Intelligent Design

Some folks want children in state schools to be taught the Bibilical account of creation as historical fact. In order to get around the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution, these efforts are now cloaked in the guise of "Intelligent Design Theory" which is supposed to be a scientific alternative to descent with modification. It appears that the gravaman of ID is that anything that is not readily explainable in the imagination of the IDiot is "irreducibly complex" and must have been created by an "intelligent" designer, the usual suspects being drawn from various pantheons. There is no way to design an experiment or set of observations that would bear the theory out. Moreover, ID has no predictive power whatsoever (unless I have gotten it horribly wrong).

What do the pushers of ID fear about the theory of evolution? After all, their children are not going to get much evolutionary theory in their 12 years of public education, and what they do get will probably not mean anything to them. Half of them are of below average intelligence, and the average ones are not really bright enough to use evolutionary theory in any way in their lives. A handful may become biological scientists and need to understand and use evolutionary theory.

As I see it, the problem lies with the propensity of folks to become confused about the meaning and appropriate applicability of scientific statements and religious statements. That species evolved via natural selection has no moral implications whatsoever. That God created the universe has no scientific implications. Neither statement contradicts the other when understood in its proper sphere. However, folks appear to take the scientific proposition about evolution as having moral implications, eg there being no Creator, we have no choice but to embrace nihilism. And they take the religious proposition as having scientific import. We are by and large not smart enough to avoid the confusion.

Given our overall stupidity, are the IDiots right to worry that exposure to evolutionary theory will weaken their children's faith and start them down the road to nihilism? They may have a valid concern, and I propose as a solution that state schools expose only the brightest pupils to evolutionary theory. This will assuage the concerns of the IDiots and prevent the possible creation of an army of nihilistic simpletons while permitting us to maintain a small pool of bright biologically literate pupils.