OPINION & EDITORIAL
Intelligent design in classrooms indicative of larger trend
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by Mike Skelly
Monday, October 10, 2005
In his speech Thursday addressing global terrorism and the Iraq war, President Bush warned Americans that Islamic radicals are trying to establish a "radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia." While this statement clearly describes a real threat of insurgency, it also suggests that beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, the global context of this conflict has become an epic struggle between radical theocratic ideology and free democratic society.
The purpose of current foreign commitments in the Middle East can thus be viewed in this context as a preventative measure against an excessive entanglement between religion and government.
Yet, while American foreign policy is now dominated by the goal of curtailing this extreme political ideology, in many ways, a burgeoning entanglement between religion and government is slowly beginning to grip our own government. Religion has been subtly infiltrating our society in myriad ways, and a major societal change could be in order if we do not recognize the harmful consequences of these occurrences.
The principal example of this growing influence is the case of Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District. This case involves the Dover Area School District's decision to implement the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution as a competing theory of human development.
In October of 2004, the DASD added this sentence to its science curriculum: "Students will be made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin's Theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design." A group of parents subsequently brought suit in Federal District Court on the grounds that this policy created an unconstitutional infringement of First Amendment rights. The Pennsylvania ACLU and Americans United are representing the parents pro bono, and are claiming that the policy has both the purpose and effect of establishing religion.
To some, this policy may appear to be innocuous, but its repercussions on education would be nothing short of enormous. Science curricula influenced by intelligent design would not only undermine empirically established scientific doctrine, but would introduce religious ideology into the classroom. Rather than a dispassionate search for truth, education would be shifted to a search for reasons to support previously held religious beliefs.
Furthermore, this is a policy that is not just being instituted in one small town in Pennsylvania, but actually gaining support. Currently, 14 other states have introduced legislation that would promote the teaching of theories that contradict the basic premises of evolution.
At this point, there are several questions to be asked. Why should this be a concern? Is involving religion in public life such an insidious threat to the health of the democracy? What does this have to do with an organized theocracy in the United States?
What this case represents in the larger context is a step towards institutionalized religion. There is not going to be a theocratic revolution in the near future, where fervent believers overthrow the elected government of the United States and unite all Americans under a banner of heaven.
Kitzmiller is part of a process, and this process is neither immediately apparent nor shocking when each part is taken individually. But when the pieces of the process are put together — like the case in Kentucky about the Ten Commandments or required Bible classes in Texas public schools — a case in small-town Pennsylvania about intelligent design begins to paint a different picture.
Once religion has support on the municipal and state level, the transfer to the national establishment of laws based on religion and theocracy is not far behind. Involving religion in public life is harmful because it creates a division between those who practice religion and those who do not. Furthermore, it creates a paradox between presenting information that either contradicts religious tenets or supports religious belief.
What is the solution to this problem? If the United States is to remain a free democratic society where people are governed by the rule of law, where people are free to practice the religion of their choice and are able to speak their mind with impunity, then it is imperative to recognize policies that subtly erode those freedoms. Theocracy will not begin with an uprising. It begins with the sentence "Students will be made aware of gaps/problems in Darwin's Theory and of other theories of evolution including, but not limited to, intelligent design."
Mike Skelly (meskelly@wisc.edu) is a senior majoring in finance and political science.
Anonymous (October 10, 2005 @ 11:51am):
I demand equal time for MY intelligent designer.
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
http://www.venganza.org/
Anonymous (October 10, 2005 @ 12:45pm):
What is truly hilarious about the whole ID/Creationalist (because, who are we kidding, they are the same thing) camp, is thier insistance on the "scientific debate over the case for evolution". As a scientist myself, I, or any other mainstream scientist (this, of course, discounts anyone from the so-called "Institute of Discovery" which is a right-wing junk-science ID camp)will tell you is that there is NO scientific debate over evolution. Yes there are debates about the specifics (see the Endosymbiotic theory) but the overall themes in evolution are accepted in the scientific field. Should anyone like to know more about the far right's ideological war on science, the new book "The Republican War on Science" is a good book on the subject. Well done Mike.
Z
Anonymous (October 10, 2005 @ 2:17pm):
Z- If there is such water-tight evidence for evolution, what's the harm in having a full exploration of it, along with other competing theories in school? Isn't a true education about the pursuit of truth, not indoctrination? You even admit there are debates about the specifics. Wouldn't exploring these debates further the pursuit of truth?
I'm an engineer (which is simply the application of science to practical problems), and I, along with other intellectually honest scientists, understand that there's a difference between law (Newton's Laws, Ohm's Law, etc.) and theory (global warming, evolution, etc.).
Personally, I happen to believe in evolution, as evidence certainly exists that species evolve over time, and I don't feel offended or threatened when my fundamentalist friends share their ideas or tell me that the earth was literally created in 7 days.
Besides even if the theory is 100% correct, evolution cannot explain creation, which is why I just sit back and laugh when both sides get in heated arguments over it. The theory of evolution explains why species change over time, but it does not tell us much about the very first moment of creation of the initial life (whatever that may be) from which all the species evolved from.
Anonymous (October 10, 2005 @ 4:30pm):
"I don't feel offended or threatened when my fundamentalist friends share their ideas or tell me that the earth was literally created in 7 days."
But superstitious ignorance IS threatening to real science. Science teachers are starting to steer away from places where religious mumbo-jumbo is mixed in with science.
Anonymous (October 11, 2005 @ 8:22am):
Guy who responded to me (Z):
My problem with ID and creationalist thoughts isnt that they exist: it is that they are striving to be taught in the classroom, or more specificially that they demand "equal time". I would be laughed out of a church if i demanded evolution get equal time on the pulpit and the same should hold true for religion in science classes. You are right when you say that evolution doesnt explain the moment of creation (for the sake of argument, lets say its the big bang since that is when the known laws of physics seemed to take hold, etc etc). ID however does try to explain speciation through a direct interference by a supreme being, where as evolution presents speciation as random. My main problem, then, with ID is it seeks to prevent the scientific method by essentially saying "Wait. Stop. You can figure this (speciation) out without bring in a higher power so dont even try". By limiting the extent that humans can probe the natural world ID is severely harming the future decades of scientific research. Immagine if Einstein stoped before relativity, or Newton before gravity. All I am asking is keep religion on the pulpit and science in the classroom.
Z
kevin ross (December 21, 2005 @ 3:15pm):
Intelligent design, for those of you who haven't bothered to educate yourselves about it, is a new scientific paradigm that challenges the explanatory power of macro-evolution to account for the origin and diversity of life. It is not a religious program. It affirms the legitimate pronouncements of micro-evolutionary theory, but asserts that scientific naturalists have allowed macro-evolution to ride the political coat-tails of legitimate micro-evolutionary theory. Scientific evidence is very strong for micro-evolution, but is weak if not contradictory for macro-evolution. Herein lies the dilemma - Only macro-evolutionists insist on natural explanations. Newton and Maxwell didn't. Most micro-evolutionists keep their explanatory options open. Darwin himself drew a distinction between the two sets of ideas and acknowledged that macro-evolution required more evidence than he was able to provide. ID doesn't pronounce the existence of God. It simply posits the testable hypothesis that the origin of information properly defined is the exclusive domain of intelligent agents. This is science, not religion. You are free to draw your own inferences from the data. This debate is about freedom to practice science unfettered by the dictates of naturalists. It is also a matter of having the intellectual courage to go where the evidence leads.
-kgr
Scott Voss (February 23, 2006 @ 3:12pm):
So, am I right to assume that the beginnings of life on our planet could also be attributed to alien influence? Based on your interpretation that would qualify as an "intelligent agent", wouldn't it?
