Evolution, science, and theology

I'm going to respond here to a post on Bill's Comments.

There is a reason why I have this bee in my bonnet over evolution, and it's the same reason I have a bee in my bonnet over media bias. In both cases, denial of the issue requires that people examine the evidence with their eyes closed.

Bill correctly notes that the issue in evolution is not Darwinism but Materialism. He's correct in that ultimately, the materialism and non-materialism are incompatible. If an effect can be traced to entirely material causes, there's no room left for a supernatural intelligence to fiddle with the results, or at least not in any way that could ever be detected. For example, if the roll of a die is due entirely to materialistic effects – force, inertia, angular momentum and moment of inertia, and so on, there's no way God can influence the roll of the dice except in a way that looks like the action of blind forces on inanimate matter.

But Bill overlooks a very important distinction: science demands methodological materialism, but not philosophical materialism. That is, science doesn't care whether you believe in a god, several gods, a Chinese-style celestial bureaucracy, or a sentient universe, so long as you never base your explanations for observed data on these entities.

The famous "miracle" Sid Harris cartoon is not how scientists work. No scientist could get away with anything remotely resembling step two. Ultimately, there has to be a mechanism to get you from step one to step three. You're perfectly free to believe the mechanism was divinely created. Indeed, the "natural philosophers" of the 17^th century, Newton included, were quite content to believe they were uncovering the rules God used to make the world.

But the rules have to be consistent.

Now here comes the paragraph where Bill completely misses the point:

I have become quite disgusted with the arguments over ID. The secularists seem to think that demonstrating that ID is not a science is supposed to be enough to render it impotent and unworthy of consideration.

Perhaps for the "secularists", that's true. Dawkins is a devout atheist, and very likely a member of the Secular Humanist Institute of Technology. He makes no secret of his scorn for theism.

However, there are any number of theists, myself included, who argue just as vigorously against allowing creationism or ID/IOT into science classrooms. The reason is very simple – these ideas are not science.

It is well that Bill recognizes that Intelligent Design is a religiously-based belief and not science:

At the same time the ID proponents misuse and abuse the findings of science to indicate the existence of God, something totally outside the realm of science.

ID/IOT is, in fact, not science. If it wants to be science, then it has to play by the rules of science. That means, it has to adopt methodological materialism and exclude all entities outside the realm of nature. Since it either can't or won't, it's not science, and does not belong in a science class.

To the secularists, So what?

So the ID/IOT-ists have claimed their beleifs are science. They have made this claim over and over, including under oath in courts of law. Yet their ideas do not follow the rules of science, nor do they produce any of the fruits we see in real science. The ID/IOT-ists are either ignorant or lying. Since they continue to make the same errors after repeated correction, many have decided their persistence in these errors is the result of intelligent design.

In any event, if someone is going to teach science to our next generation, I want someone who is not ignorant, and who is not deceitful. Both.

Find other arguments to accomplish your goals. Proving the same point over and over does not constitute progress.

My goal is to ensure that science classes teach science. That means, no diluting of science with pseudo-science, no matter how popular it may be. That also means no intimidating teachers into silence because a vocal minority disagrees with one or another theory. Short of rebutting the ID/IOT and Creationist claims whenever they are presented, how do I accomplish this goal?

Seriously. I am open to suggestions.