Intelligent design: Is it just creationism lite?
Sunday, January 09, 2005
By Bill Toland, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The flap over "intelligent design," the latest terminology behind the old theory that the universe and its organisms developed at the discretion of a supernatural creator, continues to unfold in York County's Dover Area School District, where school directors want teachers to talk about the theory in a ninth-grade biology course.
The school board wants its science teachers to mention intelligent design as a possible alternative to evolution, and to note that evolution, as Charles Darwin posited, is a controversial and incomplete theory.
A group of parents sued the district last year, saying intelligent design amounts to a religious belief and ought not be included in high school biology courses.
Since the full trial in federal court in Harrisburg probably won't come until spring, administrators and possibly some teachers in the meantime will be reading the four-paragraph statement to students. The biology lessons begin this week.
On Friday, the school district agreed to temporarily exempt teachers and students who object to it, after seven science teachers signed a letter saying the policy would violate Pennsylvania's professional standards and practices code for teachers.
Last week, the parents group opted against seeking an injunction to prevent implementation of the policy.
"They simply did not have a strong enough case to ask [for an injunction]," said Richard Thompson, chief counsel of Michigan's Thomas More Law Center, a firm that litigates for free on behalf of "Christians and time-honored family values."
Across the country, pro- and anti-evolution groups, scientists and clergy, teachers and principals, have their eyes on the case, which appears to be the first to question whether introducing the term "intelligent design" in public schools breaches the church-state wall that has been carefully erected by the courts over the years.
But even when this trial is over, it's a good bet that the controversy won't be, as proponents fight for the theory's inclusion in public school science courses, while critics fight to block it as simply biblical creationism dressed up in a colorful coat. Along the way, expect technical discussions among the educated class about the precise elements of science and faith, and whether believing in one requires the exclusion of -- or even a leap of -- the other.
Under the radar
Revisionists might say the York County controversy was born of the blue-red values war now under way, with new battle lines being drawn by conservative Republicans emboldened by their recent election victories. But in fact, attempts to work the term "intelligent design" into public school science courses date back to the early 1990s.
"We've had an anti-evolution movement that extends back even before Darwin published 'The Origin of the Species,' " said Wesley R. Elsberry, a biologist with the California-based National Center For Science Education, as well as a practicing Methodist. The intelligent-design terminology "is just part of their PR packaging. They've been selling anti-evolution, and anti-science, for a long time."
In Dover, the case may hinge not only on the content of the statement, but also the intent of the school board directors who wrote it. Last year, two York newspapers reported that some district officials had publicly discussed a plan to introduce "creationism" in biology courses, with one official noting Jesus had died on a cross, and "someone has to take a stand."
For clarity: Creationism, in the Judeo-Christian sense, is not the identical twin of the latest incarnation of intelligent-design creationism. Strict creationists believe that the Old Testament and its Book of Genesis are not only a religious guide, but also scientific and historical texts offering the precise formula for the origins of the universe and man, created by a compassionate God.
Intelligent design attempts to use scientific evidence, rather than the Bible, to prove that living organisms are far too complex to have evolved mindlessly over billions of years. Its proponents say neither adaptive Darwinism, known as "natural selection," nor macro-evolutionary biology can explain how eyeballs developed or how the first organism was assembled. At the subcellular level, they say, there is an "irreducible complexity" -- condensed to its tiniest elements, life eventually reaches a point at which it can't be reduced, because the removal of any part kills it.
For those reasons and others, the world must have an intelligent designer, guiding the process not only at the beginning but along the way, with specific goals in mind.
In the eyes of opponents, however, that common denominator with religious creation means belief in "intelligent design" is no different than belief in any other supernatural designer, and such a theory has no place in a biology course, not only from a legal standpoint, but also as a matter of scientific honesty.
That's because the theory "misrepresents what scientists think, to the extreme," said Joel Cannon, a physics professor at Washington & Jefferson College, and also a member of the American Scientific Affiliation, a group of Christian scientists.
"In my opinion, it's bad science, and its theology is worse."
The great "watchmaker"
As a broad theory, "intelligent design" has roots centuries old. William Paley, an 18th-century theologian, articulated it most simply with his "watchmaker" analogy, saying the universe is like a giant watch, and the living creatures are the gears.
The finished product is assembled, and wound, by the watchmaker. Living organisms, he continued, are far more complicated than watches by "a degree which exceeds all computation," and if watches have a maker, then so must life itself.
But Paley was offering his thoughts on an intelligent designer in support of a Christian god. Most modern intelligent-design subscribers generally try to avoid making such a narrow connection, at least outwardly.
Perhaps that's to evade the courts. In 1987, when the U.S. Supreme Court offered its "Edward v. Aguillard" decision, the theory at the heart of the case was "creation science." Louisiana had enacted a law forbidding the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools unless accompanied by a separate lesson in "creation science," the so-called "equal time" statute.
The courts rejected that law, saying it violated the First Amendment because it "impermissibly endorses religion by advancing the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind." Because today's intelligent-design theory, at least at its base, says the same thing, it's fair to guess that courts might view suspiciously any policy requiring intelligent design in school science courses.
James Alexander, a political science and First Amendment law professor at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, said intelligent design would have a tough time surviving a court test, but added that the separation of church and state wasn't as cut-and-dried as you'd think.
"It's like the Ten Commandments at the courthouse," he said. "Once you put it in the courthouse, it's a violation of the establishment clause. Once you take it out, you're violating the freedom of religious expression .... You can't win either way."
Intelligent-design proponents invariably point to another line from the same 1987 decision. The justices wrote: "We do not imply that a legislature could never require that scientific critiques of prevailing scientific theories be taught." Proponents argue that intelligent design is a scientific theory, not a religious one, and could be introduced in schools as a critique to evolution.
The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, meanwhile, says: "Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist." That opening also could allow for the inclusion of intelligent design.
So here's the chicken-egg question: Does intelligent-design theory, because it doesn't name its creator and isn't attached to a particular religion, just happen to slip through that Supreme Court loophole, possibly allowing it into public school classes?
Or is it the other way around -- are modern proponents of intelligent design refusing to associate with a particular religion or god with the express purpose of wedging into lesson plans, hoping that if a curriculum is worded the right way, it will be immune to a court challenge?
Resilient term, religious roots?
The term "intelligent design" came into general usage following the publishing of a 1989 book called "Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins," written by Percival Davis and Dean Kenyon, both of whom are college professors. The pair suggested that Darwinism, more than a century old, had outlived its usefulness, primarily because it was unable to fully explain the biological complexities of which science is only recently becoming aware.
Davis' writing credit was dropped from the book after it became known that he co-wrote another book called "Case for Creation," published through Chicago's Moody Bible Institute. On writing "Pandas," Davis is quoted by The Wall Street Journal in a 1994 story: "Of course my motives were religious. There's no question about it."
The Dover school board was thought to be the first board in the country to mandate the introduction of the term "intelligent design" to students, which is why groups across the country are watching the case so closely. But other schools have tried to introduce the "Case for Creation" into the curriculum, or at least debated doing so, over the past 15 years.
In Ohio, parents from the Forest Hills School District wanted the book to be included in science courses. In Kansas' Pratt School District, parents asked for the same. In 2000, West Virginia's Kanawha County Board of Education thought about buying the book, but declined. In Plano, Texas, in 1995, school trustees were split on whether to adopt the book. In Idaho, a science teacher was reprimanded for using the text. A Virginia school board compromised, buying the book for its library, but not for science courses.
Critics call the book "creationism with some Wite-Out," devoid of scientific methodology, but the theory's surface neutrality is part of what makes it benignly attractive. Since the book was published, "intelligent design" has overtaken "creation science" as the en vogue term for creationism not superficially rooted in a religious dogma.
There is no denying that the intelligent-design theory -- not to mention the creation science theory and its predecessors -- has some following among serious scholars.
But there's also little doubt that America's growing intelligent-design movement has gained much of its steam by attracting Christians, including many who believe in a literal Genesis, who want to use the neutral terminology to undermine evolutionary theory.
It is this union of some serious scientists and religiously motivated advocates that creates a controversy more complicated than one that simply pits science against religion.
Some of the current backlash against evolution is aimed less at the theory itself than at what some see as the dogmatic way in which it's taught in public schools, said John West, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. The Seattle-based organization, through its Center for Science and Culture, encourages researchers to challenge mutation-based evolution with intelligent design.
Neither West nor the institute believe the Dover schools, with 2,800 students, ought to be mandating that the term intelligent design be taught. But he added a personal caveat: "It's not unconstitutional, nor is it inappropriate, if a teacher at some point brings ID into a discussion."
Opponents, he said, "seem to be pretty intolerant of any sort of criticism of Neo-Darwinism, or any sort of open discussion."
But Elsberry, the biologist, said the current debate is a manufactured one, and doesn't exist among biologists, geneticists or anyone else in the "mainstream" scientific community.
"The problem is, what they want taught as a controversy is not a scientific controversy. It's a socio-political controversy. It belongs in a civics class."
Groups like the ACLU -- which, starting with its legal defense of a Tennessee teacher convicted of teaching evolution during the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial," has been the principal foe of those who wish to teach creation in science classes -- say they have no problem with introducing intelligent design to students. But the theory belongs in a comparative religion class, where that creation theory can be studied alongside the Judeo-Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and other religious creation stories.
"That would satisfy us. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't satisfy them," said Witold Walczak, legal director for the state ACLU.
And if the ACLU and the parents group lose the Dover case?
"You're going to see ID all over the country," he said.
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