Santorum Distancing Himself From Intelligent Design Law Firm

Fox News has a current story on Senator Rick Santorum and the intelligent design controversy:

FOXNews.com – Politics – Santorum Distancing Himself From Intelligent Design Law Firm.

The senator is quite right that the case provided a bad set of facts for the desired result. In fact, the facts of the case practically guaranteed that the school board, as defendants, would lose.

But why did Senator Santorum wait until after the case was decided to say anything? Unless he was exceptionally careful to remain ignorant of the case, he had to know what was going on. The more the trial moved forward, the more clear it was that the defendants did not have a chance.

The point in this case was not a desire that students be taught scientific controversies. In fact, thus far there is no scientific controversy about intelligent design. I am not enough of a scientist to predict what is likely to happen, but I suspect that this is not one of those revolutionary new theories that will rapidly gain acceptance. Rather, I think it is likely to fade away as even those few scientists who now support it realize that it is a free floating theory, lacking any facts that it needs to explain.

Controversies in science are an excellent topic for science classes, because one can deal with the definitions of such words as “fact,” “hypothesis,” and “theory” and teach our young people how to examine evidence carefully and come to valid, reproducible conclusions. Unfilled holes in the theory of evolution are a fertile area for such study, but that is not because the theory is weak; it’s because the theory is strong, and that it’s value extends across many fields. That simply means that many fruitful areas for research will be suggested as the details of the history of life, mechanisms for variation and selection, and genetics are studied more and more.

Intelligent design, on the other side doesn’t (at least as yet) provide such opportunities. It simply slams the door on research by passing certain processes off to the supernatural. Now I don’t have any problem with things that are, at least presumably, supernatural being handed over to theologians and spiritual leaders. But the mechanisms that intelligent design assigns to the activity of an undefined designer have not been adequately studied. In many cases natural solutions are just around the corner or even now being described.

Intelligent design also doesn’t answer the theological questions. Finding that God had to tinker in order to produce certain systems hardly qualifies as a type of proof of the existence of our creator God. God is manifested everywhere, in every natural law and natural process. The very processes that allow evolution to take place are, in fact, the result of the power of God. When we study those processes we have a chance to look at God in action.

More Christians need to take a stand that intelligent design is not doing credit to our religion. The stated purpose of the Thomas More Law Center is a reasonably good one–defending the religious freedom of Christians. (I would prefer that they said “the religious freedom of all Americans, but I guess I can’t have everything.) But when they took on this lousy case they engaged in lousy law and lousy politics in the support of lousy religion.

That’s a position that needs to be abandoned.