__ / \ /____\ .________/][][][\_______. \__________ __________/ ! / /!/ //!\ \! __!_\ ! / /_/ // \\ \ \_____ / __ // /\ \\ \_____ \ / / / // ____ \\ \____\ \ /_/ /_//_/ \_\\_\______\ T-File_13_____October_1_2005 Intelligent Design: The Science of Bullshit By Emoticon _______________________________________________________________________________________ The commencement of the 1982-1983 school year marked, for Louisiana, the first \ year in which so-called "creation-science" would join evolution-science in the public | school curriculum, as called for in the Louisiana Creationism Act [6]. Public schools | were, by mandate of state statutes, being used to endorse a specific religion, and it | wasn't long before this law was ruled unconstitutional. In 1987 the Creationism Act | was found by the Supreme Court, in Alliguard V. Edwards, to be in violation of the | First Amendment's Establishment Clause which reads "Congress shall make no law | respecting an establishment of religion" [7][8]. While it would seem that this ruling, | based on the unambiguous wording of our founding fathers, was quite definitive, the | debate over creationism in the classroom has anything but subsided, and has in fact | taken a new form, 18 years later, and our liberties afforded by the Bill of Rights are | once again being threatened. < In the late 1980s, the "intelligent design" movement arose, promoting an | allegedly secular origin theory contingent upon the idea that the universe is too | complex to have been formed without intelligent planning. The debatably nonscientific | science of intelligent design, outlined in the 1989 text book "Of Pandas and People," | is the study of patterns which substantiate the existence of such a being [5]. Despite | notable connections to the Christian creationist community (most notably its | endorsement by many outspoken Christians, such as President Bush (who presently has | power of appointment to fill two supreme court chairs), and its appearance in the | mainstream shortly after the 1987 creationism case), intelligent design makes no direct | reference to a "god" or the book of Genesis. Though intelligent design's proponents' | claim that their theory is secular, it's introduction into the Dover, Pennsylvania | curriculum alongside evolution, in October of 2004, brought a lawsuit filed by outraged | parents, joined by the American Civil Liberties Union, against the school board [4]. | The federal district court trial began this past Monday (September 27, 2005), and | whatever the verdict, the case will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court, for a | decision as important as Aguillard V. Edwards. < Proponents of alternative origin sciences point out that evolution is only one | of many theories, which itself has numerous variations. As such, many argue that | students should be exposed to other possibilities. After all, the scientific community | has embraced fallacies in the past (such as the notion that the Earth is flat or that | the Sun revolves around the Earth), and even the popularly accepted theory of evolution | has taken many forms since its conception. < Secular theories of evolution can be traced back to Greek atomists around 400 | BC, who first conjectured that all matter was made up of uncreated atoms, the smallest | unit of matter, derived from the Greek word atomos which means "that which cannot be | subdivided." Between 400 and and 300 BC, however, the criticism from two revered minds, | Plato and Aristotle, significantly marginalized these ideas [1]. 2,200 years later, | Darwin's theories of evolution were first being published, and facing overwhelming | objection from the scientific community et al. Today the scientific community largely | accepts evolutionary science based on Darwin's work, however not without modification | to the 19th century ideas. < Certainly, one thing we can learn from the amorphousness of what we call | "conventional knowledge," is that plasticity of the mind is necessary when dealing with | science, especially at the rate at which new information comes to light in this day and | age. On that note, many feel that origin science is incomplete without discussing | alternatives such as intelligent design. While it is true that any evolutionary | biologist should be open to other possibilities, this hardly justifies theological, | pseudo scientific practices in public school. < Modern scientists follow the scientific method - a process in which one forms | and tests a hypothesis to investigate a subject. Science is not used as a device to | prove one's predictions correct. Intelligent design, however, is the search for | patterns which substantiate the central idea that the universe was created by some | intelligent being. With this haphazard form of science, there is no possibility for a | confounding variable - one can simply ignore anything that doesn't coincide with their | statement. Quite simply intelligent design is not science by today's acceptable | standards. < Evolution is the cornerstone of understanding modern biological topics from | genetics to the proliferation of disease. Subsequently, evolutionary science is also | key in studying applications as developing treatments and cures for genetic disorders | and AIDS. Evolution has been accepted for 100 years among the scientific community, | and few question its scientific validity. While no one can say that the current field | of evolutionary science is complete or perfect, it is undeniably worthwhile to be | taught. The same argument cannot be made for intelligent design, which does not | further our understanding of the world, but merely aggregates proof that the world is | too complex to have "just happened that way" with no scientific benefit in sight. | More important than the scientific value, or lack-thereof, of intelligent < design's academic pursuit is its violation of the very first of line of the very first | amendment of the Bill of Rights. Although it is calculably secular in its vocabulary, | that is where the separation between Christianity and intelligent design ceases. | Prominent proponents of intelligent design are almost all outspoken Christians, | including William Dembski who wrote in his book Intelligent Design; the Bridge Between | Science and Theology that "Christ is indispensable to any scientific theory, even if | its practitioners don't have a clue about him. The pragmatics of a scientific theory | can, to be sure, be pursued without recourse to Christ. But the conceptual soundness of | the theory can in the end only be located in Christ [9]." Furthermore, the Seattle, | Washington-based Discovery Institute is an organization with a staunch history of | backing a conservative Christian agenda also backs intelligent design with their | antagonistic and divisive "Teach the Controversy" campaign, which aims to redefine | modern science around the theory [2]. < Beyond the Christian individuals and organizations who back intelligent design, | there is an inherent and undeniable theological quality to intelligent design. Its | central idea is that the world, the universe, is too complex to have been formed | without the aid of some kind of intelligence, and the entire study is devoted to | proving that. Believing that intelligent designer created the universe is itself a | leap of faith. While faith is fine in a religious context, it makes no sense in a | scientific one. Quite simply, if we can accept intelligent design as science, it's an | indistinguishably small step to accept Christian creationism as science. Neither are | supported by evidence, but are embraced by the human condition. < Intelligent design has no place in public schools as long as the Constitution | is worth more than the paper it's written on. The political power of the Christian | right is being used to manipulate the United States legal system in an attempt to | bypass past Supreme Court legislation, and it's a sad day in America when we roll over | and let this kind of disrespect for our freedoms go unchecked - let's hope we can still | have faith (pun intended) the United States judicial system. | _______________________________________________________________________________________/ __________/ Works Cited \______________________________________________________________ \ [1] "Atomism." Wikipedia. 25 Sept. 2005. | [2] "Discovery Institute." Wikipedia. 25 Sept. 2005. | | [3] "Evolutionism." Wikipedia. 25 Sept. 2005. | | [4] Goodstein, Laurie."A web of faith, law and science in evolution suit." | New York Times. 26 Sept, 2005. | [5] "Intelligent Design." Wikipedia. 25 Sept. 2005. | | [6] Louisiana Revised Statutes. Title 17. Chapter 1. Part 3. Sec 286.4. A. | [7] United States Supreme Court. Edward Vs. Aguillard. 482 U.S. 578. 1987. | [8] US Const. Bill of Rights. Amendment 1. | [9] "William A, Dembski" Wikipedia. 25 Sept. 2005. | | _______________________________________________________________________________________/