Some friends of mine
recently watched one of the most asinine "documentaries" ever made; Ben
Stein's "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." The film lamely attempts to make a case that
Intelligent Design (ID) should be considered alongside other sciences in schools,
primarily because the field of scientific research seems to be controlled by
"elite" (his word, not mine -- and no, I'm not making up that word) groups of scientists. Essentially, because scientists are
"elitists," goes the argument, they should be forced to accept the
concept of Intelligent Design.
Imagine if someone
was making the opposite argument, and demanfing that, because priests
and nuns were elitists, they should be forced to teach
evolution alongside Intelligent Design in a religion class. The same people,
like Ben Stein, who are trying to force science classes to teach Intelligent
Design would be hopping mad, and rightfully so.
Unfortunately, these friends fell for one of the most absurd arguments made in the film; that ID
should not be dismissed by scientists,
because it's impossible to disprove that creation was engineered by an
intelligent being or group of beings. This troubled me greatly, because these friends are very intelligent,
and usually quite logical, and Intelligent Design as science is not in the least bit
logical.
For those unfamiliar
with Intelligent Design, it’s essentially a reworking of the creationism story, using pseudo-scientific terms. The basic premise is this; because many
natural organisms and systems are quite complex, they necessarily point to an "intelligent"
cause, rather than the assumed "randomness" of natural
selection. Intelligent Design proponents operate under the assumption
that the likelihood of "random" events creating something as complex
as a circulatory system is minute, so they "must" have been created
by a being, like, say, God.
Here’s how an example of ID
theory actually looks:
Because humans are so complex, it's not possible that nature designed us through random natural occurrences. Therefore, humans must have been designed and created by the being commonly referred to as God. Essentially, they start with an unprovable premise -- that humans are too complex to have been created randomly -- and make an unprovable conclusion -- that God must have created them. But, as ID proponents see things, ID is just as valid, scientifically, as evolution, and should be taught in schools.
While that sounds "logical" on some level, if you don't think about it, it's really just pseudo-scientific double-talk. There's no science whatsoever in Intelligent Design, and wrapping religious belief
systems in scientific-sounding jargon doesn't make it
science. Think about the nature of science. Scientific theories and explanations are based on
evidence, not based on the lack of evidence. Science isn't about explaining
everything beyond a shadow of a doubt; it's about discovery, and putting that
discovery into context, along with all other known facts. Scientific theories
change all of the time, but the changes are always based on discoveries of new
evidence, not speculation as to why there is no evidence for something.
Evidence for natural selection abounds; it's right in front of our faces if we
bother to look at it. Polluted rivers are producing frogs and reptiles with
"deformities," which are simply mutations based on environmental factors And think
about antibiotics; if you take too much of one antibiotic, it stops working, as
forces inside of your body mutate to fight the "invader." That's all
"natural selection;" nature will always find a way to help an
organism try to survive, and species always adapt to their environment. Look at
something as simple as variations in skin color among humans. Kind of strange
that people who come from warmer climates tend to be darker than those who
spend long periods covered up, doesn't it? Isn't that an adaptation?
In other words, to claim that evolution is bad theory, or that natural selection is bogus requires more than a simple statement; it requires evidence. In the basic ID theory, I could substitute "Santa Claus" or "Superman" for "God," and the basic statement would be just as true.
Try it.
Human beings are too complex to have simply occurred through a series of random occurrences in nature. Therefore, it's possible Santa Claus had his elves design and create us in a workshop at the North Pole.
I think we'd all agree, that's not scientific. But somehow. we're supposed to believe that, if you plug God in, it becomes "science" somehow.
In science, if you
have an alternate view, or a different theory, it must be based on available
empirical evidence. To theorize without empirical evidence is called
faith. And just as important as is the
separation of church and state is a very distinct delineation between faith
and science.
Ben Stein isn't a
scientist, so his opinion on science and ID is specious,at best. That's not
saying he's stupid. In fact, he's far from it. But he does have a political
agenda. What Ben Stein and the entire ID
crowd are doing is an attempt to politicize science, and for very insidious
reasons. They're playing to a
constituency that revels in its ignorance, and they're trying to make them even
more loyally Republican than they already were.
Many saw George W.
Bush's slaps against science over his eight year reign as the ravings of an
ignoramus, who doesn't understand science, and therefore, doesn't want to think
about it. They would be wrong.
To believe that
would be to suggest that George W. Bush's handlers were equally as stupid as
he, and that's just not the case. No, what is happening is yet another in a
series of cynical political ploys, to create yet another flag for the
ignoramuses that make up the Republican "base" (was there ever a
better word to describe this group, really?) to wave, alongside the abortion
and gay marriage flags, both of which are getting a little worn and tattered.
These people aren't
religious. Look at the leadership of the neoconservatives, and you can't find
one of them that adheres to anything resembling Christian principles. They use
religious terminology to get what they want, which is power, and they proceed
to shit all over the religious people who gave them the power in the first
place. And the leadership of their churches gets paid a lot of money by right
wing politicians (anyone notice that most of the money for "faith-based
initiatives" went to white evangelical churches in the south, while they attack groups like ACORN mercilessly?), so they scare their congregants into voting for the
right wing politicians, to avoid the fires of hell and the wrath of the
almighty.
In other words,
corrupt politicians join together with corrupt religious people, and together
they screw the very people they're supposed to be "saving."
That is where
garbage like Intelligent Design comes from. The debate over ID has become
absolutely unbearable. Not so much because a group of people have created a
pseudo-scientific explanation for creationism, but because certain political
types have run with it, and attempted to use it as a political wedge issue to
marginalize science, at a time when we need science more than ever. There is no
difference between forcing kids to study ID, and forcing them to pray at the
beginning of a school day. No problem if you want to do that in a private
parochial school, but there is no way such a thing should be taught in public
schools, using taxpayer dollars.
But even in private
religious schools, children should be taught that there is a distinct
difference between science and faith, and for the sake of human survival, they cannot mix. For science to
work, it has to be free of any outside influence, except the evidence before
the scientist. That doesn’t mean scientists can't create questions, and look
for answers to them, but they have to do so looking forward, not backward. It
may never be possible to prove or disprove the existence of God. That doesn't
mean God doesn't exist; it just means that we have no evidence for it. And
science must be based on the evidence.
I've always wondered
why so many people who claim such great faith are always so concerned with
having to "prove" the existence of God to others. Isn't that the very
definition of faith; to believe that something exists, even though it's not possible
to prove it? Isn't just the feeling that something greater than us is out there
sufficient? It's supposed to be, so a great suggestion from me would be to just
relax and believe; there's no need to prove anything scientifically, if you
have true faith. Religion, by the way,
is not faith, but that's another column for another day...
Intelligent Design
is creationism, made to sound more scientifically plausible. But it's religion, not science, so keep it in the
church, and out of the science classroom. Our children are already at a
disadvantage, scientifically; let's not confuse the issue by introducing theories so unscientific that you could
substitute "God" with "The Easter Bunny," and get a
statement that is just as "true."
