SCIENCE
Darwin vs Intelligent Design [Part 2]
By Dr. Rizwana Rahim
Chicago, IL
Part I of this article was published
in Pakistan Link (‘Commentary’ section)
on 17 Feb:
http://www.pakistanlink.com/Commentary/2006/Feb06/17/03.HTM
.
Last year Darwin’s theory of evolution by
natural selection (Variation, Inheritance, Selection
over Time and Adaptation, or VISTA) didn’t
just remain in the scientific, academic arena. Nor
did Creationism and Intelligent Design (ID), as
non-science challenges to it:
Creationism is rooted mostly in Biblical interpretation
of the creation of the universe and life on earth,
pushed mostly by religious conservatives, while
ID is presented as a secular theory which holds
that living organisms are far too complex to have
evolved on their own and without direction (as Darwin
suggested), and must have been designed by some
unidentified ‘intelligent’ force.
These alternative theories, their proponents insist,
should be taught in public school as part of the
science curriculum -- alongside Darwin’s.
Toward this end, the proponents have for some time
been pressuring the educational boards around the
country to marginalize Darwin in the schools. In
1987, this debate reached even the Supreme Court
which struck down the Louisiana’s ‘Creationism
Act’ (teaching ‘creationism’ with
the theory of evolution) as a violation of the Establishment
Clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution,
i.e., separation church and state (Edward vs. Aguillard,
482 US 578; http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bi...=482&invol=578).
Another battle on the same constitutional principle
was won last December by the pro-science groups
in a Pennsylvania federal court.
In October 2004 Dover, PA, the School Board made
the public school students listen to a statement
at the start of the biology class that evolution
was a flawed theory and ID was an alternative they
could also study. That was enough to make the parents
of the 9th grade students file a suit against the
Dover Board in a PA federal district court (Tammy
Kitzmiller, et al v Dover_Area_School_District et
al). It became the nation's first test case on the
merits of ID teaching in public schools, and was
closely followed in the academia, the press, around
the country, around the world.
In a six-week trial, not only were the scientific
arguments for and against ID/creationism analyzed,
with expert testimony from both sides, but the constitutional
issues were also sharpened. Judge John E. Jones
III, a life-long Republican and a GW Bush appointee
ruled against the Board and the IDers in a thorough
but scathing 139-page report that traced the ID-Creationism
link, the scientific merits of the claims, and the
missteps of the Dover Board
(http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover_decision.html)
:
1. ID is "an interesting theological argument,
but it is not science," and “has utterly
no place in a science curriculum.” ID “cannot
uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious,
antecedents”; it is “nothing less than
the progeny of creationism” [its teaching
in public schools was ruled unconstitutional in
1987].
2. The Board thinks that the evolutionary theory
“is antithetical to a belief in the existence
of a supreme being and to religion in general.”
This was a case of “breathtaking inanity.”
Their “bedrock assumption” is “utterly
false.”
3. Darwin’s theory may have gaps and flaws
and does not explain abiogenesis (creation of life
from non-living matter), but just because “a
scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation
on every point should not be used as a pretext to
thrust an un-testable alternative hypothesis grounded
in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent
well-established scientific propositions.”
4. “It is ironic that several of these individuals,
who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious
convictions in public, would time and again lie
to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose
behind the ID Policy.”
5. This case, the Judge said, “[was] the result
of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a
school board. ” For further study, Dover 9th
graders had been referred to “Of Pandas and
People,” by Dean Kenyon, Percival Davis, and
Nancy Pearcey, all acknowledged creationists, and
published by a Christian religious organization.
It came out in the trial that in this book, the
word "creation" was changed to “intelligent
design,” AFTER the 1987 Supreme Court ruled
against ‘creationism’ in public schools.
6. It was "unconstitutional to teach ID as
an alternative to evolution in a public school science
classroom" because it “violates the Establishment
Clause.” Based on the violation of fundamental
rights, the Judge ordered “permanently enjoining
[the School Board] from maintaining the ID Policy
in any school within the Dover Area School District,
from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage
the scientific theory of evolution, and from requiring
teachers to refer to a religious, alternative theory
known as ID.”
7. Ripping the argument that ID should be taken
as science, the Judge said: ID doesn’t qualify
as science but it invokes “supernatural causation”;
its fundamental argument of irreducible complexity
is “flawed” and that ID “ failed
to gain acceptance in the scientific community,”
and it’s "a religious alternative masquerading
as a scientific theory." There’s “the
complete absence of peer-reviewed publications supporting
the theory”, and NO experimental data exist
on “how intelligent design of any biological
system occurred,” or any empirical evidence
of ‘irreducible complexity’, and ID
and its core ‘irreducible complexity cannot
be proved “by experiment.” This was
admitted in the court by Behe, an ID proponent.
8. The Judge said, ID's goal, put out by the Seattle-based
Discovery Institute, has been to "defeat"
science and “scientific materialism and its
destructive moral, cultural and political legacies"
and "replace materialistic explanations with
the theistic understanding that nature and human
beings are created by God." These "Governing
Goals" form the crucial part of the Institute’s
‘Wedge Document.’
But this court decision may not be the end of the
story. This year is still young, and some embers
lie scattered around the country (e.g. in Muscatine,
IA ). The National Center for Science Education
(Oakland, CA) suspects efforts in “at least
two dozen states” to introduce challenges
to evolution in their science curricula, perhaps
more like the conservative State Board of Education
of Kansas which expanded the very definition of
science which may allow teaching ID and other non-
or super-natural beliefs.
This may not be surprising according to a CBS poll
last October, which suggested that 51% of Americans
reject the theory of evolution, and that God created
humans in their present form. This followed a poll
last August by Pew Research Center which suggested
about 38 percent of Americans believe that creationism
should be taught instead of evolution. When asked
about this question, President Bush said that "both
sides ought to be properly taught." Last year,
38 Nobel Laureates called ID “fundamentally
unscientific,” and some 70,000 Australian
scientists and teachers labeled it as “not
science.”
In an article this January in L'Osservatore Romano,
the official Vatican newspaper, Fiorenzo Facchini,
a professor of evolutionary biology at the University
of Bologna, labeled the Judge’s decision as
"correct." It may not be the official
Vatican position but the article explained that
people did not have to abandon religion to accept
Darwin’s theory of evolution. Lawrence M.
Krauss, a professor of physics and astronomy at
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH commented:
"Science does not make that requirement."
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