In the past couple of days, George Bush has caused a news stir by advocating the teaching of a theory described in its modern guise as as "Intelligent Design". In essence, protagonists of Intelligent Design claim that natural selection alone cannot explain the compexity of biological species, therefore the living world has to be the work of an intelligent Creator. The idea is not new, of course - called variously "the teleological argument", "Paley's Watch", many great scientists, theologians, philosophers and certainly poets have believed in a great Creator and Designer of the Universe. The ridiculous thing about the current fracas isn't that some form of Intelligent Design might be a tempting point of view for a scientist to hold: it is that this view is being put forth as an alternative to the theory of Evolution.
Intelligent Design is not a competitor with Evolution. It presupposes Evolution, while advancing an explanation of how Evolution may have taken place. The scientific concensus upon Evolution itself is virtually complete: the geological record, the fossil record, the link with cosmology, biological observations, all bear witness to the fact that human beings and every other species evolved gradually from the first tiny single-cell creatures.
Religious conservatives did fight a bitter rearguard action against Evolution itself when the theory was young. When the Origin of Species was first published, the wife of the Bishop of Worcester expressed horror in the famous quote: "Descended from the Apes? My dear, let us hope that it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it does not become widely known." But in spite of her plea, the theory of Evolution - if not that we are descended from current apes, that we and the apes share common ancestry - is accepted beyond reasonable doubt, and has become widely known. In scientific terms, Evolution is "true" - as true as the fact that electrons orbit nuclei. The remaining questions are about how and why Evolution happened, and who is responsible, and it is here that present day religious conservatives are trying to assert their agenda, while at the same time trying to obscure the fact that all parties agree on the fact that Evolution itself happened.
In other contexts, people find it very easy to distinguish between the "what" and the "how, who and why" of a scientitifc or historical question. Suppose that when General Relativity corrected Newtonian Gravitation, people claiming to be scientists tried to use this fact claim that "we should stop teaching that things fall down, things falling down is just a theory". Imagine that someone was claiming that they had "a new theory about who killed JFK", and then asserted that their theory was a viable alternative to the theory that John J. Kennedy was assassinated in the first place. After all, the idea that he was assassinated is just a theory, right?
The proper comparison is not "Evolution vs. Intelligent Design". It is "Intelligent Design vs. Natural Selection", Natural Selection being Darwin's own answer to how Evolution took place. I will try and do some small justice to this debate in a subsequent article. I hope that it is what Darwin would have wanted - at least, I will try to discuss the great naturalist's teaching. This may come as a surprise to people from both camps. The sad thing here, of course, is the presumption that people are of one camp or another - based on your political views, you have probably already been informed by the media about whether you are a supporter of Evolution or of Intelligent Design. But if folks from either side were to take down Darwin's dusty Victorian hardback and read a few bages, they might find a few surprises.
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