Why not Intelligent Design?

As reported in various newspapers and summarized on the Florida Citizens for Science web site, (Textbook Debate Still Evolving, Letter to Brevard County School Board, and Textbooks Changed under Pressure) a school board member in Brevard County wants to adopt a science textbook including two paragraphs about intelligent design. I find the introduction of these two little paragraphs into the curriculum of a public school disturbing. (Please read the articles linked, or some of my discussion will not make sense.)
Now some will (and some have) asked, why I should feel this way. After all, I’m a Bible teacher and an advocate for increased Bible study, though not at government expense. I’m an advocate of prayer, though not state sponsored prayer. I believe that the universe is designed. So what’s my problem?

Well, I have several problems. Primarily, though, we are talking about a science textbook, and what is introduced here is not science. The contents of science textbooks should be material that has gone through the processes of science–proposal, study through the scientific method, publication after peer review, criticism by others qualified to do the criticism, and then normally after some time of discussion, acceptance as part of the body of science.

These paragraphs do not represent any of that. They are there because people who could not get them accepted by active scientists, experts in the relevant fields, and so chose instead the process of public relations and political pressure. They abandoned the idea of seeking facts–accurate data–and instead sought popularity. They abandoned the idea of truth, and instead sought political force. What really gets on my nerves is that these are, in general, my fellow Christians. We supposedly share a commitment to openness and honesty. Most importantly, we should share a commitment to truth and to an individual’s freedom to test it, choose it, and express it.

Now they sell this all as an issue of free speech. Shouldn’t we allow all sides of the topic to be discussed in public schools? But that is not quite the point. The marketplace of ideas is definitely open to them. They can, and do, express this in many venues. But free speech does not imply that all speech is equal in all settings. If I write a devotional article and submit it to Scientific American, just as an example, I could hardly expect them to welcome it and publish it. That wouldn’t be because they hate religion, but because that isn’t the sort of thing they publish. My freedom to write didn’t impose upon them a duty to publish, and more importantly, it didn’t impose on them a duty to accept what I say.

The problem clearly isn’t free speech. There are ample opportunities for our children to hear these ideas. They can find them in books and they could hear them in Sunday Schools. It’s not the fault of our public education system that people don’t make adequate use of the available facilities. Since I do not accept the validity of intelligent design theory, I would oppose it–not the expression, but the viewpoint–in church settings or religious studies classrooms. But that, at least, would be the correct venue in which it should be discussed. Nobody is cutting off anyone’s free speech here. If they were, we would hear much less about all this.

The problem is that government authorities are refusing a state platform for them. That is their real complaint. They don’t want free speech; they want a forced audience, and the forced audience that they want is our children. Don’t let anyone convince you that adding ID theory to the classroom is a matter of free speech. It is not.

So what about evolutionary theory taught in the classroom? I could argue the evidence for evolution, but that is not the key issue here. The key issue is that evolutionary theory has gone through the process. It has made itself open to testing and refutation. The scientists who support it have proposed and done the experiments. They have had their ideas tested now for a century and a half. Evolutionary theory is science. So is the theory of gravity, of relativity, and many of the ideas of quantum theory. Each of these is equally subject to question, and each may, in the future, be revised or replaced by something that more precisely represents the data available.

That is what we need to teach our children in science class. Science. There is little enough time to teach real science. That is one good reason to limit what we teach to consensus science–what is agreed upon by the experts as working science. But there is a better reason. In basic education about science, we need to provide science with integrity. Not all ideas are equal, and we will, no matter what, choose some to present to our students as part of the science curriculum in middle and high school, while some will be left out. We need to make sure that what we present represents the scientific method at its best.

The theory of evolution does that. The very element that anti-evolutionists (not creationists–I believe in God the creator and I also accept evolution), use the most in attacking evolution is one of the strongest reasons why it should be part of the curriculum: Elements of the theory are being challenged and tested on a daily basis. There is effectively no scientific disagreement on the outlines, but in the details there is an abundance of excellent science being done. The debates that anti-evolutionists cite as a weakness in fact demonstrate the great strength of evolutionary theory as science.

If we allow a couple of paragraphs like this to enter into our science textbooks we have also opened the door to another disaster for knowledge and free exchange of ideas. We will have allowed popularity to determine the truth value of an idea or theory. I would think that my Christian brethren who have taken this position would consider the nature of their argument. Looking at polls and depending on popularity to win a debate about ideas is monstrously wrong, and should frighten any Christian. We know from our history what it is like to be in the minority, arguing for a viewpoint that we believe to be true, but is not accepted by those around us. We should treasure the free exchange of ideas. We should treasure the filter that we have in deciding the curriculum of our public (state supported) schools. When we instead try to have truth determined by popularity, we are stepping into very dangerous territory. It seems that being in the popular majority, in a country primarily of Christians, has made some of us intellectually and spiritually lazy.

Finally, I do want to add a brief note on my theological problems with ID. These issues are not the ones that should be involved in the textbook controversy. The issues there are and should be scientific. But ID proponents are claiming the support of a broad range of people who believe in God, even theistic evolutionists. We get included when it’s convenient and excluded when our ideas are distasteful.

I reject Intelligent Design because I believe the universe was designed by God. ID is mislabeled. It should be theistic. Further, it doesn’t prove what Christians want it to prove and what many think it proves. It proves only a level of divine intervention, not the absolute primacy of God the creator. I believe that God operates through natural processes, but I also believe God always operates everywhere. Because of that, intelligent design theory is anathema to me theologically. It’s not just God in the gaps; it is God reduced to a convenient size to be studied in a lab. I’m not surprised at the limited success ID advocates have had in producing new science. God woudn’t fit in their labs, so whatever they are studying is likely something else.