Scientific Method and Intelligent Design

Some worthwhile thoughts on a tough subject:

Some readers seem to assume I want to argue in favor of intelligent design, and have sent me various arguments against the hypotheses. I can't imagine where they get the notion that I have any such need -- and in particular that I have any need of arguments that are made daily nearly everywhere. I'm familiar with them.

I have neither defended nor tried to refute the intelligent design hypothesis. What I have said is that if the intelligent design hypothesis generates falsifiable theorems then it is at least potentially useful. In particular, some intelligent design theorists have postulated that the Darwinians cannot explain how certain structures of "irreducible complexity" were able to evolve through natural selection: what were the steps, and how each step did not add a reproductive burden (and ideally would convey a reproductive advantage).

In some cases these challenges have resulted in rather detailed theories from the Darwinians. To the extent that these generate falsifiable hypotheses, this is all to the good, increasing our understanding of how natural selection works; and to the extent that these intelligent design assertions have shown the Darwinians that they don't understand how some features might evolve, that is all to the good as well. It never harms to know that there are limits to the utility of current theories.

Now I am aware that there are some "intelligent design theorists" who seem to be naive creationists incapable of following a scientific argument or appreciating evidence. What I don't know is how that is a refutation of intelligent design? I have heard high school physics teachers try to explain the basic quantum two-slit theory in terms that ought to have their students rolling on the floor. So what? Niven long ago observed that there is no cause so noble that it will not be espoused by fuggheads -- and that the fuggheads will often get all the press, making the cause look as if only fuggheads are in favor of it.

As to teaching "intelligent design" in schools, it doesn't happen often. The real question is who shall decide? Local school boards, or experts? And be very careful how you answer, because there are a number of propositions of far greater practical import, such as IQ, and phonics vs. "whole word" methods of teaching children to read English, and such like that have been imposed from above by the experts on the grounds that local bumpkins shouldn't have control since we, the experts, know what the right answers are; and we don't want public money wasted on teaching nonsense like phonics, and having children learn the addition and multiplication tables when every expert knows that The New Math, or Fuzzy Math, is a far, far better way to teach arithmetic... And that it is far more important to have diversity in history textbooks than to have very much about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Etc.

So long as the idea of scientific method -- the generation and testing of falsifiable hypotheses -- is shown, I don't have any great worries that bright kids won't figure out their own answers to matters like intelligent design; and I don't really care if my auto mechanic believes in his heart of hearts that he was divinely created and endowed by his creators with certain inalienable rights as opposed to his having evolved from bonobos without attention from his creator. I do worry that he knows how to read the output of the computer test equipment, and that he can figure out what the funny squeak is.

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What I don't understand is the passion on suppressing intelligent design in the name of science. Some readers are convinced that the end of the Republic is at hand if one school district, anywhere, decides to mandate intelligent design as an alternative to Darwinian Evolution. Given that the entire state of California forbade the teaching of English as a phonetic language for more than a dozen years, and still has very few teachers who understand how to teach that, which is the greater danger?

Mandating the "correct" position and requiring local schools to adopt that is a more dangerous principle than teaching an alternative to Darwin, without regard to whether Darwin is "really true" and belief in Darwin is so fragile that teaching an alternative would undermine belief in Natural Selection. I am not convinced that there is a school district that would teach "flat earth" as an alternative to the conventional wisdom, but if there were, I do not think the republic would fall if that were allowed. There would be ridicule and merriment and mirth, but I doubt the consequences would be much greater than that.

I suspect that too many readers have far too much confidence in our ability to shape beliefs in the public schools -- and too little in the education bureaucracy's abilities to undermine all learning in those schools.