« Financial innovation | Main | Losing the brand and intangibles wars - in China »
November 18, 2005
Intelligent design - the last word
It is a rare day when I find myself in agreement with Charles Krauthammer. But his column today, "Phony Theory, False Conflict" echoes what I have been saying about "intelligent design" -- it is bad science and questionable theology. Unlike what its proponents claim, there is nothing in evolution that necessarily denies (or supports) the existence of God -- any more than the theory of gravity or the theory of quantum mechanics. As Krauthammer says,
The school board thinks it is indicting evolution by branding it an "unguided process" with no "discernible direction or goal." This is as ridiculous as indicting Newtonian mechanics for positing an "unguided process" by which Earth is pulled around the sun every year without discernible purpose. What is chemistry if not an "unguided process" of molecular interactions without "purpose"? Or are we to teach children that God is behind every hydrogen atom in electrolysis?
He may be, of course. But that discussion is the province of religion, not science. The relentless attempt to confuse the two by teaching warmed-over creationism as science can only bring ridicule to religion, gratuitously discrediting a great human endeavor and our deepest source of wisdom precisely about those questions -- arguably, the most important questions in life -- that lie beyond the material.
How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too.
Can we now stop this silly waste of time & energy and get on to the real issue of educating our children for the I-Cubed (Information, Innovation, Intangible) Economy?
Posted by Ken Jarboe at November 18, 2005 8:54 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.athenaalliance.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/432
Comments
I keep saying the intellegent design should be taught in theology classes - not science. Apparently, there are those who agree - but not as the supporters of the theory would like to see it.
USATODAY.com - U. of Kansas course seeks to debunk creationism, more
Creationism and intelligent design are going to be studied at the University of Kansas, but not in the way advocated by opponents of the theory of evolution.
A course being offered next semester by the university religious studies department is titled "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies."
"The KU faculty has had enough," said Paul Mirecki, department chairman.
"Creationism is mythology," Mirecki said. "Intelligent design is mythology. It's not science. They try to make it sound like science. It clearly is not."
Posted by: Ken Jarboe at November 23, 2005 9:28 AM