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Let science deal in facts, not religious conjecture

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published September 18, 2005

How do you feel about this "intelligent design" question? The polls say that most Americans favor teaching it in school.

Maybe our answer to that poll question ought to depend on what it means to "teach" intelligent design, the new label for what used to be "creationism."

It would be one thing to have a discussion in the right setting about what different people believe about how the world came about. That's a question of faith.

But it would be something else to use science class to teach something that boils down to, "By the way, it's okay to ignore actual facts if you feel like it."

Two things seem clear to me:

(1) Life on earth changed to get to its present state. Some stuff used to be here that is gone now. Some stuff here today used to look different. That's a fact.

(2) The fact that life has changed along the way doesn't say a thing, either way, about God. It has nothing to do with whether God made the universe.

In other words, there is no conflict between evolution and creation. I figure God could have had dinosaurs and ape-men if He wanted 'em. As for making the world in six days: Do you claim to know what a day means to the Almighty?

Why bring this up now? Because the issue is picking up steam.

President Bush recently opined offhand that intelligent design should be taught in school. Some localities have put stickers in their textbooks warning that evolution is "just a theory."

There was a bill in the Florida Legislature last spring that would have outlawed "discrimination" against university students who disagreed with their professors. Evolution was certainly one of the targets.

Meanwhile, Florida's science standards for public schools are due to be reviewed next year. And Florida's new chancellor for grades K-12, newly hired by Gov. Jeb Bush's appointees, was accused by critics in her past job in Minnesota of trying to open the door for creationism. (She says she has no such intention.)

The real problem here is that we are trying to cross over between faith and science, and vice versa. Some creationists try to paint this as a competition between rival "theories" that deserve "equal time."

Not so. A theory is a term of science. When lay people use the phrase "just a theory," they think they are saying it is shaky or a guess. No. Gravity is a theory. Electricity, too. We think we have a good handle on them, but you never know.

Our observations say that life changes over time. The theory of evolution is the proposed explanation. Are there gaps? You bet. Is there stuff that the scientists can't explain? Sure. I've said it before: Nobody would get a bigger kick than me if they found out tomorrow they were all wrong.

But creationism is not a rival "theory" that somehow trumps observable fact. It is the belief that our universe was created, designed. Science can never "prove" or "disprove" that belief, any more than it can prove, say, that life is worth living, or that Brussels sprouts are gross. (They are.)

Some creationists contend that the workings of the eye, or the liver, are so astonishing that the odds of them occurring by themselves are impossible. And yet nature has had billions of years to figure it out. In the end, the judgment that complexity is proof of intelligent design must still be a matter of faith.

Hardheadedness runs in both camps. There was an article in the New York Times recently in which somebody asked a scientist: Can you be a good scientist and still believe in God? And the guy answered instantly, "No." That was a foolish thing to say. There are thousands of scientists who marvel at the hand of the Creator.

I have run out of space for any jokes about "intelligent design" along the lines of, if the design is intelligent, how come we have an appendix and bad breath? As one guy asked me recently, how come the pit of an avocado is too big? (Turns out that's a joke from the movie Oh, God. I wonder how the avocado feels about it.)

Ah, well, this has solved nothing. I'm just saying, there's no sense getting into a yelling match until we know what we're yelling about. The best policy is this: Let faith be faith, and science be science; let neither make claims on the other.

[Last modified September 18, 2005, 02:15:36]