Intelligent Design

Two lesser-reported events occurred within the past week, both of which deal with the subject of science curriculum in public schools. In Kansas, the state board of education approved the adoption of the teaching of Intelligent Design in all schools. In Dover, Pennsylvania, voters ousted all members of the local school board who had approved the teaching of intelligent design in their district in favor of the evolution-only candidates.

Just what is meant by “intelligent design?” Simply put, it is a scientific discipline that recognizes that traditional Darwinian evolutionary theory is inadequate to explain the origins of life. There are too many gaps and holes and implausible scenarios for it to have occurred. Intelligent Design’s founder, William Dembski, acknowledges readily that he is a Christian and believes in the creation account as revealed in the Bible. However, such blatant instruction in religion would never be possible in public schools. So how can Kansas do it? ID theory, as advanced for use in schools, never suggests who the designer is. Maybe it was extraterrestrials. The point is, there is ample evidence in this magnificent, orderly world of an intelligent designer.

President Bush has also weighed in on the subject, and has encouraged that ID be taught alongside Darwinian theory, so that students can make up their own mind. But, as might be anticipated, most opponents ridicule anything that is contrary to their evolutionary worldview and model as unscientific, and fight tooth and nail to have ID kept out of the public school classroom.

What do you think? Follow the links provided above and offer your comments. Should ID be taught in public schools? Is it proper to talk about the “Intelligent Designer” without identifying Him? (Would Paul in Athens not have told the philosophers about the “unknown God” in whom they lived, and moved, and had their being?) How much exposure do you have to evolutionary theory and its shortcomings?

“We are his offspring”