Still Fighting School Board by School Board
posted on September 18th, 2008
According to The Wilmington Star, state of North Carolina has instructed Brunswick County that creationism doesn’t belong in science class, even in the form of intelligent design.
The comments on the Star’s blog for this article reveal an interesting trend; it seems that the debate, at least in North Carolina, at least among the Star’s readers, has been framed primarily as the religious, who believe that intelligent design is just as valid a scientific theory as evolution, versus the anti-religious (note I did not say atheist), who believe that religious theories such as intelligent design don’t belong in schools. While this is largely true, I think it’s the wrong way to frame the debate.
The problem with intelligent design isn’t that it is religion; the problem with intelligent design is that it is not science. There may be an intelligent designer out there mimicking a seemingly random process according to its own plan, but there’s no evidence of it, and science is about evidence. Just as importantly, though, evolution is science, and it therefore is not religion. The mountains of evidence pointing to evolution do not explain why it happens or what it means, only that it happens and how. There is absolutely no reason that evolution has to mean that there is no intelligence out there keeping an eye on us.
This rant filed under: Evolution
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