Intelligent Design

On the Teaching of Intelligent Design in Public Schools

gavinLS, August 11, 2005

The controversy surrounding this topic tends to support what I have been saying for some years now. “Science” as we know it today, is just another religion, though the prac tit ioners usually fail to realize that. The differences are merely semantic.
Throughout history, mankind has had to cope with the universe. Earlier men made assumptions based upon random events that they interpreted either correctly or incorrectly. Those people who seemed to have a theory about how the universe worked expressed them within what became ins tit utions which seemed to provide answers for the common man. Nowadays we call those earlier attempts at understanding and coping with the universe “religion.” But early humans just considered it the best place to find answers to questions they had in an effort to cope with life, and to optimize their existence. It was the best “science” they had at the time. In that light, what we today call “science” is no different from any previous attempts by humans to best cope with existence. Religions of the past have always been forsaken when better and more successful coping mechanisms in the form of newer “religions” came along that surpassed the usefulness of prior religions. Modern man has come up with newer and in many ways better coping mechanisms in this new religion. This new religion is better capable of prophesying about many things. But like all its predecessors, modern science is now going through a phase of development similar to other religions as they advance through time.
It has happened to all the previous religions. At some point, adherents and high priests all begin to fear differing ideas. Eventually they all try to suppress opposition. They don’t want opposing views to be heard by the masses.
The superiority of science lies in what should be flexibility. Since before Galileo scientists constantly refined and updated their understanding of the universe, and have developed methodology much more efficient for doing this, via the Scientific Method. To date, no newer religion has been more productive in efforts to advance man’s ability to cope with the universe.
Much of this new religion called science is limited to the material world, but even there many scientists cannot see that they often break their own rules. There have always been opposing theories that were each considered “scientific.” Many of them have been proven right or wrong as the religious zealots of science practice their faith. Just like prior “religions”, those theories may work for a time, but can be surpassed by better more effective ones. Some still exist side by side today. It was Newton’s physics that placed a man on the moon, but it cannot explain the workings of a quark as well as Quantum physics is able to do. Yet both those “religious constructs” continue to be used, and both seem equally correct. Einstein went to his grave hoping to unify them, but to this day they both operate simultaneously and independently in and uneasy coexistence.
Some things have to be taken on faith.
Yes, faith. Scientists frequently exercise faith. In 1963 when President Kennedy urged the United States to endeavor to put a man on the moon, scientists showed they had faith that it was possible. Had there been a strong and widely accepted scientific argument disproving the possibility, then we would never have tried, and had Kennedy lived to run for a second term his “heresy” might likely have cost him the Presidency. But scientists had faith, and it was based upon their learnings within.their religion. They had “grown in their faith.”
Many scientists today cl aim that they only trust that which is testable. Such testing yields results that either fit in with our schema of the universe, or redefine it. But this is hypocrisy to make such claims.
My educational background is as a scientist. My field is psychology and my academic efforts were primarily on those testable aspects of the field. Yet that same field is rife with untestable notions which are utilized every day to the betterment or detriment of mankind. Sigmund Freud postulated aspects of the human mind which may best be described as spiritual. His “theories” have not been universally accepted by others in the field, yet they are still taught and used today. They remain “kosher” simply because they have not been disproved, though other theories may yield better results. Abraham Maslowe’s theory of Self-Actualization is still taught to students of psychology, and provides a system for many clinicians trying to help human beings. But show me a test that proves or disproves it. Or if one wants to limit science strictly to the material universe, B.F. Skinner demonstrated the fundamentals of learning using lab rats and pigeons. But can Skinner or any other scientist explain sentience in organisms? What “force” enables me to be aware of my own existence and that of the world around me? If I am just matter, what force impels me to care? What force compels me to want to continue existing at all? Perhaps I may possibly be happier if I were dust?
Or let’s confine our discussion to physics. Why can’t our understanding of the electro-magnetic force be unified with our understanding of the gravitational force?
Science throughout its history has had to postulate concepts to answer many questions, some testable and some untestable, with varying results. The history of our understanding of the atom was changed numerous times by the addition of various elements that had to be postulated in order to fill our understanding. Did any scientist ever see an electron? No, but they postulated it via deductive reasoning. They assumed it must be there.
One of my favorite theories in physics is known as String Theory. I’m limited in my ability to comprehend and explain it, but I find it fascinating that it may provide a unified field theory that would meld Quantum mechanics and Einstein’s Relativity. It holds that the universe and everything in it is comprised of infinitely small vibrating strings of pure energy. If string theory is valid, then the proofs within it demonstrate no less than eleven different dimensional planes of existence, and possibly more. Fascinating! But doesn’t that coincide well with the concepts of Heaven and Hell, both of which have some adherents citing various planes of existence within them?
If modern scientists are not offended by the String Theory of the universe, why are they so repulsed at the idea that some infinitely superior power may be in control of it? God is just another postulation that may provide the answers. It is every bit as well deducible from the evidence as those elusive electrons. The fact that we have obtained predictable results in our efforts to manipulate subatomic particles only presents cause and effects which coincide with our assumed concepts. We know what we will have on a printout when we think we have forced two quarks to collide, but did anyone actually witness the collision? Is there no other possible explanation for those results? And if not, how can we know that such an alternative theory cannot exist?
Scientists who fear such alternative views are no wiser than the mediaeval priests who forced Galileo to recant. They want to limit our minds to their own mental limitations. Science cannot prove or disprove many of the theories it continues to support. Why cannot Intentional Design be viewed among those? To argue that it cannot, is akin to telling the biologist that insects cannot exist outside his laboratory.
Okay, if you still don’t agree, my next question is what gives modern liberals the right to deny access to such alternative views? Why are they so afraid people will think along different lines and make up their own minds? Shouldn’t students in our schools be taught to think deeply and independently? If modern “science” has a better answer, then students will realize that for themselves. Now the issue becomes one of ethics.
Science utilizes deductive and inductive logic all the time, so I have purposely stayed away from Biblical quotations to make my points here, so that scientists and liberals will have to debate this issue in a logical manner rather from a narrow mindedness and bias against alternative thought.