Dogmatic Scientists Fight Rational Christians

As a lifelong atheist who's never had a moment's doubt about it, I'm no natural ally to proponents of Intelligent Design, the theory that opposes Evolution in favor of an "intelligent designer."

But I continue to be amazed by the scientific establishment's largely faith-based (and unintelligent) opposition to the theory. It's as if they have been brainwashed into unthinking adherence to "the scientific method," and forgotten the more fundamental reason on which that method is based.

Their arguments are now being played out in a legal trial in Pennsylvania -- the first direct challenge to a school district that has tried to mandate the teaching of Intelligent Design. The immediate issue is the Dover, Pennsylvania school board's requirement that a four-paragraph statement be read to the students at the opening of the semester's biology class, saying in part that "intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view," and advising students that a textbook that teaches intelligent design, "Of Pandas and People," is available in the school library.

The trial is expected to last six weeks and to draw news coverage from around the world. The two sides agree that the case will probably make its way to the Supreme Court regardless of outcome.

On Evolution's side is a legal team put together by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Witold J. Walczak, legal director of the A.C.L.U. of Pennsylvania, says the plaintiffs will call six experts in history, theology, philosophy of science and science to show that "Intelligent Design is not science because it does not meet the ground rules of science, is not based on natural explanations, is not testable."

Their main expert witness is biologist Kenneth R. Miller, a professor at Brown University and the co-author of the widely used high school textbook "Biology." He was the only person to take the stand on September 26, the trial's opening day. He denigrated Intelligent Design as "a negative argument against evolution," in which there is no "positive argument" to test whether an intelligent designer actually exists. If the theory is not testable, he said, it is not science.

The argument for Intelligent Design is indeed "negative" and untestable. But it is also "based on physical evidence and a straightforward application of logic," as Lehigh University biochemistry professor Michael J. Behe explains in Design for Living, an op-ed piece published last February in the New York Times that defends Intelligent Design. (Prof. Behe is a leading Intelligent Design theorist who will be testifying for the defense.)

Besides Intelligent Design's upsetting an intellectual framework with which many scientists are comfortable, opponents object to the theory on the basis that it is just "the 21st-century version of creationism," as a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Eric Rothschild, put it in his opening argument.

He said that the board's own documents would show that the board members had initially discussed teaching "creationism" -- one former member said he wanted the class time evenly split between creationism and evolution -- and that they substituted the words "intelligent design" only when they were made aware by lawyers of the constitutional problems involved. (In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled that teaching creation science in public schools was unconstitutional because it was based on religion.)

But arguing about the defendants' motives is also an unsound argument against Intelligent Design. Even if proponents of Intelligent Design are unmasked as creatonists and devout believers, they can legitimately take the position that they have found scientific evidence in support of their religious faith -- and that they are only advocating that this scientific evidence be taught in science classrooms.

Thankfully, the plaintiffs' courtoom strategy also contains rational elements. Prof. Miller will confront the Intelligent Design theory directly and seek to show the court that the Pandas textbook is "inaccurate and downright false in every section."

That would be the right way to conduct this argument.

A technical examination of the basis for the Intelligent Design theory may well find it uninformed. I'm no biologist, and on that issue, I'm an agnostic.

The above based on A Web of Faith, Law and Science in Evolution Suit and Evolution Lawsuit Opens in Pennsylvania, New York Times, September 26, 2005 and September 27, 2005 respectively. Above text includes excerpts from these articles.

See Also: My more detailed criticism of mainstream science's objections in Issue Ratatouille (among several topics discussed in that piece).