Current mood:	Common sense is good for you
Current music:	Washing machine's gentle sussurrations (Whoah!)

Different Approaches to Intelligent Design
All right- with the publication of an op-ed piece in the NY Times today, called "Show Me The Science", I got to thinking. The piece was a discussion of the role of intelligent design in scientific debate. For those of you who can't read it at this link: Show Me The Science , I have pasted in a paragraph or two that give you the salient points.

"With evolution, however, it is different. The fundamental scientific idea of evolution by natural selection is not just mind-boggling; natural selection, by executing God's traditional task of designing and creating all creatures great and small, also seems to deny one of the best reasons we have for believing in God. So there is plenty of motivation for resisting the assurances of the biologists. Nobody is immune to wishful thinking. It takes scientific discipline to protect ourselves from our own credulity, but we've also found ingenious ways to fool ourselves and others. Some of the methods used to exploit these urges are easy to analyze; others take a little more unpacking.
"Brilliant as the design of the eye is, it betrays its origin with a tell-tale flaw: the retina is inside out. The nerve fibers that carry the signals from the eye's rods and cones (which sense light and color) lie on top of them, and have to plunge through a large hole in the retina to get to the brain, creating the blind spot. No intelligent designer would put such a clumsy arrangement in a camcorder, and this is just one of hundreds of accidents frozen in evolutionary history that confirm the mindlessness of the historical process."

The article is not just a refutation of intelligent design, but also of the way it's attempting to enter into the public sphere.
"Instead, the proponents of intelligent design use a ploy that works something like this. First you misuse or misdescribe some scientist's work. Then you get an angry rebuttal. Then, instead of dealing forthrightly with the charges leveled, you cite the rebuttal as evidence that there is a "controversy" to teach." etc.

Based on this, I've decided to chat on the issue from a few perspectives, in keeping with the theme of my posts, politics and religion.

1) Politics:
This, to me, is one of those examples of a group being really good at shaping the dialogue, claiming the message, whatever. Basically, it goes like this:
Pollster: "Excuse me, Mrs. Joe American: Would you like your children to learn about creation or intelligent design, which are in line with your own religious convictions?"
M J A: "Yes"
Pollster: "Well, isn't it awful that the school board won't let it be taught as fact, even though you believe it's true?"
M J A: "Yes, by gum!"
Pollster: "So, do you think evolution should be taught in schools?"
M J A: "I do, by crackey! I do!"

And then, the last question gets posted on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox (in bigger letters). Now, I'm NOT saying the poll goes like that, but that is what is in most people's minds when they get to that last question, which I believe is a result of a skewed national debate. The question I'd like to see asked is this:

Pollster: "Given that there is a tradition of separating church and state in this country, and given that you are TOTALLY free to instruct YOUR child in whatever belief system works for you: do you think that creation, a RELIGIOUS belief, should be taught in SECULAR public school?"
M J A: "Ah, well, gosh, Jim, no. Not when I think of it that way."

Because, Mary-Ann Faithful, you and I can instruct our kids in ANYTHING we want, when they are home. Even a belief in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.In fact, we can even send them to a religious school, where they will be taught our beliefs as fact. No problem. But this is a secular public school, and evolution is science qua science, testable, contradictable, etc, and creation is religion. Ultimately, the school doesn't care about if it's right or wrong- science doesn't do Truth (capital T), but Observation and Experiment. That's really the end of that.

2) Religion: Intelligent Design, or How The Discovery Institute Jacked My Ride
This is a really long discussion, and I'm suddenly pretty tired, so let me break it down in outline form:
I. Intelligent Design Proponents
A. The Discovery Institute believes in Intelligent Design
B. I believe in intelligent design.
C. Those are not, by any means, the same thing.
i. The DI says that Intelligent Design (capitalized) is a competitive theory alternative to evolution that can explain the sorts
of changes we see as the result of the hand of an intelligent designer. No offense to them, but it's basically creationism
made more palatable.
ii. The EP (me) says that intelligent design (not caps) is not a competitive theory, or science at all, but is a completely
religious and theological view that is contemplated in concert with observable scientific evolution.

II. Evan's Intelligent Design Logic
A. Evolution is, over time, a process by which creatures, species, and ultimately all living things perfect themselves.
B. G-d's motivating energy in the world is, at its most basic, a drive towards a new level of perfection.
C. G-d must operate in the world through some manner or another, whether comprehensible to current scientific knowledge or not.
i. Even if we can explain the entire mechanics of evolution, it does not, to me, negate the presence of G-d in evolution.
D. Therefore, I feel reasonably safe saying that G-d "likes" evolution, approves of it, and powers its continuance, in a manner
manifested by the process that we are still struggling to describe and fully understand.

I have no problem not teaching this in school. It's what I believe, it's what I'll probably tell my kids, though they're free to learn other things. It ain't science. It's just my philosophy.

That's all I've got for tonight- tomorrow is my plan to fight back and re-take the message.
I'm going to go evolve something useful. I say "Bah!" to opposable thumbs. Give me built-in side-view mirrors!

Please comment, I'd like to discuss