Intelligent Design is so intellectually bankrupt, it does not deserve to be taught in school – even in religious education classes.
Originally published by the Guardian 24th January 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/simonunderdown
Evolution is a subject that elicits a wide range of responses: simple denial by the religious fundamentalist to demi-worship in the occasional scientist. However, the most common response, and the one that is most overlooked in this most crystallised of debates, is that of confusion. Although everyone has at least heard of Darwin, and probably have the phrase “survival of the fittest” somewhere in the back of their minds (a term, in fact, coined not by Darwin but by Herbert Spencer, in 1864), there does seem to be widespread public misunderstanding about evolution and the mechanisms by which it operates (for example, the oft-repeated question: “If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?”). This problem can only be exacerbated by the announcement by the QCA that Intelligent Design (ID or “Creationism Lite”) will be taught in Religious Education lessons in England.
Intelligent Design – the idea that organisms of great complexity cannot have evolved by natural selection and that a creator or God is therefore responsible for all or some life as we know it – is not a science, as it cannot be scientifically tested, as evolution continues to be. There is no debate among serious scientists beyond bemused amazement that small groups persist in holding ID up as a genuine alternative to Darwinian evolution.
Yet, even though the debate will take place in the RE classroom, the reverberations will be felt, not just in the science class but also across the educational sector as a whole. The decision to include ID in school curricula will give the impression that ID is a worthy alternative to evolution. This move by the QCA has the potential to do one of two things, depending on how it is taught: either show Intelligent Design for what it really is (empty waffle based on the creation myth) or to muddy the already murky waters of public understanding of Darwinian evolution.
We have come to a fork in the road. ID can be embraced as part of the curriculum (and, surely, that way madness lies) or it can be cast out into the wilderness; an historical footnote comparable with that written on the authorities who confidently opposed universal suffrage on “scientific grounds”. ID is not science and, despite the increasingly vocal objections of a small minority, has yet even to fire a shot across the bows of Darwinian evolution. As a human evolutionary biologist, the thought of having to spend time explaining the glaring errors of ID to undergraduates at the expense of more worthy material fills me with dread.
Tags: Creationism, Darwinism, Education, Guardian, Intelligent Design, School Curriculum
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