Issue: Evolution and Intelligent Design

Science and Evolution

What is science and what is a theory? Modern science is a method used to obtain reliable knowledge about the world around us. The reliability rests on constant questioning, using the scientific method. Scientists do not assume that they have arrived at a final, definitive truth. Instead, they use their facts to postulate a theory which can both explain existing facts and predict new ones. Thus, scientific theories are consistent, useful, empirically testable, based upon controlled and repeated experiments, correctable and dynamic. They are falsifiable -- which by extension means that they are correctable and dynamic leads to their being tentative.

Evolution is a comprehensive scientific theory of how life on Earth arose from common ancestors over the course of millions of years. This theory can explain both similarities and differences in living things.

Evolutionary theory rests in large part on Charles Darwin's "Origin of the Species," published in 1859. Darwin was only one of many scientists who have invested time, energy and money into investigating the biological and cultural development of homo sapiens (man). Fossil bones and teeth; stone and wooden tools; fire hearths, campsites, and burial grounds have been combined to create a picture of human evolution over the past 4 to 5 million years.

Teaching the theories of evolution in US classrooms has been controversial for almost a century. However, court cases -- with the exception of the Scopes Trial -- have supported the teaching of evolutionary science in public schools.

Much of the criticism of intelligent design (ID) arising from the scientific community is that while ID is a belief and might be a hypothesis, it is not a theory.

Intelligent Design

Intelligent design (ID) is composed of two parts: first is a critique of evolutionary theory, asserting that Darwinism is fatally flawed. Second is the contention that life is too complex to have occurred via evolution and natural selection; thus, it must be the work of a supernatural intelligent designer.

Articles about ID appear regularly in mainstream media such as the New York Times and USA Today. The authors, with few exceptions, are associated with The Center for Science and Culture at The Discovery Institute in Seattle. One of the most successful publications from the Center is Of Pandas and People, a textbook first published in 1989.

Scientific testing shows that the earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old. What does Pandas say about that? "Some [ID proponents] take the view that the earth's history can be compressed into a framework of thousands of years, while others adhere to the standard old earth chronology."

ID advocates acknowledge what they call "microevolution," small scale genetic changes that are observable.

Proponents of ID have published only one peer-reviewed paper, in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The Council has subsequently stated that the paper should not have been published (pdf)

because the subject matter represents such a significant departure from the nearly purely systematic content for which this journal has been known throughout its 122-year history.... The Council endorses a resolution on ID published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science which observes that there is no credible scientific evidence supporting ID as a testable hypothesis to explain the origin of organic diversity.

Where it Stands

For more than 150 years, some Americans have not only rejected the scientific theories of evolution, they have insisted that creation be taught as though it were a science. In 1988, Kenneth Kemp, Texas A&M, wrote an intriguing summary of this battle in Science in Chrisitian Perspective:

Evolution and creation do not answer the same questions. Although all Christians are committed to creation (I want to say creationism, but at this point the confusion that would create is unavoidable), only biblical literalists are committed to the static world, young world, and other core beliefs of creation science. Even literalists have no theological warrant for believing that there is good scientific evidence for these beliefs and, therefore, have no reason to embrace creation science...

Finally, evolution is not and does not claim to be a religious alternative to Christianity. It is a scientific theory (or, more precisely, a cluster of independent theories answering diverse questions, but united by a common pattern), and that is all. It could be wrong (though at this point there is no non-literalist reason to believe that it is), but it is not dangerous. There are many important battles for Christians to fight, but, even for literalists, a battle again evolution is not one of them.