Intelligent Design a threat to scientific method

I thoroughly enjoyed last week’s article on the intelligent design debate and it’s refreshing to see this long-neglected viewpoint finally given the time of day in Vassar’s otherwise closed-minded scientific community.

Intelligent design,or ID, completely distinct from creationism, is the idea that a powerful, conscious force created life and the universe in more or less its present-day form. This force is not to be necessarily equated with the similarly powerful Judeo-Christian God, even if virtually all ID advocates do so themselves. Unlike creationism, intelligent design is a concept arrived at through studying hard evidence such as the undeniable facts that the universe is really complicated, there are some things we just don’t know yet, and Darwin fails to explain just who pops up the next Kleenex.

Sure, most current science textbooks teach the concept of evolution. But we must never forget that evolution, like the heliocentric solar system, is only a theory! It should not matter that it has the resounding support of geological, astronomical, and biological evidence. If we are to seek truth, it must be with an open mind, and if there’s anything that Vassar owes to its tuition-paying students, it’s presenting all sides of the issue.

Even though 80% of Americans already accept some intelligent creator behind life on Earth, we have to teach this important point of view to those who will go on to become the nation’s great scientists (an overwhelming majority of which still refuse to consider this entirely plausible concept). In fact, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences even refuse to refer to ID as science!

But how can 250 million Americans be wrong? This discrepancy can only be explained by assuming that the nation’s scientists have studied at schools that have presented a narrow, one-sided view of biology and astrophysics. Despite their fancy degrees and pretty lab coats, they’ve been cruelly denied the teaching of ID. They’ve been brainwashed into sticking to the scientific method, which stubbornly refuses to test the unobservable, the unquantifiable, and thus as far as they’re concerned, the non-existent. Come on, guys! Take a chance!

But I am indeed excited. Inspired, even. Totally enthusiastic to see that the walls of ignorance in the elitist and exclusionary scientific community are giving way to the democratic method of presenting all proposed viewpoints and letting the average persons decide which one to believe. Why must we continue to let these four-eyed eggheads decide for us what science is, let alone what students should be learning in science class?

Jacqueline Law is absolutely correct: one-sided bias is not education. Creationism (although I’m sure she really meant “intelligent design”) should indeed be taught alongside evolution at Vassar. Jackie, you will find me front row center in our new Intelligent Design class, ready to open my mind to the various suppositions of what I’m sure will be respected scientists contributing to peer-reviewed scientific journals. Afterwards, instead of going to the library to look up the various sums of evidence for each theory, we can have a ten minute conversation about which one we happen to like more. A quick break for lunch, and then it’s on to “Holocaust Denial 101: The Hoax of the Twentieth Century,” followed by the “September 11: Fact or Fiction?” class before we end the day with our exciting three hour seminar “Gaia, Odin, & the Semen of Atum: Origins Science from Around the World.”

Sure, some may argue that these classes are a waste of countless hours and thousands of dollars, but both you and I know that it’s a small price to pay for getting the big picture and not falling prey to the same biased, one-sided system that brainwashed all those scientists in the NSA and the AAAS. Man, I’d sure hate to wind up like all those simple-minded eggheads.

—Dima Overtchenko ’06