Current mood:	aggravated
Entry tags:	creationism, darwin, evolution, fact, gravity, intelligent design, lamarck, theory

Creeping intelligent design
I was going to post this as a comment, but I think it's important enough to warrant a post. I'm responding to weelittleelf who wrote:

See, I tend to think that kids should learn both (although perhaps creationism should stay out of the classroom since it's based on religion) and then choose which one they'd like to believe. As for intelligent design, there are those scientists who believe that life on earth isn't just chance and that science points to an order that's surprising and unlikely, perhaps intelligent design. Since there is science in there, I don't find it crazy. If a student who does the learning happens to see that, go for him. What we should teach children is to be more tolerant of other viewpoints, and not to shove away and disrespect the beliefs of others. We're getting into personal beliefs here, which involves interfering with how people deal/cope with their lives. I know that we should teach facts, and that's great, but we should also allow the freedom to choose and freedom of religion. If we teach the acceptance part, then maybe in the future we won't have to deal with assholes who try to say that it's creationism and that's it. As long as we're educated on both sides. I don't know science, and I know it sounds naive and idealistic and hippish (I saw an extreme hippy on the bus the other day!). This is just what I think.

Here is my response to that:
See - here's where the success of the intelligent design people shines through. They're made enough people believe that, "there is science in there", and who don't really know anything about evolution to begin to believe as you do that both sides should be taught. This makes me very sad.

A) The theory of evolution is a SCIENTIFIC theory, meaning it can be disproved. Actually, there isn't really A theory of evolution. There are lots and lots of theories of evolution and many of them overlap. Ever since Darwin published The Origin of Species, people have been arguing about how evolution happens. If there wasn't a question about how evolution happens, then there wouldn't be thousands of evolutionary biologists studying it today. However, all of these theories have one thing in common: they are scientific theories that try to explain evolution.

B) EVOLUTION IS A FACT. There are no ifs ands or buts about this. I'd say that if you accept that evolution is not a fact or is "eh - maybe a fact", then you're rendering 90% of all biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc... completely useless because they all use evolution as a central tenet. Saying that evolution is maybe a fact is about as foolish as saying, "gravity is maybe a fact". No, it's not "maybe" a fact. It's a fact and that's that. We don't have a single shred of evidence that evolution didn't happen and we have millions of pieces of evidence that it did.

C) There is no science in intelligent design. Ok - for good measure, let's repeat this a couple more times: there is NO science in intelligent design; there is NO science in intelligent design. Creationism and intelligent design are EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

Let me give you an example of an evolutionary theory that IS science but is wrong. There was for a while a camp of biologists that agreed with a guy named Lamarck who had this idea that you could pass acquired physical traits to your offspring. For example, a man who lifts weights in his lifetime and becomes extremely strong will pass on that strength to his child. Lamarck used this idea to explain speciation: lizards moved around certain areas started using their legs less and less, and each successive generation of lizards had smaller legs because their parents didn't really use their legs. Eventually a snake was born which had no legs. This theory is perfectly good science because it is disprovable. Moreover, this is exactly what happened. Lamarck can't be right because there is absolutely no way to pass on acquired physical traits to your offspring; this became clear after we started to understand genetics.

Intelligent Design, on the hand, is not a scientific theory. One of the main reasons is that it is not is because it is not disprovable.

Now check this out: let's say you believe in God and you say, "God exists!". Well, that isn't science even though it may be true. So - you want to believe that God created the world? Great - go ahead. However, (a) that belief isn't incompatible with evolution (according to numerous religious scholars including the Dalai Lama and Cardinal Poupard. And (b) that belief doesn't further our understanding of the world at all.

One could do what ID proponents have done with evolution and do it to any other bit of science. For example, imagine that religious wing nuts said that Newton's and Einstein's theories explaining gravity are wrong for A, B, and C reasons. We believe in Intelligent Falling. Does this sound ridiculous to you? You can read more about it here. Well I hope it does. There really is no difference in how ridiculous a theory of intelligent falling is and how ridiculous a theory of intelligent design is. Now here's the interesting thing: even if reasons A, B, and C are valid criticisms of theories that explain evolution, this is not evidence for a theory of Intelligent Falling. Make sense? Moreover, these criticisms do nothing to change the fact that gravity exists.

I'm actually giving the Intelligent Designers more credit than they deserve because all of their arguments against evolution are complete crap. They hold no water whatsoever.

For this reason, both intelligent design and creationism HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO PLACE in a science classroom. You want to teach creationism and/or intelligent design in a religious studies class? Awesome - go ahead. Moreover, you want to believe creationism/ID? Go right ahead. But you aren't going to teach it to my kids in their biology class.

As for the existence of "scientists who believe that life on earth isn't just chance and that science points to an order that's surprising and unlikely," I absolutely agree. In fact, I'm one of these scientists. Scientists who believe that the answer to this order is Intelligent Design are simply crackpot scientists. Of course, they may be fine religious figures.

What we should teach children is to be more tolerant of other viewpoints, and not to shove away and disrespect the beliefs of others

I absolutely agree. The problem is that you can't do that in Science. If you have two theories that are contradictory, only one of them can be right (if either is correct). This is why scientists in camps that support these theories come up with experiments to show that their hypotheses is correct. If they didn't, then we would never expand our understanding of the world.

If we teach the acceptance part, then maybe in the future we won't have to deal with assholes who try to say that it's creationism and that's it.

Then everyone will get along and be happy and we won't make any scientific discoveries and it will be the dark ages again. So call me an asshole but that doesn't make me any less correct: intelligent design is creationism and that's that.

I don't know science
That's fine. Just leave the science curriculum to scientists then, ok? We won't tell you to talk about the atom in your poetry class.