This latest round of "let's make Kansans look like morons" is being led by proponents of Intelligent Design (also known--somewhat unfortunately--as ID). I took the thoughts listed above from intelligentdesignnetwork.org. What's most interesting about these ID guys is that they hang their hat on the fact that scientists who subscribe to evolution (almost all the scientists in the world) exclude the possibility of divine creation of life because such a creation would not be "naturalistic," or explicable within the confines of the natural world. The ID guys see this exclusion as anti-scientific--and excluding any possible explanation does seem to go against the "let the chips fall where they may" credo of experimental science.

But wait. Check out that last factoid. The ID people rule out evolution even before they get into their supposed "scientific" process. Think I'm misquoting? Here's the paragraph in full:

Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent causes can do things that undirected natural causes cannot. Undirected natural causes can place scrabble pieces on a board, but cannot arrange the pieces as meaningful words and sentences. To obtain a meaningful arrangement requires an intelligent cause. This intuition, that there is a fundamental distinction between undirected natural causes on the one hand and intelligent causes on the other, has underlain the design arguments of past centuries.

That little tidbit is from a paper by William Dembski called "The Intelligent Design Movement." Dembski himself is one of the leaders of the movement. In another paper, "Intelligent Design," William Harris and John Calvert (two of the proponents of this current "trial" of evolution) describe how ID adherents are "scientifically" attempting both to prove their own theory and disprove evolutionary theory.

In short, the ID people are doing exactly what they claim regular scientists do; that is, exclude a possible explanation before beginning their examination. And even worse, they aren't following proper scientific protocol. A true scientist tries to disprove--rather than prove--a particular hypothesis. This may seem like a semantic quibble, but it's important. Indeed, many a bright scientific career has been launched by a new critical insight into a long-held belief. As for the scientific "rejection" of divine creation, that's simply a practical matter. Divine creation would be a supernatural event, one that cannot be divined (sorry, but I couldn't think of another word) from the natural record. In a way, that's a semantic quibble as well, but there are practical reasons. God is not part of the natural universe--almost all religions agree on that point. Science, at its core, tries to explain the world (and, by extension, the universe) by the observation of natural phenomena, which rules out using any god as an explanation for anything.

As for the main ID criticisms of evolution, some have a grain of truth. Scientists do not agree on the mechanics of evolution. That is, there are many competing ideas as to the specifics. While the public may be most familiar with Steven Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge's punctuated equilibrium--instead of a slow, continuous movement, evolution tends to be characterized by long periods of virtual standstill ("equilibrium"), "punctuated" by episodes of very fast development of new forms--there are plenty of other competing ideas. A friend of mine (who happens to be an evolutionary biologist) scoffs at the notion that punctuated equilibrium or any other current explanation of evolution holds ultimate truth. Science is the search for truth, but it's always hard to see when you've reached it.

Which leads to the problem facing high school science teachers. Evolution (as a general concept) is just about universally accepted within the scientific community. The specifics are murky--which is why a career in evolutionary biology can be a lot of fun. The ID people (and, for that matter the Creation Science people) who claim that there is no scientific consensus on evolution are playing with words. That's like saying because there is no historical consensus on how many people perished in the Holocaust (the numbers do bounce around a bit, even today), the Holocaust itself didn't happen. This is a farce, pure and simple.

Despite what ID and Creation Science people claim, the world's religions (particularly Christianity) embraced evolution fairly early on. The Catholic Church, which took so long to accept Copernican astronomy, came around to the notion of evolution just a few years after the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. All it takes to reconcile science and religion is a willingness to believe that--despite the full divinity some ascribe to the scriptures--it is impossible for mankind to know the mind of God. After all, a literal belief in a human document (e.g., the Bible) reduces an omnipotent and all-powerful god into a restrained, defined god. So if you happen to have an even modestly expansive view of things, it's easy to view evolution as one of God's greatest creations.

I don't happen to believe that, of course--I'm a born-again atheist. But it seems to me that if you claim to believe in an omnipotent god, then that god has the power to do anything--including creating the natural universe and then staying out of it.

If you want kids taught Intelligent Design or Creation Science or any other sort of faith-based (and yes, while ID is open enough to be acceptable to just about every religion, its insistence on "design" implies a divine intervention of some kind) explanation for life, fine. Teach it in religion class. Teach it in social studies class. Teach it in English class. But let the scientists teach science. And speaking of proper use of scientific terms...there are plenty of scientific "theories" that are commonly accepted by just about everyone. There's that one about gravity.

You know, if the Bible had said anything like "And on the third day, God created gravitational attraction," these dingbats would be all over that one, too.

I guess their god truly isn't big enough.

Jon Worley's grandfather was an agronomy professor at Kansas State University who specialized in plant genetics. Elmer Heyne was a dedicated Republican and deeply religious--and he had little difficulty resolving scientific and religious ideas. He's likely turning in his grave right about now.