|
Folks, we really need to make a concerted effort to extract our heads from our asses on this particular issue. If you support the idea of Intelligent Design being a part of high school science curriculum, then that strange smell you keep wondering about is your colon. Check your fiber intake while you're down there.
The Intelligent Design "Theory" is based on a philosophical premise called the "Telelogical Argument". Basically, this argument states that complexity implies a designer, the universe is complex, therefore the universe has a designer. As a philosophy major in college, this argument was a "point and laugh" issue even to most first year philosophy students. We wondered how it was ever considered valid enough to be written down at all, much less travel through the anals of history to be discussed to this very day. We theorized that perhaps it was chiseled on the same slab of stone with "Mary Had A Little Lamb", and we simply couldn't bring ourselves to throw away such a delightful little tune, regardless of the psudo-philosophical vomit that might have been written next to it.
The argument is terribly easy to destroy. In the first place, the idea that something complex requires a designer is nothing more than speculation. There's simply no evidence to support it. It's just an idea someone's brain puked up because it helped them convince people there is a God. Second, the concept of "complexity" resides entirely within human opinion. "The universe is complex! It must have a designer!" Because it's complex for you doesn't mean it's complex to everyone. In fact, if you believe everything around you is complicated, then it probably just means you're a moron.
Now, I personally don't care what cock-eyed, half baked horse shit people dream up to fool themselves into believing what they want about the universe. And proving that Intelligent Design is not science is child's play. But what I find distressing is the prevailing attitude in the US that the practice of "science" is whatever any turd-beaten yahoo believes it should be.
A great many level-headed people have said, "Intelligent Design should not be taught in science class because it isn't science." What could be more simple? What we forget is that the people who believe in Intelligent Design must, by default, believe that the universe caters to the ideas of man. This includes science. And the response comes back, "Well, I believe it is science!" After which the argument is tossed into the realm of personal opinion in which there is no possibility of right or wrong and we must then weigh what must be done based on the touchy-feely, neurotic sensabilities of the flag-waving, church-going majority.
The fist waving march of this self-serving bullshit must end. Period. "Science" has a definition. And that definition is not shaped by the fickle whimsey of whatever you and your inbred cousin believes it is. There is no "science" tailor made just for you. There is only science. You cannot produce a calculator and begin to add figures incorrectly, claim that "I believe this is math!" and have the PR coach of the day pat you on the back and re-assure you that everyone's ideas are equally as valid. Science is what it is, and if you believe it's something different, then the definition isn't changing for you. You're just wrong.
A "theory" is not a idea you had while scarfing down your chicken tikka marsala for lunch. We hear this on a daily basis. "I have this theory..." No, you don't. A theory is a scientific model that can be backed with evidence and be able to be falsified. The "Intelligent Design Theory" is not a theory, as there is never the possibility that it can be falsified. It doesn't matter what you believe a theory should be. It's not even the "Intelligent Design Hypothesis". An hypothesis must be able to be tested! It's the "Intelligent Design Shit-That-Someone-Dreamed-Up" and nothing more!
Putting aside how valid Intelligent Design may or may not be, it can be shown, without a doubt, that it is not science. In science class, we don't put down our science books periodically to sing a number from "My Fair Lady". We don't suddenly have our papers graded on the basis of how well we design our sentense structure and spelling. Science is taught in science class. And the very notion that "junk philosophy" can and should be nudged into the science curriculum is suggestve that science is simply another unfalsifiable practice, the borders of which blur at the whim of whatever unsubstanciated explanations of the universe that care to rub shoulders with it. It is an outright insult to everything that science stands for.
Folks, Intelligent Design is simply a spiritual penis measuring contest. It's not enough that religious ideas are taught in their own classes. Imaginary bullshit must be tossed in with empirical scientific methods to suggest that "our religious ideas are just as valid as your science". If all the faith-based groups wanted was to have children given "alternative ideas" about where the universe might have come from, they could have it inserted into a number of courses under which it would be valid material. The insistence that Intelligent Design be taught in science class, even though it is not science is simply an attempt to slap science in the face and secure the fears that our children won't grow up to possibly reject the frightened-cave-man explanations of the universe that have made us feel comfortable all our lives.
If it were any other ideas than Christian ones, no one would even think about introducing them into a science class. And personally, I'm completely appauled and somewhat terrified that the very definition of "science" has become a dictate of the moral majority.
- 2 Gryphon
|