Designing a lesson in science
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 11: Getting Smart
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by David Young
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It is surely a sign of our times that a public controversy in Australia has been triggered by the arrival of a DVD rather a person. The DVD in question is a documentary with an axe to grind, Unlocking the Mystery of Life, which has been produced by the "intelligent design" movement in the United States. It is intended for the general public and for distribution in schools, where it can be presented as an alternative to the Darwinian theory of evolution.
The distributors of this DVD in Australia are Christian lobby groups that are so keen to see the intelligent design idea adopted that they have sent thousands of copies to schools. This has provoked widespread comment in newspapers and on radio, and even elicited some brief remarks from the Federal Minister for Education.
So what exactly is "intelligent design"? The core of this concept is the claim that certain features of living organisms are so complex that they cannot have arisen by gradual evolution. Hence, it is argued that these features must be the work of some external intelligence, which planned and formed them to carry out their biological function. Michael Behe developed this argument in his book Darwin's Black Box (The Free Press, 1996), in which he drew attention to such "irreducible complexity" and concluded that it was impossible for these complex features to have been put together bit by bit during evolution.
The wider context of this idea was developed by William Dembski. The first sentence of his 1999 book, Intelligent Design (InterVarsity Press), says that the concept consists of three things: first, a "scientific research program" in pursuit of "intelligent causes"; second, "an intellectual movement" opposed to Darwinism and its materialistic leanings; and third, "a way of understanding divine action". It is clear from what Dembski says that this is a mixture of science and theology, motivated by an anti-Darwinian ideology. And it is also clear that those who promote the DVD in Australia are hoping that its anti-evolutionary message will help the cause of traditional religious belief.
Despite this clear religious connection, the DVD has been presented as offering a genuine scientific alternative to standard evolutionary theory. As such, it has been cautiously welcomed for use in science classrooms by some public figures. A number of prominent scientists have, however, expressed strong opposition to the presentation of intelligent design in science classes. In order to try to understand the root causes behind this clash, we need first of all to hear the concerns of professional scientists.
IT IS VITAL TO THE SUCCESS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH that it be carried out autonomously, independent of any external authority. This is seen most clearly when scientific research on matters of public concern is liable to be influenced by government or industry – if it is not clear that the research is autonomous, the results are tarnished by association and suspicion of bias. Obvious cases range from mad cow disease to global warming.
Historically, the most powerful of external authorities influencing science has been religion. Science has taken several hundred years to disentangle itself from this complex relationship and establish its independence. Having achieved separation, the last thing today's scientists need is for religion to return as an external influence in research and education.
The degree of concern is such that the international science journal Nature published two editorials on the topic in 2005, concerned primarily with the situation in the US. Taken together, their view was that the intelligent design movement is partly a "subterfuge", a device for introducing religion into science classes. And they considered that any such move "poses a threat to the very core of scientific reason". If this seems too strong, consider our likely response if science teachers were offered a DVD produced by a political party or an industry lobby group.
A further reason for concern is that intelligent design does not really qualify as a genuine scientific theory. To be taken seriously in science, a new idea must not only use scientific methods to gather data but also propose a testable alternative to current ideas. That is to say, a new theory should make predictions that can be tested by fresh observations or experiments, and so open up a new avenue of research. By these pragmatic standards, intelligent design does not qualify as science. The concept of a "designer", which is said to shape biological structures, is kept so vague that it is impossible to pin down. Nor has any positive research program emerged in the past ten years, only the negative one of looking for things that evolutionary biology has not explained yet.
This does not mean that scientists consider the Darwinian theory of evolution beyond criticism. A good example here is the theory that the mass extinction that saw off the dinosaurs was caused by an asteroid impact. This decidedly non-Darwinian mechanism for influencing the history of life was proposed in a paper in Science in 1980. A lively controversy resulted and scientists soon checked the evidence at suitable sites around the world. The outcome of this search supported the theory and, even better, a likely candidate for the crater caused by the impact was found in the Gulf of Mexico. Consequently, the impact theory was generally accepted among scientists by the end of the twentieth century. This shows that scientific thinking on evolution can change quickly when a testable theory is confirmed.