experiments as part of its creed – remains constant in this analogy.
I often hear, and have heard on this site’s forums, that someone is mentally deficient for not believing global warming is a manmade phenomenon. Yet we haven’t seen a general climate model that can accurately predict current climate conditions when fed historical data. Results can change drastically based on how scientists “drive” the variables. The “hockey stick” graph (http://tinyurl.com/bsfkn) at the core of the 2001 IPCC report has been dubbed “junk” by several parties (Nature rejected an article showing the faults in this model). Given the doubts about such “science”, claiming that those who don’t “believe” are “just wrong” smacks of an almost religious zealotry to me. If one truly supports science – at least verifiable, reproducible science – then one doesn’t sweep away concerns about validity and methods.
I agree that ID has no scientific basis, and I doubt it ever will. Similarly, touting a theory based on faulty models as truth is also more zealotry than science.
if teaching Intelligent Design is going to happen in schools then I think teaching reincarnation, and other religious science thought should be included, as well. Why stop with the current du jour christian theories?
>Evolution is a theory and will remain
> so until it can be tested using the scientific method.
Firstly, to make such a statement shows severe ignorance of what is entailed in a scientific theory. By this logic, gravity and electromagnetism are merely theories. Here is a link to help you understand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory. From that link:
Secondly, “evolution” is not a theory. Evolution is a FACT. Current biological scientific theories are used to explain this observed FACT of evolution and provide a means to predict future behavior and do so quite accurately.
> So you have two theories each with it’s own set of
> supporters. Logically then both should be considered and
> taught as theory. The choice as to which side you choose
> should be a personal one.
NO! One is a series of scientific theories and the other (“intelligent” design) is conjecture. One is and should be taught as science and the other is not.
Thomas said: “If “truth” is not a requirement for teaching material, then I propose we also teach that the universe was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster in biology classes.”
It is of course absurd to attempt to educate without having one’s own idea of what is true. It is of course absurd for the government to legislate what the people are to believe is true. Therefore, let me be perfectly clear, I support the abolishment of all state schools. They are corrosive to true education and true public knowledge.
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