A Matter Of Faith
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday October 22, 2005
The intervention of some 70,000 Australian scientists and science teachers in the controversy over "intelligent design" is welcome, and their argument against the so-called theory well made. It is timely, too, coming while a court in the US considers whether intelligent design can be included in the biology curriculum of a Pennsylvania school district. The case is of keen interest to at least two dozen other US education authorities which have sought to include intelligent design in curriculums and, no doubt, to some schools in Australia which would like to teach it as an alternative to evolution.
It must be said at the outset that intelligent design is far from a persuasive theory. Its proponents argue that the universe is so complex it could not have come about by chance and, therefore, must have been designed by an intelligent being. However, evolution does not hold that the universe was shaped by mere chance, but by trial and error over billions of years. And even if one accepted that the wonder of nature somehow required intelligent design, there might be not one designer but many. However, the greatest difficulty is that if the complexity of nature demands a designer, the same applies to the designer itself, which must be at least as complex as the universe it created.However, the weakness of the argument is not the focus of the Australian scientists. Their point is that whatever intelligent design may be, it is plainly not science. It fails the basic requirement applicable to any statement which claims to be scientific: it must be testable against observation. Evolution is supported by fact; intelligent design is not.Nonetheless, intelligent design, like a religious belief, may be embraced as a matter of faith. Indeed, intelligent design looks like creationism in another guise; who is this designer thought to be, if not the God of the Old Testament and the New? Parents, however, should beware. Intelligent design may have a place in religion classes, but for it to be taught as science would be tantamount to fraud.
© 2005 Sydney Morning Herald