NEWS: Intelligent Design pushed by anti-science extremists
PUBLISHED: Friday, August 5, 2005
By ERIC BAERREN
themorningsun.com
Right after Sept. 11, folks tut-tutted over how the Arab world had fallen.
Muslims had a beautiful civilization, they said. They cherished art, women's rights and science and mathematics. Then they got religion and the whole thing fell apart.
We're rather better off than that, but, the president this week let us know which direction we're headed.
Responding to questions, he said that Intelligent Design - warmed-over creationism - should be taught in science classes alongside evolution.
His reasoning, if you know nothing about the issue, might sound reasonable: Give kids a chance to weigh both options and let them make up their minds. As if science classes are the right place for popularity contests.
Unfortunately, Intelligent Design has benefited from its framing as just another issue pitting religion versus the secular. The truth is far different.
It isn't conservative-liberal politics. Prominent conservatives have harshly criticized Intelligent Design. Uberhawk Charles Krauthammer condemned it in a Time Magazine column earlier this week, adding that any creationism-based ridicule heaped upon religion wasn't just expected, but earned.
It's also not a traditional conflict between the godless and the religious. Scientists of all disciplines and all faiths jibe beliefs in creation and scientific fact. Only those who exist on the fringe, for whom ignorance is the ratification of belief, genuinely see this as a conflict of faith and secularism - the same kind of fear of knowledge credited for the Arab world's fall from glory.
No, this really is an issue of fruit.
In one hand, you've got an orange (evolution). In the other, you've got an apple (Intelligent Design).
If you engage in a broad discussion about fruit (why we exist), it's proper to weigh the two. If you're talking about citrus fruits (science), you steer clear of apples.
Why? The apple isn't a citrus fruit. It's a fine fruit - it's kept many a doctor away, and knowledge of how to pie it made mom all-American - it's just not a member of the citrus family.
The president, however, looked at both and said, "I think this apple just might be citrus fruit."
Further muddling the issue is that creationists have recently reframed the issue as evolution's holes and unanswered questions. The point of science is to fill those holes and answer those questions, however, and 150 years of discovery since Darwin have given us far more to support evolution than discredit it.
Regular people can be forgiven if they've bought into the Intelligent Design dog and pony show, because mainstream reporting on the topic is nothing more than a game of dueling quotes. Particularly bad was a Detroit News report last month that concluded with this quote from one of the quacks at the pro-creationist Discovery Institute:
"The scientific evidence is what will lead the way," (Seth) Cooper said. "It won't be political maneuvering."
Indeed. The Discovery Institute likes to say that Intelligent Design is science, even as the same report quoted an e-mail from a high school student five paragraphs above that said this:
"I'm not sure how connected it is, but next fall (the high school) will be offering a Bible as Literature class," the student wrote. "Also, I took (advanced placement) biology this past school year and the program was already more sensitive to treating evolution as a theory and not a fact. I believe publicity like this is another way God is getting his truth out."
Of course evolution is a theory. Scientific theories are carefully built on hypothesis, testing, observation, and coming to a conclusion best fitting the facts. They also get reviewed by peers, many times over. Theories are explanations of facts, and it takes longer than a morning cup of coffee to produce one. Intelligent Design can't be tested in the lab, so it's not even a hypothesis.
Reportage by dueling quotes, however, means not having to sort out what they mean, or if they contradict. Ironically, the News provided a better insight into Intelligent Design in a pro-creationist column published in 2003. The religious overtones are very obvious.
Poor reporting makes it easy to see why folks might wonder whether an apple just might be a citrus fruit.
If the president really thinks Intelligent Design is science, however, he's a buffoon. His own science adviser panned the idea earlier this year, and the president could get the world's top scientific minds on the phone if he wanted a second opinion. The president's word carries a lot of weight, and it's reasonable to expect that he'd educate himself a little before throwing his weight behind an issue.
If not, it was pure cynicism, a bone of poor policy thrown to his base. But, we all lose.
How's that?
Although this kind of announcement might have generated genuine outrage, it isn't the first time the president has said this kind of thing. So, it only generated some lazy anger, perhaps best summed up by The Editors at Thepoorman.net, with this:
"The silver lining is that school is going to be a lot less stressful when the answer to every question on the midterm is 'because it is God's will.' So there is that."
Eric Baerren is the Sun news editor. His columns appear Fridays. |
