PBU 32 Topic 96: Creationism in Designer Clothing?
Bruce did a nice job in the preceding post discussing various views of GWB's remarks last week at a "round table" chat with reporters from Texas. The journalists asked Bush about a lot of other things, Karl Rove, Immigration, John Roberts, but the only thing that really sparked national attention was the short exchange about the teaching of "Intelligent Design" in our schools. Because this is the PBU subject for universal posting in liberal blogs today, I'm going to weigh in here too, along with Bruce. (Entire transcript of the Q and A with reporters here.)
I've spent a good deal of the day online researching Intelligent Design, something I'm pretty sure Dubya has not done, either before being asked the question or since. I feel like I've fallen down a rabbit hole where things are making either no sense at all or a strange and different kind of sense. Many people, myself included, may have regarded ID as Creationism in a new and trendier format, a view that its proponents vigorously deny. So, let's talk about ID here a little. Most of the thinking and writing on ID are coming from something called the Discovery Institute, a "think tank" in Seattle, through its Center for Science and Culture.
What the Center does, as stated on its website, is this:
supports research by scientists and other scholars challenging various aspects of neo-Darwinian theory;
supports research by scientists and other scholars developing the scientific theory known as intelligent design;
supports research by scientists and scholars in the social sciences and humanities exploring the impact of scientific materialism on culture.
encourages schools to improve science education by teaching students more fully about the theory of evolution, including the theory's scientific weaknesses as well strengths.
The words "scientific materialism" in the above mission statement are important in the understanding of intelligent design. "Naturalism" and "scientific materialism" are bad things which have led to our cultural downfall as a people, ever since Charles Darwin. On their differences with Creationism, the Center's website has this to say in answer to the question: "Is intelligent design theory the same as creationism?"
No. Intelligent design theory is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the Biblical God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text. Honest critics of intelligent design acknowledge the difference between intelligent design and creationism. University of Wisconsin historian of science Ronald Numbers is critical of intelligent design, yet according to the Associated Press, he "agrees the creationist label is inaccurate when it comes to the ID [intelligent design] movement." Why, then, do some Darwinists keep trying to conflate intelligent design with creationism? According to Dr. Numbers, it is because they think such claims are "the easiest way to discredit intelligent design." In other words, the charge that intelligent design is "creationism" is a rhetorical strategy on the part of Darwinists who wish to delegitimize design theory without actually addressing the merits of its case.
So, that's their story and they're sticking to it. "Empirically detect" is also an important phrase. By this they mean for us to know that this is Science, with a capital S. There is an excellent article in the New Yorker of 5/30/05, Master Planned: Why intelligent design isn't, by one H. Allen Orr, however, which gives a good synopsis of ID, its major proponents at the Discovery Institute and their scientific presentations. Another interesting article is from Natural History magazine, titled Intelligent Design? It's sort of a debate in print, in which three proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) present their views of design in the natural world. Each view is immediately followed by a response from a proponent of evolution (EVO). The report, printed in its entirety, opens with an introduction by Natural History magazine and concludes with an overview of the ID movement.
Try as they might, when out in public, to present themselves as "purely agnostic" about who the intelligent designer might be (was it Aliens? the Wizard of Oz? that infamous Watchmaker? or maybe...God?), reading further in some of these scientists' own writings is very illuminating. A site called Origins begins its focus statement thusly:
Origins.org focuses primarily on the scientific theory known as Intelligent Design and reaches one logical conclusion: that the universe and life show verifiable signs of intelligent creation because there is an intelligent Creator. Some of our resources deal with scientific data exclusively and some take the defensible position that the data point to and support the Biblical claim of Divine Creation. We let the resources speak on their own merits.
The implications of ID for the Christian faith are profound and revolutionary. The rise of modern science led to a vigorous attack on orthodox Christian theology. The high point of this attack came with Darwin's theory of evolution. Orthodox Christian theology has always been committed to the proposition that God by wisdom created the world. A clear implication of this proposition is that the design of the world is real. The central claim of Darwin's theory is that an unguided material process (random variation and natural selection) could account for the emergence of all biological complexity and order. In other words, Darwin appeared to show that the design of the world was unreal -- that science had dispensed with any need for design. By showing that design is indispensable to our scientific understanding of the natural world, ID is breathing new life into the design argument and at the same time overturning the widespread misconception that science has disproved the Christian faith.
Yes, I'd say they sound perfectly scientific to me. Dubya said:
I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought, and I'm not suggesting -- you're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.
ID parallels but is not identical to creation science, the view that there is scientific evidence to support the Genesis account of the creation of the earth and of life.
ID and creation science share the belief that the mainstream scientific discipline of evolution is largely incorrect. Both involve an intervening deity, but ID is more vague about what happened and when.
Indeed, ID proponents are tactically silent on an alternative to common descent. Teachers exhorted to teach ID, then, are left with little to teach other than "evolution didn't happen."
The National Center for Science Education is a great place to find counter-arguments to ID, and to keep up on the various national battles over what to teach kids in science class. The Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture sound to me like people we need to keep an eye on. There are definitely scientists of some sort involved in ID, but this whole deal is so closely allied with and funded by the right-wing Christians, no matter how mum they are keeping about the identity of their Intelligent Designer, that they are clearly NOT just "another school of thought." Scientific thought, that is.
