It wasn’t quite the second big bang, but President Bush dropped a bombshell recently when he voiced support for teaching the theory of intelligent design in our nation’s schools.
Fielding a question about intelligent design, the president said that he believed students should be taught “different schools of thought” on the origins of life. When pressed about evolution and intelligent design, Bush said, “… both sides ought to be properly taught so that people can understand what the debate is about.”
No doubt there is a debate, and Bush’s remarks predictably sparked a renewed discussion. Should teachers mention intelligent design as an alternative during studies of evolution?
Outside of school, that debate is alive and well. The origins of life will forever remain in question. These days, many people say they subscribe to theory of intelligent design, or ID, but particulars are in short supply. To further the philosophical debate, here are some things to know about the theory of ID:
* The theory first gained momentum in 1991 when University of California-Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson questioned steps in the evolutionary process in his book “Darwin on Trial.”
* ID is often misunderstood as an attack on evolution. Even some ID advocates have failed to grasp the foundational postulates of the theory. ID is not a scientific story of Adam and Eve, nor a rebuttal to natural selection or the Darwinian process. Rather, ID embraces the mechanism of evolution, going one step further to explain abstract and seemingly impossible steps in the evolution process. ID could be better described as directed evolution.
* The key to the ID is the “irreducible complexity” of evolutionary change, a term coined by theorist and biochemist Michael Behe in his book “Darwin’s Black Box.” According to the theory, it would be impossible for random mutations to produce abstract creations, such as an eye, that have such a complex network of working parts.
* While ID is growing popular within Christian institutions, it is not a theory designed specifically for a religion. Some advocates, for example, suggest that extraterrestrial beings could be the intelligent designers.
No theory about the origin of life can be entirely proven. The one thing we do know for certain: this debate is growing. Even Harvard University has joined the fray, recently beginning a $1 million study into life’s complex beginnings.
Let the discussion continue and let the arguments evolve intelligently.
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