This article is second in a series of three exploring the theory of intelligent design. The final installment will appear in two weeks.
Within academia, the temptation to dismiss intelligent design outright must be irresistible. As it stands, the theory, which attributes certain biological developments to the intervention of an ambiguous higher power, lacks both unifying concepts and emperical foundations. Am I missing something here, or aren't those the two essential criteria of any scientific theory?
However, though this may sound crazy coming from a science major, we cannot cast intelligent design aside. Not yet.
Right now, the best thing that the scientific community can do is study the phenomenon of intelligent design's sudden popularity. Though the movement has plenty of the signs of the typical right-wing cabal, from shadowy thinltank backing to superficially benign partisan endorsements, it is more: a defining cultural statement and manifestation of our society's direction. Only when serious science begins to realize why the doctrine has gained traction despite its dubious teachings can any progress against it be made.
On a very basic level, intelligent design conflates two of the impulses that are strongest in modern America: faith in God and trust in modern science. In a country that believes in the virgin birth and re-elects a born again Christian but has been inundated with wireless technology and advanced medical treatment, any solution that includes both concepts has to be sellable.
Yet how can you have science without experiments? Simple -- you can have jargon that sounds like science. On my request, the conservative Discovery Institute mailed me two articles about the "implications of theoretical falsification" and the "demarcation of disciplines." These arguments rope in everything from extraterrestrial life to lineage patterns, but there is no process, no unified hypothesis nor any data. Just look at names like "Discovery Institute" or even the term "intelligent design" itself. Funny how positive, technical-sounding word choice can hide a lack of substance.
Then there is the free speech issue, the claim among intelligent design circles that this is a fight for diversity of opinions -- even though the experts at a research university like Johns Hopkins think differently. Like other professors I have talked to, philosophy professor Peter Achinstein gave me a decisive "no" when I asked if this was a matter of civil liberties. To him, intelligent design is more the product of an empowered fundamentalism in contemporary politics.
What we neo-Darwinians, as the Discovery Institute likes to demonize us, often overlook is that intelligent design is not just a cynical policy tool. Responding to my last column on intelligent design, one reader declared that it is a diverse movement that will render Darwin obsolete. There are still those who view Darwinism as an affront to human dignity, or honestly hail intelligent design as a breakthrough.
But that is not to disregard the ideological force of this doctrine. Don't forget the unified support that American religious conservatives have lent the movement, or how its unexpected growth spurred leaders of the Catholic Church to challenge Pope John Paul II's essential support of scientific evolution.
So how does science fight back? As Achinstein noted, intelligent design cannot be treated as an item in a serious scientific debate. Without any sort of empirical framework, it would at most be relevant to disputes over the philosophical or social reception of contemporary science--not a balanced biology curriculum.
It is fine for museums to instruct their employees to ignore questions related to creationism, as is becoming a standard policy. It is also a legitimate idea, as another of my readers suggested, for teachers to "explain why science now rejects [intelligent design] and all other versions of creationism" in order to cut misconceptions at the bud. Yet modern biology needs to fill this void with more than experiments.
At its core, intelligent design melds God, human purpose and free speech with science in a seemingly appealing dogma that is an insult to all four. Perhaps a social problem that has left only one-fourth of the United States believing the validity of Darwin's explanations needs a social solution. That is what I will outline in my next column in this series. But just to give academia a heads-up, this struggle for survival must be fought not in the universities but on the front lines of mass culture.
First, however, the term "intelligent design" has to go. Considering how those two words give an exacting, enlightened air to a theory devoid of intellectual rigor, it's time for a more appropriate name. Does "fad creationism" work better?
--Patrick Kennedy is a sophomore chemistry and political science major from Watchung, N.J.
