Evolution and Intelligent Design
BYU professor Steven Peck wrote a tremendous op-ed on science and faith.
Some highlights:
My last complaint about Intelligent Design is that it sets religion and science against each other. It puts forward a false dichotomy in students' minds that suggests that evolution and faith are incompatible. It makes people of religious faith suspicious of science. When students genuinely think that science and religion are incompatible, one of two things typically happens. They embrace science and, since it is incompatible to religion, religion is abandoned. The other is that they maintain their faith but remain inappropriately suspicious of science and dismiss its methods and findings, inclining themselves to superstition and pseudoscience.
And:
Faith and science need not be enemies. I embrace both fully and without reservation. My religious convictions are part of who I am. My science and faith reciprocate and inform one another. They are part of the way I understand my place in the universe. Intelligent Design does nothing to promote the search for understanding and cooperation between these two vital ways of knowing. It is a darkening of the mind on every level, both religiously and scientifically.
Some highlights:
My last complaint about Intelligent Design is that it sets religion and science against each other. It puts forward a false dichotomy in students' minds that suggests that evolution and faith are incompatible. It makes people of religious faith suspicious of science. When students genuinely think that science and religion are incompatible, one of two things typically happens. They embrace science and, since it is incompatible to religion, religion is abandoned. The other is that they maintain their faith but remain inappropriately suspicious of science and dismiss its methods and findings, inclining themselves to superstition and pseudoscience.
And:
Faith and science need not be enemies. I embrace both fully and without reservation. My religious convictions are part of who I am. My science and faith reciprocate and inform one another. They are part of the way I understand my place in the universe. Intelligent Design does nothing to promote the search for understanding and cooperation between these two vital ways of knowing. It is a darkening of the mind on every level, both religiously and scientifically.
I couldn't have said it better myself -- as scientifically proven by my previous, inferior efforts (and here).
I stand by my earlier observation in the comments to my post linked to above: "One point I made on Doug Wright's show that I want to make here (and that everyone here seems to agree with by the tone of comments), this issue is important and we can have civil dialogue about it. When we are at our best as a society we can publicly discuss topics without immediately degrading to name calling. Though I believe we should not teach ID in the public schools, it thrills me that we're having policy discussions about science and the interface of morals, religion and education."
posted by steve u. at 5/20/2008
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7 Comments:
If creationism is being repackaged as Intelligent Design, how will they repackage the Noah's Ark story?
After all of these years, there are still people out there -- not just inbreds in East Texas -- who still believe biblical fables like Noah's Ark.
I appreciate Professor Peck's well-expressed thoughts. Thanks for posting, Steve.
--Donna
Interesting thoughts. Though I agree with most of what Professor Peck wrote, I would also note that the methodologies for discovering truth are not necessarily convergent.
Scientific discoveries through the testing of hypotheses based upon the evidence can be trumped by people who follow every word of a religious authority who may contradict the conclusions you would make using a scientific paradigm.
I discussed these challenges on my social/religious blog "From Behind the Zion Curtain" in a post entitled "Mormonism and Evolution: My Take".
http://frombehindthezioncurtain.blogspot.com
Best regards.
I was raised with the idea that science and I were the same and that the more we learned the more we would understand. So, I'm sorry that and don't understand why everyone feels like they have to make a choice.
I think there is value in teaching the limits of any scientific theory. When I learned about Newton's laws of motion, I heard the disclaimer that they only worked properly on a "medium" scale. They didn't work at the tiny atomic level and they didn't work at the giant celestial level. That's about as far as the disclaimer needed to go. (We leave Einstein's theory for more advanced classes.)
We can make a similar (and similarly brief) disclaimer when we teach evolution. "There are things not yet explained by evolution, such as seeming irreducibly complex biologic mechanisms found inside cells. This leads some people to believe there was an intelligent designer involved in the creation of life. That's outside the scope of our science class, but it is interesting to note."
J. Max Wilson, a Mormon writer I've come to respect, has a reaction to an earlier blog post by Peck, also on ID.
I fully believe in Intelligent Design.
For everything else that goes against that such as evolution and the Big Bang, it seems unreasonable to comprehend. The chances of everything happening and somehow creating the amazing world we live in today is definitely not by chance. Everything happens for a reason, not by chance.
"I fully BELIEVE in intelligent design" That's the point- ID is something you believe in. When subjected to the light of questioning, testing and research, it fades away. Just because something is complex and unexplainable now, doesn't mean it always will be. Have faith in the ability of man to figure out complex systems.
By the way, I do think there is a reason for all this. It is to provide us the opportunity to be kind and reasonable to our fellow life forms. Thats the simple version of my philosophy.
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