With the recent court decision in the case of Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District, the theory of intelligent design is again being hotly debated. The original debate centered around creationism, an idea that could not survive the secular onslaught by the theory of evolution. Once teaching intelligent design was ruled a violation of the separation of church and state, the push to include it in school curricula abated. But former creationists have evolved and are now pushing for intelligent design instead.
According to a Pew Research Center Poll from late last year, almost two-thirds of the population, 64 percent, favor teaching creationism alongside evolution. This compares to only 29 percent who think that only evolution should be taught. Further, nearly 40 percent of people believe that creationism should be taught instead of evolution with almost half the population opposing this view. When intelligent design is prompted in place of creationism, there is even more support for the religious viewpoint. A full 60 percent of the population believes in creationism or intelligent design compared to the 26 percent who believe in evolution by natural selection.
These results are explained not by those who read Bible literally, but rather in the history of evolution education. Throughout the last century, different states adopted rapidly-shifting and wide-ranging policies from banning evolution in favor of creationism, to "balanced-treatment," to scientific creationism, to guided natural evolution, to intelligent design, to straight up evolution. With all these theoretical variations, is it any wonder that the average person -- or college graduate, for that matter -- does not understand the opposing viewpoints in the debate, let alone decide which side he or she supports?
It certainly does not help to clarify the terms of the debate when creationists throw around scientific-sounding language to warrant their unscientific claims in the hopes of confusing people. Using the term "bacterial flagellum" over and over again does not prove anything, but does sound quite scientific indeed.
Noting the slim chances for such a diverse world is also a favorite argument. But saying that a world like ours would only have a one in 600 billion chance of developing randomly means nothing, because we did not evolve by chance but rather by laws of physics and biochemistry. Despite being scientifically worthless, creationist arguments sound empirical and credible, and that is half the battle in the war for public minds. It is no wonder that gut instinct so often serves as an all too damaging alternative to rational consideration.
Creationists have been able to impose their view on the country through the court system, which over the past two decades has consistently ruled that the teaching of creationism violates the Establishment Clause. The teaching of intelligent design in Dover, like creationism, was transparently religious in nature. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania recently noted that intelligent design literature is identical to that of creationist literature, the only difference being that variations of the term "intelligent design" replaced creationism, approximately 150 times in one text.
The fight over teaching intelligent design in the classroom is far from ridiculous or easy. Shot down in Pennsylvania, intelligent design is resurfacing in Ohio, where the curriculum is being modified to include challenges to evolution. While not a bad idea in principle, it is troubling that most of the points that students are required to debate are ones raised in creationist and intelligent design literature.
In my view, the debate over intelligent design, and creationism for that matter, is not really about religion. These theories should not be opposed because they are present in the Bible. If that justification were valid we would also have to stop publicly advocating charity, justice and compassion. The theory of intelligent design should be opposed because it is wrong. Intelligent design is therefore antithetical to academia in every context.
Intelligent design was closer than creationism to being free from religion, the challenge approach in Ohio still closer, and no doubt one day creationism will be repackaged in the format of some sort of secular myth. I wonder, then, how the implications of this issue will evolve, because I can think of nothing in the Constitution that protects kids from being taught material that is just wrong, plain old secular wrong. How then will we protect the sanctity of our educational system?
