Alabama should not get distracted by “intelligent design”

[NOTE: This was the original version that was submitted to the newspaper, before it was heavily edited down to 2/3 this length.]

With the advent of great economic boosts such as the Thyssenkrupp mill and the Northrup Gruman / EADS tanker contract, Mobile is poised for better economic times ahead. Unfortunately, this has put a spotlight on a public education system in serious need of improvement if our children are to inherit and continue such prosperity. Sadly, Alabama public education is ranked close to the bottom among all the states. This is on top of an already distressing nationwide failure in providing science education on a par with other developed nations in the world.

If we want our children to have a shot in the globalized real world, we need to join forces to improve science education in our schools. If we are to do this, however, we should also recognize our own tendencies to inadvertently sabotage our science curricula: There are well-meaning people amongst us who support the so-called “intelligent design” movement – a group that has been trying to insert a theory of theirs known as “intelligent design” (or ID) into the science classrooms, as an “alternative” to widely accepted scientific principles on the origin and evolution of species. This is clear from the several letters and editorials that have regularly appeared in the Mobile Press Register in support of ID. Unfortunately these well-intentioned writings show that many of us might not be aware of the danger that the ID movement poses to the education of our children.

Discerning readers will notice that none of the authors of such editorials were scientists or science educators. I am both. Therefore, not only do I feel qualified, I also feel personally and morally bound to respond to misconceptions being actively encouraged by the ID movement.

First, let it be known that I consider myself a devout Roman Catholic Christian. My family and I are deeply religious, as are a great number of scientists across America and around the world who see no conflict between science and religion. ID proponents would have us believe otherwise. I am a scientist, and I believe in God who is both creator and designer, guiding the order and majesty of nature as well as the personal life of every soul. Yes, I believe there is intelligent design to everything in existence.

But I also believe there are appropriate venues for discussing intelligent design. This could be at our church seminar with my pastor, or in a religious-studies class, or perhaps philosophy class – but not in a science class. Why? For the same reason I would not use my physics classes as a venue for debating political beliefs and opinions with my students, or to proudly pass on to them my skills in the visual arts of pencil and ink.

In other words, ID does not belong in a science classroom simply because ID is not science – as was clearly confirmed in the 2005 Dover, Pennsylvania, case (Kitzmiller et al. versus Dover Area Public Schools). This is the infamous case where parents sued their school board for trying to sneak ID into biology classes at Dover High School. The ID movement sent down their attorneys, who tried to prove to the court that ID is on an equal footing with established biological principles. Not only did they fail: They ended up embarrassing themselves and the good people of Dover in front of God and country.

The Dover case decision – made by a conservative judge – can be downloaded in its entirety by going to http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf . It sets a clear judicial precedent that ruled the attempted insertion of ID into a science classroom as illegal. Therefore, any notion that we in Alabama might have about teaching ID in our public schools would be an act of defiance that would pit us in an unwanted conflict with the federal government. The last thing we need here is another Dover. We have better things to do.

The Dover case brought public attention to the misconceptions that ID proponents have about science. ID proponents make broad statements about the scientific process as being biased – without actually describing what that scientific process is. As a scientist, I can provide such a description. How does a scientific principle end up in our science textbooks? ID proponents are correct in that it first starts with a proposition, a hypothesis. In fact, they are more than welcome to propose an alternative to the evolutionary model of the origin of species: After all, many such alternatives had been proposed over the centuries. Then the proposal goes through a rigorous process of “peer review” that I, Darwin, Einstein, and all scientists have had to go through: Basically, we make our case to the community of fellow scientists who are experts in the same particular field. To make a good case, the proposed model must be something that any of our peers could test through experiment: careful physical, quantitative measurements. The fact that Einstein, Darwin, and other icons of science proposed specific experiments for testing their proposals, is part of what helped their proposals to be taken seriously. The impartiality of physical data frees any proposed model from human bias. The more such experiments support the model, then the more accepted the model becomes. The standard criterion for such acceptance is the publication of papers about the model and its supporting experiments in peer-reviewed journals – so-called because publication proceeds only after an impartial review by fellow (peer) scientists. Depending on the scope of the model, the track record required for such acceptance could involve tens to hundreds of well-cited publications spanning anywhere from a few years to entire generations. Only after such success would a model naturally find itself in school textbooks. This rigorous and testing by scientists all over the world working independently of each other through many years is a system of checks and balances even more extensive than the American system of government. Rather than trying to prove how any biased, unsubstantiated theory could survive such a process, I suggest we have better things to do.

The Dover case brought public humiliation to the ID proponents’ so-called experts who publicly claim that the Darwinian model of the origin of species lacks evidence and validity, that nobody understands the mechanisms of evolution. The embarrassing irony in such statements become painfully apparent when one realizes how our centuries-old understanding of the mechanisms of biological evolution have spawned entire fields of scientific knowledge which revolutionized medicine and agriculture, providing us liberation from plagues and disease, better overall health, a longer life span, a more stable food supply, and so on – thus making possible a quality of life that is enjoyed today by many people … including the very people who seek to discredit these very same fields of knowledge. Such is the legacy of centuries of tireless work by thousands of good people living and dead, many of whom sacrificed so much for their work, work that has filled thousands of peer-reviewed journal volumes and countless biology textbooks used in all levels of education. Now, if I wanted to dismiss all of these achievements and still be taken seriously, I would have to literally take down thousands and thousands of books off the shelves in all major university libraries throughout God’s good Earth, and then try to explain how every single page of those books is invalid. No ID proponent has ever tried anything remotely close. Neither should we: we have better things to do.

The ID movement would also have us believe that the Darwinian model is so full of holes that it ought to be dismantled. That is like proposing to dismantle the American model of democracy just because we made mistakes. Our Constitution is a work in progress – through the genius of Amendments – and so is science, through experiment and exploration. Science is, by definition, open-ended, and even its most valued principles are forever open for scientific testing and re-testing; it is these very “holes” that actually make it possible for our understanding to progress.

When one proposes to scrap entire sciences on the basis of imperfections, but at the same time could not produce a viable alternative, this is what is known as a “negative argument”. This was the tactic used for many years by the “creation science” movement – whose attempts to insert their theory into science classes had also been ruled illegal. The Dover case revealed that ID is, in fact, “creation science”, hastily repackaged by its lawyers.

Such desperate actions might come from a fear that science is trying to dismantle religion – which would be absurd. Science can not claim “intelligent design” to be “wrong” – remember, it would need experimental data to make such a claim. For the very same reason, however, we cannot accept ID as science. ID has no peer-reviewed, published experimental data to substantiate its claim as science. One could seek out the most prestigious journal in biological systematics and try to find at least one single article that gives quantitative proof of ID – something that would be easy if, as ID proponents claim, ID really is supported by many eminent scientists and Nobel Laureates.

You will not find a single one.

As confirmed by almost comical testimony in the Dover case, it turns out that ID proponents have zero experimental data in reputable journals; they do not even have credible descriptions of what such experiments would be. The science ID claims to have is nothing but a negative argument. This would probably explain why they have decided to short-circuit the peer review process – there is nothing for peers to review. So, instead of making a case to scientists, they had decided instead to make their case to the public. This is not how you do science; that is how you do politics.

In the end, Dover has exposed the ID campaign for what it is: an illegal, fringe movement that is not scientific, but political – one that has repeatedly tried but failed to gain legitimacy with educators, the scientific community, and our justice system. In their desperation, they have sought to exploit our religious sentiments to instigate a fictitious conflict between science and religion, thus trying to further divide an already divided America – which is the last thing we need now.

Instead of wasting time with groups of questionable credibility, I suggest that we just let religion be religion, let science be science, and move on to more important work: How about making sure our children are ready for the increasingly competitive, global economy by providing them a world-class science education? We are all too aware that, today, the rest of the world is beginning to overtake the U.S. in terms of economic strength and that other nations have the jump on us on science education. The more time we waste on unneeded distractions, the dimmer our children’s prospects become.