'Intelligent design' theory threatens science classrooms

In Cobb County, Ga., controversy erupted this spring when school board officials decided to affix "disclaimer stickers" to science textbooks, alerting students that "evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things."

The stickers were the Cobb County District School Board's response to intelligent design theory, which holds that the complexity of DNA and the diversity of life forms on our planet and beyond can be explained only by an extra-natural intelligent agent. The ID movement -- reminiscent of creationism but more nuanced and harder to label -- has been quietly gaining momentum in a number of states for several years, especially Georgia and Ohio.

Stickers on textbooks are only the latest evidence of the ID movement's successes to date, though Cobb County officials did soften their position somewhat in September following a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. In a subsequent policy statement, officials said the biological theory of evolution is a "disputed view" that must be "balanced" in the classroom, taking into account other, religious teachings.

Surely, few would begrudge ID advocates their views or the right to discuss the concept as part of religious studies. At issue, rather, is whether ID theory, so far unproven by scientific facts, should be served to students on the same platter with the well-supported theory of evolution.

How the Cobb County episode will affect science students remains uncertain since, as the National Center for Science Education noted, the amended policy statement included "mixed signals."

But it's clear that the ID movement is quickly emerging as one of the more significant threats to U.S. science education, fueled by a sophisticated marketing campaign based on a three-pronged penetration of the scientific community, educators and the general public.

In Ohio, the state's education board on Oct. 14 passed a unanimous though preliminary vote to keep ID theory out of the state's science classrooms. But the board's ruling left the door open for local school districts to present ID theory together with science and suggested that scientists should "continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory."

In fact, even while the state-level debate continued, the Patrick Henry Local School District, based in Columbus, passed a motion this June to support "the idea of intelligent design being included as appropriate in classroom discussions in addition to other scientific theories."

Undaunted by tens of thousands of e-mails it has already received on the topic, the state's education board is now gamely inviting further public comment through November. In December, Ohio's Board of Education will vote to conclusively determine whether alternatives to evolution should be included in new guidelines that spell out what students need to know about science at different grade levels.

Meanwhile, ID theorists reportedly have been active in Missouri, Kansas, New Mexico, New Jersey and other states as well as Ohio and Georgia.

What do scientists think of all this? We have great problems with the claim that ID is a scientific theory or a science-based alternative to evolutionary theory. We don't question its religious or philosophical underpinnings. That's not our business. But there is no scientific evidence underlying ID theory.

No relevant research has been done; no papers have been published in scientific journals. Because it has no science base, we believe that ID theory should be excluded from science curricula in schools.

In fact, the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest general scientific society in the world, passed a resolution this month urging policy-makers to keep intelligent design theory out of U.S. science classrooms.

Noting that the United States has promised to "leave no child behind," the AAAS Board found that intelligent design theory -- if presented within science courses as factually based -- is likely to confuse American schoolchildren and undermine the integrity of U.S. science education. At a time when standards-based learning and performance assessments are paramount, children would be better served by keeping scientific information separate from religious concepts.

Certainly, American society supports and encourages a broad range of viewpoints and the scientific community is no exception. While this diversity enriches the educational experience for students, science and conceptual belief systems should not be co-mingled, as ID proponents have repeatedly proposed.

The ID argument that random mutations in nature and natural selection, for example, are too complex for scientific explanation is an interesting -- and for some, highly compelling -- philosophical or theological concept. Unfortunately, it's being put forth as a scientifically based alternative to the theory of biological evolution, and it isn't based on science. In sum, there's no data to back it up, and no way of scientifically testing the validity of the ideas proposed by ID advocates.

The quality of U.S. science education is at stake here. We live in an era when science and technology are central to every issue facing our society -- individual and national security, health care, economic prosperity, employment opportunities.

Children who lack an appropriate grounding in science and mathematics, and who can't discriminate what is and isn't evidence, are doomed to lag behind their well-educated counterparts. America's science classrooms are certainly no place to mix church and state.

Alan I. Leshner is CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and executive publisher of the journal Science; www.aaas.org

A brief history of design
by Russell Grigg

First published in:
Creation Ex Nihilo 22(2):50–53
March–May 2000

For over two millennia, people have argued that the ‘design’ in nature points to a Designer.1 In 44 BC, the Roman writer, orator and statesman, Cicero (106–43 BC), used this concept in his book De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods)2 to challenge the evolutionary ideas of the philosophers of his day.

Greek evolutionism, the gods, and fear of death
The two main schools of philosophy then were Epicureanism3 and Stoicism.4 The Epicureans sought happiness through bodily pleasures and freedom from pain and anxiety. The two chief causes of anxiety were fear of the gods and fear of death, so Epicurus sought to nullify both of these by teaching an evolutionary atomic theory.5

He denied that there was any purpose in nature, because everything was composed of particles (atoma: atoms), all falling downwards. He said that these sometimes spontaneously ‘swerved’ to coalesce and form bodies — non-living, living, human, and divine. The gods were made of finer atoms than humankind. They did not create the world or have any control over it, so they were not concerned with human affairs, and there was therefore no need for man to fear them. At death, the soul disintegrated and became non-existent, so there was no need to fear death or the prospect of judgment after death.

Cicero used the Stoic character in his book to refute these ideas with arguments from design, aimed to show that the universe is governed by an intelligent designer. He argued that a conscious purpose was needed to express art (e.g. to make a picture or a statue) and so, because nature was more perfect than art, nature showed purpose also. He reasoned that the movement of a ship was guided by skilled intelligence, and a sundial or water clock told the time by design rather than by chance. He said that even the barbarians of Britain or Scythia could not fail to see that a model which showed the movements of the sun, stars and planets was the product of conscious intelligence.6

Cicero continued his challenge to the evolutionism of Epicurus by marvelling that anyone could persuade himself that chance collisions of particles could form anything as beautiful as the world. He said that this was on a par with believing that if the letters of the alphabet were thrown on the ground often enough they would spell out the Annals of Ennius.7,8

And he asked: if chance collisions of particles could make a world, why then cannot they build much less difficult objects, like a colonnade, a temple, a house, or a city?9

More recent users of the design argument

In the 18th century, the most notable user of the design argument was William Paley (1743–1805). In his book, Natural Theology, he put the case of someone finding a watch while walking in a barren countryside. From the functions which the various parts of the watch fulfil (e.g. spring, gearwheels, pointer), the only logical conclusion was that it had a maker who ‘comprehended its construction and designed its use’.10 Paley also discussed evidence of design in the eye - that as an instrument for vision it showed intelligent design in the same way that telescopes, microscopes and spectacles do. And he went on to discuss complex design in many other human and animal organs, all pointing to the conclusion that the existence of complex life implies an intelligent Creator.

David Hume, the 18th century Scottish sceptical philosopher, tried to counter the watch argument by pointing out that watches are not living things which reproduce. However, Paley wrote 30 years after Hume, and Paley’s arguments are proof against most of Hume’s objections. For example, a modern philosopher has countered Hume: ‘Paley’s argument about organisms stands on its own, regardless of whether watches and organisms happen to be similar. The point of talking about watches is to help the reader see that the argument about organisms is compelling.’11

Charles Darwin and Paley
Charles Darwin was required to read Paley during his theological studies at Cambridge (1828–31). He later said, ‘I do not think that I hardly ever admired a book more than Paley’s “Natural Theology.” I could almost formerly have said it by heart.’12

However, he then spent the rest of his life developing and promoting a theory to explain how ‘design’ in nature could occur without God.13 Darwin proposed that small, useful changes could occur by chance, and enable their possessors to survive and pass on these changes — natural selection. Natural selection would work on even the tiniest improvements and, over vast ages, would supposedly accumulate enough small changes to produce all the ‘design’ we see in the living world.

Modern science vs Darwin
Evolutionists, including the stridently atheistic Oxford Professor Richard Dawkins, still use Darwin’s theory to oppose the design argument. But now, they believe that natural selection acts on genetic copying mistakes (mutations), some of which are supposed to increase the genetic information content (see box below). But Dawkins’ arguments have been severely critiqued on scientific grounds.14,15, 16,17

Dawkins’ neo-Darwinism has several flaws:

Natural selection requires self-reproducing entities. Producing even the simplest self-reproducing organism (see box below) by a chance combination of chemicals is even more incredible than producing the Annals of Ennius by dropping letters on the ground. Living things require long molecules with precise arrangements of smaller ‘building blocks’. Not only will the ‘building blocks’ not combine in the right order, but they are unlikely, by natural means, to build up large molecules at all! Rather, large molecules tend to break down into smaller ones.18 Also, the ‘building blocks’ are unstable.19

There is complex biological machinery of which Darwin was simply ignorant. Biochemist Dr Michael Behe lists a number of examples: real motors, transport systems, the blood clotting cascade, the complex visual machinery. He argues that they require many parts or they would not function at all, so they could not have been built in small steps by natural selection.20

Biophysicist/information theorist Dr Lee Spetner points out that mutations never add information, but only reduce it — this includes even the rare helpful mutations. And he points out that natural selection is insufficient to accumulate slight advantages, as it would be too weak to overcome the effects of chance, which would tend to eliminate these mutants.21

The Bible and the ‘design argument’
Design is not enough!
The Apostle Paul used the design argument in Romans 1:20, where he declares that God’s eternal power and divine nature can be understood from the things that have been made (i.e. evidences of design in nature). And he says that because of this, the ungodly are ‘without excuse’. But Paul continues that people willingly reject this clear evidence.

This evidence of design in nature is enough to condemn men, but it is not enough to save them. The Bible makes it clear that the preaching of the Gospel is also needed to show how we are to come into a right relationship with the Creator (see next section).22

Cicero lived in the century before Christ and probably had never heard of the God of Genesis; he used design in support of the Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses of the Stoics. Today, ‘New Agers’ may attribute design to Mother Nature or Gaia (the Greek goddess of the earth).

Creation Evangelism

When Christians use design and other arguments from science, they are properly engaging in pre-evangelism, i.e. they are seeking to expose the fallacy of the evolutionary presuppositions that blind the eyes of people today to the truth of the Word of God. This is shown by the Apostle Paul’s experience in Athens. Paul ‘preached Jesus and the resurrection’ (Acts 17:18), which challenged both the Epicurean and the Stoic philosophers of his day — i.e. both Cicero’s opponents and his fellow believers. Paul challenged their faulty ideas by pointing them to the one true God who had created everything. But Paul didn’t stop with creation.23

He urged them to repent, and he said they could know there would be a Day of Judgment because God had appointed the Judge and given assurance of this by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:18–31).

The only way to be saved is to believe in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12), the Creator/Redeemer, who died and rose again to pay the penalty for mankind’s sin. We should follow the way Paul presented the Gospel in 1 Cor. 15 — N.B. verses 1–4, 21–22, 26, 45, which make sense only with a literal Genesis — a literal Creation, Fall, death penalty for sin, etc.

John the Evangelist wrote his Gospel ‘so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in His name’ (John 20:31). But he began his Gospel by declaring that Jesus is the Creator (John 1:1–3), the Second Person of the Trinity, who took on human nature (John 1:14). Thus evangelism must present Christ as Creator or it is deficient — if Christ is not God, then He cannot be our Saviour (Isaiah 43:11).

Conclusion
Without the message of design and the Creator, ‘gospel preaching’ lacks foundation. Without Christ, the design argument cannot save. We must present a full Gospel, starting with creation by the Triune God, and combine it with the message of Christ’s death for sin and His Resurrection.

Information: A modern scientific design argument
All the design in living things is encoded in a sort of recipe book with lots of information. Information describes the complexity of a sequence — it does not depend on the matter of the sequence. It could be a sequence of ink molecules on paper (book) — however the information is not contained in the molecules of ink but in the patterns. Information can also be stored as sound wave patterns (e.g. speech), but again the information is not the sound waves themselves; electrical impulses (telephone); magnetic patterns (computer hard drive).

The anti-theistic physicist Paul Davies admits: ‘There is no law of physics able to create information from nothing’ (this issue, p. 42). Information scientist Werner Gitt has demonstrated that the laws of nature pertaining to information show that, in all known cases, information requires an intelligent message sender,24 a conclusion rejected by Davies on purely philosphical (religious) grounds. Thus a modern version of the design argument involves detecting high information content. In fact, this is exactly what the SETI project is all about — the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence involves trying to detect a high-information radio signal, which they would regard as proof of an intelligent message sender, even if we had no idea of the nature of the sender.

In living things, information is all stored in patterns of DNA, which encode the instructions to make proteins, the building blocks for all the machinery of life. There are four types of DNA ‘letters’ called nucleotides, and 20 types of protein ‘letters’ called amino acids. A group (codon) of 3 DNA ‘letters’ codes for one protein ‘letter’. The information is not contained in the chemistry of the ‘letters’ themselves, but in their sequence. DNA is by far the most compact information storage/retrieval system known.

Now consider if we had to write the information of living things in book form. Dawkins admits, ‘[T]here is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over.25 Even the simplest living organism has 482 protein-coding genes of 580,000 ‘letters’.26

Let’s suppose we had the technology to go the other way, and store books’ information in DNA — this would be the ideal computer technology. The amount of information that could be stored in a pinhead’s volume of DNA is equivalent to a pile of paperback books 500 times as tall as the distance from Earth to the moon, each with a different, yet specific content.27 Putting it another way, a pinhead of DNA would have a billion times more information capacity than a 4 gigabyte hard drive.

Just as letters of the alphabet will not write the Annals of Ennius by themselves, the DNA letters will not form meaningful sequences on their own. And just as the Annals would be meaningless to a person who didn’t understand the language, the DNA ‘letter’ arrangements would be meaningless without the ‘language’ of the DNA code.

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