Samuel V wrote:
I'd like to address the issue more generally, rather than focus on a
specific curriculum which I have not seen.
I would agree with Professor Brayton that any curriculum what was
designed to give scientific support for a specific religious
tradition, whether it be Joshua holding the sun still, the crossing of
the Red Sea, etc., is improper, and an establishment clause violation,
no matter how good or bad the science behind it is.
Just for the record, I'm not a professor. I'm not even an attorney. I'm
just a writer with an interest in such things. I also didn't say that
any curriculum that is designed to give scientific support for a
specific religious tradition is necessarily improper nor an
establishment clause violation. I separate the two issues, and my
primary focus here has been on the fact that the level of scholarship
for this curriculum is just so BAD. I'm serious when I say that it's
below the level of accuracy and intelligence that I would expect even in
a Sunday School class taught by someone reasonably well educated. The
fact that it is endorsed by so many otherwise credible individuals and
organizations is truly shocking to me. I certainly would not want my
name or reputation in any way involved with something with such shoddy
scholarship. I mean, Kinaman and Baugh truly are just frauds, laughed at
even by those who would otherwise agree with them (mention Baugh's name
to a bright creationist like Art Chadwick or Kurt Wise and they will
likely roll their eyes at the fact that Baugh continues to peddle
nonsense that his fellow creationists themselves debunked years ago).
And the NASA myth is just so ridiculous and has been discredited for so
long that including it as an argument for the accuracy of the Bible is
practically evidence that the argument is intended as parody. Yet here
it is actually presented as factual. It truly is astonishing to me that
this kind of cartoonish could make it into a school curriculum without
some reasonably educated person saying, "Hold on".
However, my understanding of the "intelligent design" theory is that
it is not (necessarily) that. Instead, the theory's first hypothesis
is that the semi-random process of natural selection cannot explain
the evolution or current state of species.
There is nothing random about the process of natural selection. Indeed,
natural selection is algorythmic, the opposite of random. Mutation, on
the other hand, is more or less random (still not entirely so, since
certain genes are more likely to mutate than others for a range of
reasons). But this "hypothesis" does not in any way debunk or dispute
evolution. No biologist believes that mutation and selection are the
only mechanisms driving evolution either, it leaves out many other
mechanisms like genetic drift, sexual selection, species selection,
lateral gene transfer, and so forth.
The second hypothesis is
that the evolution or current state of species is best explained by a
deliberate process of an intelligent designer. My own understanding
of the science is that there are at least colorable scientific
arguments to support these theories, in that it is difficult for
natural selection, or any theory other than an intelligent designer,
to explain certain inter-species development.
This is too vague to really comment on, which is indicative of the
problem with ID in general. There is no ID model which says how or when
the "intelligent designer" intervened or what they actually did, and
without such a model there is no way to derive any testable hypotheses.
We are left with a purely negative argument - "not evolution, therefore
God must have done....well, something." But this kind of god of the gaps
reasoning is rightly ignored in science because it has always turned out
to be false in the past and because it doesn't really tell us anything
useful. Because there is no ID model that can be tested, they have
essentially built for themselves an unfalsifiable premise, that as long
as there is any aspect of the evolutionary development of any biological
trait at any time in the past that is not fully explained, their
"explanation" can be invoked as an alternative. It's scientifically
sterile. It prompts no research, it answers no questions, and it is
neither testable nor falsifiable. Hence, it is rightly not taken
seriously by scientists. That doesn't mean that scientists don't believe
in God, a sizable portion of them in fact do; it just means that the ID
"theory" is scientifically useless and therefore it has no place in
science classrooms.
Some would reject "intelligent design" because it is a theory which
concludes that there is a "Creator," and they thus conclude that the
theory is therefore religious, and therefore unscientific. However,
rejection of a scientific theory based upon the fact that it may
support some religious views is as improper as accepting a theory for
that reason.
See the reasons given above, the real reasons for rejecting ID.
Ed Brayton
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