This occurred to me last night: assuming that the state of Kentucky makes Intelligent Design a part of its science curriculum in the coming year (which is seeming increasingly inevitable), can Intelligent Design be taught concurrently with Scientific Method?
The Scientific Method is the basis for all scientific theory. A falsifiable hypothesis is generated, that hypothesis is subjected to a series of experiments which either validate or disprove it; and from that a theory is created which explains the experimental results. Then the process begins all over again.
Intelligent design has never been subjected to scientific scrutiny. No falsifiable hypothesis has been created; no experimentation performed; ergo no theory has been advanced.
So that raises the obvious question of how can we, out of one side of our virtual mouths, tell high school students that the scientific method is the manner in which postulate becomes theory; while out of the other side we promote Intelligent Design as a valid scientific theory? If you can tell me how that is not fundamentally hypocritical, you're smarter than I am.
Now, if someone wants to study Intelligent Design in, for example, a comparative religion course; or a social studies course (the sociology of Intelligent Design proponents is actually quite fascinating), I have absolutely no issue with that. But to present it as a scientific theory is a slap in the face to those of us who do genuine science. Frankly, it's insulting.
I've decided to devote my professional life to the pursuit of scientific knowledge; to understand, through scientific methodology the world around me. To have a small group of people present barely-veiled religion, calling it theory, and teaching it to students as valid science is an affront to everything I have tried to learn in the last ten years.
Not only that, but as far as I can tell, if they want any student to actually believe Intelligent Design; they're going to have to stop teaching the scientific method. In other words, they will be teaching science class, without actually teaching them how to do science.
Now, someone has to have thought about this before me; since I'm not smart enough to have been the first. So why isn't this issue getting far more mention than it is?
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2 comments:
Hey, I was going to make some comment on your post, but first I will applaud your word verification thing. I definitely need one . . . one of my posts got 27 items of come-hit-my-blog-link-where-I-sell-advertising-space spam articles. Grrr.
But back to teaching intelligent design and the scientific method . . . if the students are really encouraged to think for themselves and apply the scientific method, and not subject to a lot of brainwashing elsewhere, they should be fine.
Basically, the holes in many of the religious theories, or particularly some exposure to religious fanatics alone will convince kids or teens that something smells fishy about many fundamentalist teachings, forcing them to work out their own beliefs. If they are in the least bit contemplative, they will be disappointed in one of the systems, and when they get more logical than wishful, you can guess which way they will lean.
My parents didn't try to convince my brother that there was no God . . . they would just point out the holes in logic of some of the religious stories he brought home from school. They would explain how some of his assumptions about God differed from most Christian teachings (he was a pretty nice kid with an optimistic imagination) and now he is probably more jaded than someone who was taught to be atheist. Noone at home told him there was no God, but that has been his opinion since he reached the age of abstract thought, pimples and b.o. It wasn't that long after he stopped beleiving in Santa Claus, I'd expect.
About the kids in the class that have been brainwashed elsewhere . . . well, they were brainwashed. They weren't going to believe in the standard scientific version anyways, right?
That's just it: they seek to patch the "holes" in the theory of evolution (real or perceived), with a blanket assumption that goddidit. In short, if we don't have the answer: then stop asking the question.
This approach is fundamentally unscientific. The whole point of science is that when a postulate becomes a hypothesis, hypthesis becomes theory; you know from the outset that your theory is incomplete. No theory exists which does not have some holes; and it is incumbant upon us as scientists to patch those holes with hard data.
By teaching intelligent design, they're approaching the question in a fundamentally unscientific manner. Which means that no kid who's been taught the scientific method, and who has a decent head on his or her shoulders is going to buy into it.
Which is exactly what the Christian right wing doesn't want.
So it raises the question: can the scientific method be taught in conjunction with intelligent design?
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