Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Dover sole in the dock
The Dover school whose curriculum board believe the Dover sole(1) is an intelligent design, are being sued by parents who wish to uphold the separation of church and state.

A number of parents and future parents of children at the school in Pennsylvania are claiming that intelligent design is simply camouflaged religion – and as such – should not be taught in American public schools, following a 1987 ruling which blocked the teaching of creationism.

It is deemed a landmark case, as although the court decision will only bind if and how intelligent design is taught within a small catchment, it has wider implications across the nation – and it could be argued, around the world.

Like all things ‘public’ in the USA, the school curriculum is democratised. The locally elected board can determine its content. Last year, the board in Dover voted to approve the teaching of intelligent design, as a theoretical scientific alternative to evolution in explaining biological diversity.

In a nutshell, intelligent design proponents claim that biological objects like the ‘eye’ are simply too complex to have formed through an ‘undirected’ process such as evolution. Moreover, they suggest that as some biological systems cannot function, or have evolved, without all their components already being in place. Therefore, evolution cannot be the mechanism which has created life as we know it(2) .

Who or what created and directed the development of complex organisms or organs is not dwelled upon by proponents, thus a ‘god’ is not even mentioned as one of the possibilities. Consequently, advocates claim, intelligent design is not a religious doctrine.

Intelligent design is, of course, patent bunkum. But is its advocates’ argument sufficient to see it pushed down the throats of American children? And from there, where will it end?

It has become a matter for the courts to decide, not teachers, scientists, government or parents. The plaintiffs in the case are arguing that intelligent design is – without doubt – a religious doctrine. They argue that seminal texts on the subject are simply older documents with a ‘find and replace’ run to insert the words ‘intelligent design’, instead of ‘creationism’.

But it remains a heated debate. A recent article “Intelligent design - damaging good science and good theology”, which weighed up if and how intelligent should be taught in Australia was published on www.onlineopinion.com.au, generated the longest discussion board ever hosted by the site (135 comments so far). If evolutionary scientists think they have it all sewn up, they are quite wrong. They may be quite sure in themselves, but still over half of all Americans are more prepared to countenance that god created the living world in near its current form, rather than believe that it has evolved over hundreds of millions of years.

Most of the online opinion discussion was devoted to trying to define the bounds of science - ie does intelligent design present falsifiable hypotheses - and if not in which, if any, school class it should be taught.(3)

But in the Dover case the judges may have quite different parameters to consider. Simply put, the plaintiffs must prove that intelligent design is a religious doctrine and therefore should not be taught in any class. Conversely, the defendants must prove that intelligent design is not a religious doctrine and can therefore be taught in any class the curriculum board sees fit.
What is and is not ‘science’ does not seem to enter the equation, as not all that is not scientific is religious and not all that is not religious is scientific.

The judge should therefore be looking at the varying definitions of ‘religion’. A brief search of dictionaries on the internet (that bastion of absolute knowledge) throws up the following useful/useless concepts on what constitutes religion:

1. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
2. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

So it will all boil down to semantics in the end.

For me, it appears that the label ‘intelligent design’ makes a presumption that something/someone is doing the designing. Any reasonable person would argue that simply not speculating on whom or what is doing the designing is insufficient to keep intelligent design outside the bounds of religion, as there are certain conditions to which the designer must correspond. Ie the designer would have to be omnipresent and timeless and that their/its/her/his existence can neither be proved nor disproved and is therefore a supernatural power. The ‘Creator’ or the ‘creator’ is a matter of faith and therefore a religious presupposition.
This semiotic morass through which the judge must wade, will have important implications for the interface between religion and science in public life. The plaintiffs’ failure could see intelligent design taught in science classes across America, as this is undoubtedly the target audience of its protagonists. And acceptance in America could well predicate growing tolerance of intelligent design as an alternative theory to evolution around the world. This would be a catastrophe and the result of a predetermined effort by a zealous religious cabal to indoctrinate children into particular religious and dangerously anthropocentric world views.

Despite what Thomas Kuhn said, science is defined by questioning, falsification and opening minds in the exploration and description of the physical world. Intelligent design is about closing minds, accepting doctrine and championing the assertion that if it looks too difficult, pin it on a god. Surely not what modern spiritualism is all about?

It is expected that the judge’s verdict will be handed down in early December.

Notes:

1. The Dover sole is a bottom dwelling fish, which after a free-swimming juvenile stage, eventually settles on its side and lives a life on the seabed. As it matures to adulthood, its eyes, gills, mouth and fins migrate around the body. You could argue that this a silly design for flatfish as obvious answer to a life on the sea bed seems to be to flatten dorsally, like skates and rays.
   

   If the Dover sole was designed, it was flawed. If the designer was flawed, then it is not all-knowing. If the designer is not all-knowing, how can it be omnipresent and timeless.

   Of course, the real answer lies in a proper understanding of evolution (See Dawkins, R Climbing Mount Improbable). Once the Dover sole had begun to follow its evolutionary course of laying on its side, flat on the sea bed, there was no ‘going backwards’, against evolutionary pressure, once it realised that option was not perhaps the best way of flattening yourself into the sand.

2. This argument is stupid. Even the human eye is a crap design, with nerves transmitting the signals from the light sensitive cells to the brain, running across the top of those cells. Surely a less flawed design would have had them running behind the retina?

   But why do intelligent design proponents pick on whole biological organs? Sure the eye is a pretty complex, but then so is the cell, the cell’s nucleus, the double helix spiral of DNA, the atom, the sub-atomic particles etc which make up matter. The reason: the Bible doesn’t talk about god making the quark on the First Day.

3. Karl Popper, the Godfather of scientific demarcation, adopted the model that a theory is only scientific if it can be proved false. Thus, when hypotheses are tested and proved false, scientific progress is made, in a form of creative destruction.

Posted by Living with Matilda at 5:11 PM

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