With the recent developments within the Kansas Board of Education, the state of Georgia, and several towns in Pennsylvania, the firestorm debate between science and the supernatural has again reached governmental levels. The debate is whether or not to allow Intelligent Design to be taught alongside the Theory of Evolution in science classrooms. Intelligent Design, or ID for short, is the idea that the world and universe are so complex that they could not have been created through natural processes, but rather through some higher power. What, exactly, that higher power is, is conveniently undefined by IDers.
However recent comments by Pat Robertson, founder and chairman of The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) Inc., made a clear connection between this previously undefined higher power and God after voters in Dover, PA overwhelmingly decided to oust school board members who supported the teaching of ID.
The Associated Press quotes Robertson as saying, If there is a disaster in your area, dont turn to God. You just rejected Him from your city, as well as, God is tolerant and loving, but we cant keep sticking our finger in his eye forever.
The one hope Intelligent Design has of making its way into the public school system to be taught as a legitimate scientific hypothesis (and it is a hypothesis at this point, not a theory) is if there is no connection between itself and any religion of any kind. By connecting ID to God, Robertson has shown that by allowing ID into the school system, religion is allowed into the school system. No court will approve of this debauchery to our constitution, to the ruling in Everson v. Board of Education, or to the hundreds of other religions which comprise our great nation.
The civil argument being said, the logical argument against the introduction of Intelligent Design into our school systems, put simply, is this: Not only is Intelligent Design an unsupported hypothesis based on one groups theological reasoning, the entire premise of ID is a logical fallacy.
A hypothesis, regarding science, is a precursor to a theory; a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A theory is a well-substantiated and widely-accepted explanation for a phenomenon. The key difference between a hypothesis and a theory is evidence. While the current Theory of Evolution has some holes in its evidence, Intelligent Design has zero evidence. The evidence ID does claim to possess rests on illogical reasoning, formally called a false dichotomy a situation in which two alternative points of view are held to be the only options, when in reality there exists one or more alternate options which have not been considered (en.Wikipedia.org). ID rests on the assumption that there do no exist any possible explanations for the present state of the universe other than ID and various scientific theories. That assumption cannot be made in an area which is seeking to exlain one hypothesis is as valid as another until proven otherwise or supported by evidence. Because of these unknown possible explanations, the idea that ID must be true is Evolution is false is completely illogical.
Suffice it to say that by allowing an unsubstanciated and illogical ideas into science classrooms around the country would not only erode at the credibility of established and well-supported theories and ideas, but also erode at the crediblity of science itself as future generations will associate it with unsupported hypothesi rather than a carefully constructed framework of understanding for the natrual phenomena in this universe.
