Intelligent Design and Evolution

Judge John Jones of the US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania ruled that the Dover, PA, school district acted unconstitutionally when it mandated that teachers read out a statement before teaching evolution saying Darwin's theory had unexplained gaps and "intelligent design" was an alternate theory (story). Intelligent Design claims that life is too complex to have evolved randomly and therefore suggests it was designed by an intelligent being.

Meanwhile, the University of California system has said that high school classes that use a science textbook with a Christian perspective does not meet university admissions standards, putting kids' college applications at risk (story).

The twin phenomena present a gordian knot of legal and moral questions. It is hard to know where to begin, and hard to root for either side in these arguments. Let's begin with The Cicero's conclusions: intelligent design is true; it is non-falsifiable, and therefore not science; it has contributions to make in scientific conversations; and it is also consistent with most versions of evolutionary theory.

The idea that God crafted creation can neither be proved nor disproved; it is an event that would take place outside time and space. God did not merely create the physical world, he created the laws of physics--laws upon which the scientific method is founded. Events that take place outside the laws of physics (the creation of the world; miracles) do not yield to the scientific method. This is not to say science cannot theorize about the creation of the world or the origin of life; but it simply cannot comment on whether or not God had a hand in either. Using science to comment on God is like hiring a detective to explain love.

Intelligent design cannot be disproved, which also means it is not science. The ability to disprove a hypothesis through repeatable experiment is a defining criterion of the scientific method, which incidentally applies to Darwin's evolutionary theory as well. But just as Darwin's theory, though not easily susceptible to experiment and test, makes contributions towards our understanding of species and their relationships, so intelligent design can challenge the idea of "natural selection" and compel thinkers to refine and improve the idea. Intelligent Design and Darwinism are not science itself, but philosophies of science.

Intelligent Design is also a philosophy of science entirely consistent with evolutionary theory and other theories as well. If the world came about through a Big Bang, the scientist cannot disprove that God pulled the trigger (or spoke the word). If life evolved, the scientist cannot refute the claim that God guided the process in His wisdom. God's existence and activity are outside the scientist's field of exploration, and His activity might well use the agency of explicable natural laws.

(Equally, He might have changed those laws when necessary; in a superheated universe that had just exploded into being and was hurtling outwards a nearly the speed of light, who can say that time operated in quite the same fashion as it does today? Time operates more slowly for things moving near the speed of light. Perhaps what was a few billion years "outside" the rapidly exploding universe passed in, I don't know, six or seven days "inside" it?)

Intelligent design should be taught if we want to produce high school students or undergraduates capable of critical engagement with--rather than dogmatic acceptance of--the science that shapes our world. But as it is more commentary on science than actual science, it should probably be only mentioned in the science classroom (much as the Dover schoolboard had it mentioned, not taught), and taught more fully in a philosophy or religion classroom.

Of course, most high schools do not have philosophy or religion classrooms, which suggests the way forward for intelligent-design advocates. Instead of bothering with the science classroom, we should be making high school seniors take a semester in philosophy or religion so they can critically engage with the most critical of issues. Mentioning intelligent design as a possible theory at the beginning of class is hardly a state endorsement of religion--Judge John Jones was wrong in addition to being insulting--but a fuller exploration of the issues involved should take place in aother setting.

The University of California situation is probably the more worrying. In the absence of philosophy or religion classes, at least students are learning a variety of intellectual tools (the students at the high schools in question learned about evolution as well as intelligent design) for which they should not be punished. But that would be to expect too much from a university system that includes Berkeley.