by Sheila Westfall

Created on: July 19, 2008

"Intelligent Design" became the preferred term for those wishing to instill religious studies into public schools in 1987. At that time the Supreme Court ruled that teaching "creation science" is a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution. The new term was adopted to make the concept more appealing. But it is simply an attempt to dress religious doctrine in scientific clothing. There may be a place for Intelligent Design in a public school classroom but it would be one in which a Comparative Religion class is being taught and not a Science classroom.

There are two main reasons why Intelligent Design should not be taught in public school science classes. The first and most obvious is that it isn't science. To qualify as science, a theory must have a hypothesis that is supported by ample evidence. Evolution can be seen in species currently alive and in fossil records. The finches that Darwin found in the Galapagos Islands are still an excellent example of evolution at work. The birds migrated over time from one island to the next until they were spread over the entire island chain. Once established on an island they had to adapt to the available food source; those whose beaks were the right shape survived to pass their genes on to the next generation until all the finches in that area had the necessary beak. Through the process of natural selection, one species evolved into many species.

Intelligent Design has no such evidence. There is no fossil record of God's hand at work. We can look at modern primates and the fossils of both extinct and intermediary species to draw the conclusion that they are related. We can not look at man and monkeys and conclude that they were separately created by a Supreme Being because men aren't as hairy and monkeys have tails. There is nothing to support that assumption. Of course it is true that evolution can not be proved and is only a theory. But those qualities are in fact the basis of science. A theory is not an idea that someone cooked up; it is the closest that science can ever come to fact.

The second reason that Intelligent Design should not be taught in science classes is that there are too many creation stories to tell. Assuming that faith in a book or legend passed down from ancient times did qualify as science, an entire year could be consumed in teaching each version of the design that God intelligently created. If the seven days of creation and day of rest of the Judeo-Christian tradition is to be taught shouldn't the Aztec legend also be represented? Isn't the story of a goddess who was pulled in half by two gods so that her top became the earth and her bottom half the sky also a legitimate explanation? And if not, then whose right is it to decide which creation story is the "real" one. This sort of dedication to thoroughness and debate over legitimacy would overtake the entire science curriculum. In trying to show the alternatives to evolution, students would be deprived of learning about photosynthesis or the innards of a frog.

The point here is not whether or not Intelligent Design happened or if God exists. There is no way to prove either. And while we can not prove evolution either, it is the closest to fact that we can get in the search for how we got here. And therefore it is the only explanation that should be taught to public school students.

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