Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design (ID), a claim that the universe and life are too complex to have evolved from natural selection and thus had to have been designed, is fighting Darwinian evolution in the “Science Wars” of Dover, Pennsylvania and in the State of Kansas.

In early November, the State Board of Education in Kansas voted 6-4 in favor of allowing public schools to teach Intelligent Design in science classes, making Kansas the fifth state in the US to adopt the “theory”.

Last year in Dover, Pennsylvania, the school board voted to require all 9th graders to hear a statement on Intelligent Design before studying evolution. While a lawsuit is currently pending against the board, earlier this month all 8 members of the board up for re-election were replaced by candidates who oppose such a statement on ID.

According to a Pew Research Center poll, 42% of Americans are strict creationists, with 48% believing humans evolved over time. Breaking that 48% down, 18% believe in the guiding hand of a supreme being, 26% in the process of natural selection, and the remaining 4% did not know. Of those surveyed, 64% of Americans believe creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools. When asked whether creationism should replace evolution, 38% were in favor with 49% opposing. These numbers remain similar to a CNN/Gallop poll conducted in 1999, and all in spite of the fact that fewer than half of Americans believe in creationism.

While ID proponents might conceivably have a valid case in trying to expand the scope of scientific theory in regards to the origins of life, their cause is extremely misguided. Intelligent Design, as it is presented in Kansas and Pennsylvania, is a poorly veiled attempt to bring religion, masked as pseudo-science, into classrooms across the nation. And that’s the primary problem with Intelligent Design in the science classroom - it’s not science.

Evolution is observable (subject a fossil to radiometric dating, or study the 1.2% difference in DNA from a human to a chimpanzee through gene sequencing) and testable (a NASA experiment - Miller & Urey - simulated the hypothetical conditions of early earth to find evidence of chemical development). Evolution is a true scientific theory.

Intelligent design is not observable (one does not see a designer manipulating the DNA of a creature to form mutations), not repeatable (if someone can produce a supreme being, please let the scientific community know) and not falsifiable (much like the religion that drives it, the basis for Intelligent Design is faith).

Echoing the late Pope John Paul II, Rev. Monsignor Gianfranco Basti - of the Vatican project ‘’Science, Theology and Ontological Quest'’ - stated, “Evolution is more than a hypothesis, because there is proof”.

Intelligent Design can no more explain the absolute origin of the universe than the Big Bang. And admittedly, the Big Bang does not adequately explain when time equaled zero - much like Intelligent Design cannot explain who created the designer without falling into circular reasoning or resorting to religious creationism.

Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, stated recently that “the faithful have the obligation to listen to that which secular modern science has to offer,” adding, “just as we ask that knowledge of the faith be taken in consideration as an expert voice.”

Intelligent Design does not have a place within science classrooms of America. Its place is in the established realm of sociology, philosophy or religion.