Dealing with Design

(Hat tip: Joan Steward)

The current issue of Nature looks at the issue of Intelligent Design - Intelligent Origin Theory. What's the best way to deal with it? It's not ignoring it.

...many of the students taught in introductory biology classes hold religious beliefs that conflict, at least on the face of things, with Darwin's framework. Professors rarely address the conflicts between faith and science in lectures, and students are drawn to intelligent design as a way of reconciling their beliefs with their interest in science. In doing so, they are helping it to gain a small, but firm, foothold on campuses around the country.

...continued in full post...

Scientists know that natural selection can explain the awe-inspiring complexities of organisms, and should be prepared to explain how. But attacking or dismissing intelligent design is likely to aggravate the rift between science and faith that causes students to become interested in intelligent design in the first place. Scientists would do better to offer some constructive thoughts of their own. For religious scientists, this may involve taking the time to talk to students about how they personally reconcile their beliefs with their research. Secular researchers should talk to others in order to understand how faiths have come to terms with science. All scientists whose classes are faced with such concerns should familiarize themselves with some basic arguments as to why evolution, cosmology and geology are not competing with religion. When they walk into the lecture hall, they should be prepared to talk about what science can and cannot do, and how it fits in with different religious beliefs.

One of Clayton Cramer's ongoing complaints about the way evolution is addressed in classrooms is the "arrogance" of those who teach it. It is taught as the One And Only Truth. (E.g., here.)

I think if evolution were taught more consistently with this approach--one that recognizes the limitations of any theoretical model--there would be a bit less upset from Creationists of many stripes. Certainly, I would have less reason to sympathize with those who are upset.

I think it was in response to this post that I eventually asked Clayton, in this e-mail exchange:

It might be best to consider ID to be a useful antidote to evolution being taught in too dogmatic a way. That has been my big objection to the way that evolution is actually taught in the lower grades–it makes it into Revealed Truth, which isn't even good science.

Hmmm... In the lower grades, which subjects are NOT taught as if they were Revealed Truth?

This is a common problem.

Indeed it is. Yet somehow, it's only a concern in the teaching of evolutionary biology.

And given other posts, like this, this, this, this, this, and this, somehow it seems there's more to his objection that the way it's taught in lower grades.

It's things like this that tell me there's no "compromise" with ID-IOT or creationism. This is not a matter of science – it's a matter of politics. The opponents of evolution have no problems with the science, except to the extent that it tells them something they don't want to hear. The creation science movement, and now the ID-IOT movement, is aimed at only one thing: extirpating evolution from the public sphere.