Intelligent design = stupid theology
Those that represent the so-called intelligent design debate as being about religion vs. science, or about faith vs. materialism, largely miss the point.
ID as conceived and propagandized by the Discovery Institute and others seems to rely largely on the teleological argument (or 'argument from design') for the existence of God, which should be familiar to any undergraduate philosophy student.
This argument, first espoused by Roman philosophers, was subsequently incorporated into orthodox Christian theological arguments for the existence of a Creator. It later became one of the central pillars of Deism, an enlightenment philosophy popular with more than a few of America's founding fathers. Deists held that an understanding of God could be arrived at purely through the use of reason and logic, and without appeal to divine revelation. Teleological thinking can also be seen in some branches of modern Christian theology as well as in the philosophy of science (e.g. in the anthropic cosmological principle).
All of this is largely philosophical and non-controversial. What the ID proponents have done, however, is taken a philosophical plowshare and turned it into a sword to be used against scientific materialism. It's interesting that in much of the media debate about the issue the origins of the design idea itself has rarely been elaborated. People would be surprised to find that the design argument has been used for quite some time by scientists, philosophers and theologians who believed that religious faith and evolutionary science are not incompatible.
What the ID proponents try to hide, and what the judge in the Dover case highlighted, is that their use of the design argument stems not from serious philosophical or scientific enquiry, but is rather the bastard child of 'scientific creationism' -- which holds that the Christian God (and not some vague 'designer') created the speciies we see today at the time of the creation of the universe, which is held to have occurred only some 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.
ID is a sleight of hand strategy used by creationists to infiltrate the public education system and undermine the teaching of scientific theories that conflict with their fundamentalist interpretation of scripture. Sooner or later if ID fails to do the job asked of it they will discard it in favor of some newer, more effective strategy.
There is a wonderful op-ed piece on evolutionary biology in today's New York Times. The author, a scientist, briefly surveys a number of examples of evolutionary diversity, and concludes:
Some people want to think of humans as the product of a special creation, separate from other living things. I am not among them; I am glad it is not so. I am proud to be part of the riot of nature, to know that the same forces that produced me also produced bees, giant ferns and microbes that live at the bottom of the sea.For me, the knowledge that we evolved is a source of solace and hope. I find it a relief that plagues and cancers and wasp larvae that eat caterpillars alive are the result of the impartial - and comprehensible - forces of evolution rather than the caprices of a deity.
More than that, I find that in viewing ourselves as one species out of hundreds of millions, we become more remarkable, not less so. No other animal that I have heard of can live so peaceably in such close quarters with so many individuals that are unrelated. No other animal routinely bothers to help the sick and the dying, or tries to save those hurt in an earthquake or flood.
Which is not to say that we are all we might wish to be. But in putting ourselves into our place in nature, in comparing ourselves with other species, we have a real hope of reaching a better understanding, and appreciation, of ourselves.
Creationists constantly argue that the alternative to their 'biblical' world-view is scientific reductionism, unfeeling materialism and nihilism. I would argue that such a view is nonsense. Religious fundamentalists are the ones who appear to be reductionist (in their limiting of God to simplistic, literal interpretations and their inability to grasp the richness of metaphorical and mystical understandings of the divine), unfeeling (in their rejection of all viewpoints, desires and experiences that contradict their neatly pre-packaged world-view), and nihilistic (in their fervent desire for Armageddon and their consignment of the majority of humankind to an eternity of torment in hell).
An appreciation of the divine can be had from truly studying the works of creation. One need not be a fundamentalist or believe in ID to be awed by the complexity of the universe and of life itself. Some of the world's greatest minds have pondered such matters -- some of them Christian, many of them not. Punier intellects would do well to be informed by the rigor and general humility of many of these thinkers. All of knowledge can not be contained in a single thought or proposition, unless of course you claim to be God yourself. If we want to read a hymn to the glory of God as revealed in nature, we would be better served to skip the tendentious tomes of ID and pick up a well-written book or two on astronomy, physics or evolutionary biology.
Comments
Posted by: Rick Mathis | January 3, 2006 12:01 PM