25 MAY 2006
When you get tired of all the flap over The Da Vinci Code, you can always return to biology. As religious controversies go, nothing tops science versus the anti-evolution conspiracy known as Intelligent Design.
As an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Intelligent Design suggests that some unknown architect is responsible for the complexity of the universe, particularly life. The rich diversity of life on Earth does not, in this view, reflect the outcome of eons of evolution, but is more like a major movie screenplay -- designed in advance to produce an audience.
Most scientists would say that "Intelligent Design" is not intelligent science. It's not really right, though, to condemn intelligent design as bad science -- for it is not even science at all. The real problem with Intelligent Design is not that it's bad science, but that it's bad religion. And the real poison that it offers society is the implication that its advocates represent religion in a holy war against an atheistic scientific understanding of life and the universe.
Of course, Intelligent Design's leaders pretend that it is not religious and thus should be allowed in public school science classes. But in fact, it evolved from the explicitly religious doctrine of creationism, United States District Judge John E. Jones III ruled in last year's court case involving the Dover, Pennsylvania, school board.
Board members claimed that they voted to publicize Intelligent Design in biology class for the "purposes of improving science education and encouraging students to exercise critical thinking." But the evidence in the case argued otherwise. "The Board's real purpose," Judge Jones wrote, "was to promote religion in the public school classroom."
As for Intelligent Design's status as science, Judge Jones ruled that it had none. Intelligent Design "is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, and gain acceptance in the scientific community," he wrote.
His decision cannot be dismissed as the prejudices of a godless enemy of religion. His ruling also asserted that the ultimate question of a god-designer is unanswered by evolutionary science. Supporters of Intelligent Design (and many critics as well) "make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false," the judge wrote. "Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general." Yet scientific experts repeatedly testified in the trial that "the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator."
Evolution and creation are not incompatible -- in fact, they are the same thing. The whole history of the universe is a story of evolutionary change, from a small hot fireball to an expansive space full of simple atoms that formed stars that cooked up more complex atoms that formed planets and life.
Except for advocates of a literal interpretation of the Bible, the story that science tells about creation does not flout religious faith. And most religious scholars reject biblical literalism; any expert on language and linguistics would say that there is no such thing as a literal interpretation of anything. Language is by its nature symbolic (why do you think Jesus spoke in parables?) and acquires meaning only in context.
The Bible, according to the old aphorism, tells how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go. That's science's job. Thoughtful believers consequently consider the scientific enterprise to be the noblest of undertakings, as it seeks to discover the intricate ingenuities of God's methods.
Darwin and his successors have shown how life's diversity depends on an efficient survival system generating a vast panoply of life forms by preserving those that adapt most effectively to the perils of organic existence. In a similar way the precise complexity of the human brain derives from the survival of some brain cells and the death of others, leading to the ability to figure evolution out.
Nowadays many scientists seek similar insight into the physical universe that provides life with raw materials and habitat. Curiously, the universe seems especially well suited to the existence of life. The latest theories suggest that such a hospitable cosmos exists because all possible universes exist, and one of them was therefore bound to possess the right combination of features to permit life's evolution. In other words, with God all things are possible (including all possible universes), as Jesus said in the gospel of Matthew.
So you may choose to believe, as many scientists do, that God created laws of nature that produced many universes, including the universe we inhabit. Of course, you may also choose to believe in nothing but the laws themselves. But neither belief licenses you to dictate how Creation was accomplished. Either belief demands respect for the power of the human mind to investigate Creation and infer its origins -- a respect that advocates of Intelligent Design reject. Which is why Intelligent Design, like the Da Vinci Code, is fiction.
E-mail: tsiegfried@nasw.org
