Why Intelligent Design should not be taught in science classrooms
For the same reason Moby Dick shouldn't be taught in science classrooms...it isn't science.
Here, read this piece from the conservative National Review Online by Peter Wood, an anthropologist at The King's College (an evangelical bible school in NYC). It's oddly balanced, though it seems to attribute startling philosophy of science knowledge to President Bush--and it makes some statements that I would dispute, but that is no matter. Now forget everything Dr. Wood wrote, because it's completely immaterial to the debate. In fact the debate itself is immaterial to the issue. Other than the (to me) terrifying spectactle of an antrhopologist defending Bush's pronouncements, the thing is that ID is not science. Karl Popper said that for something to be science it must make falsefiable statements...now that gets sticky when you look into it further, but it's a pretty good rule of thumb. ID makes no falsefiable statements. It says, "Maybe some dude in the sky made this all happen." You can't get a lot further than that, no new lines of inquiry are opened up, ID does not spawn testable hypotheses. The Creator is not evident in the fossil record or mitochondrial DNA. Indeed, evolution doesn't address the questions that ID criticizes it for not addressing because those questions are not scientific. The scientific questions that science has no answers to yet, well we're working on those.
You see, science looks for gaps in our knowledge and tries to find rational answers to the questions those gaps pose and then fill in the gaps the better to create an integrated picture of the universe and it's workings. ID just says, "Maybe some dude in the sky made this all happen." It's a perfectly legitimate proposition, it's just not science. If you get to teach it in a science class, I totally get to teach my idea: That this is all a cruel joke being played on us by Satan who we should worship and ask mercy from, as a callous God looks on, unseeing; and the laws of science are arbitrary restrictions the sole purpose of which is to limit and consternate humanity. I totally get to teach that.
Here, read this piece from the conservative National Review Online by Peter Wood, an anthropologist at The King's College (an evangelical bible school in NYC). It's oddly balanced, though it seems to attribute startling philosophy of science knowledge to President Bush--and it makes some statements that I would dispute, but that is no matter. Now forget everything Dr. Wood wrote, because it's completely immaterial to the debate. In fact the debate itself is immaterial to the issue. Other than the (to me) terrifying spectactle of an antrhopologist defending Bush's pronouncements, the thing is that ID is not science. Karl Popper said that for something to be science it must make falsefiable statements...now that gets sticky when you look into it further, but it's a pretty good rule of thumb. ID makes no falsefiable statements. It says, "Maybe some dude in the sky made this all happen." You can't get a lot further than that, no new lines of inquiry are opened up, ID does not spawn testable hypotheses. The Creator is not evident in the fossil record or mitochondrial DNA. Indeed, evolution doesn't address the questions that ID criticizes it for not addressing because those questions are not scientific. The scientific questions that science has no answers to yet, well we're working on those.
You see, science looks for gaps in our knowledge and tries to find rational answers to the questions those gaps pose and then fill in the gaps the better to create an integrated picture of the universe and it's workings. ID just says, "Maybe some dude in the sky made this all happen." It's a perfectly legitimate proposition, it's just not science. If you get to teach it in a science class, I totally get to teach my idea: That this is all a cruel joke being played on us by Satan who we should worship and ask mercy from, as a callous God looks on, unseeing; and the laws of science are arbitrary restrictions the sole purpose of which is to limit and consternate humanity. I totally get to teach that.
posted by justin | 12:44 PM
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