Life is a cup of tea
I've been avoiding the evolution vs 'intelligent design' debate for the most part, because it seems like something that would need a significant input of time to approach in a way that's not pointlessly shallow. I think there are interesting questions to be asked about why 'intelligent design' has such traction with parts of the population, but others do this better than I can. Mano Singham in particular keeps coming back to the topic, and always has something worthwhile to say.
However, I read something this morning that I had to share. Last week's Economist had a report from the Dover PA court case in which the school board is being challenged over its decision to include ID in the curriculum. I was particularly taken with one quote, because I thought it an unusually succint way of explaining how a devout religious person need not have any difficulty accepting the idea of evolution. It was John Haught's analogy between different levels of explanation for life and different levels of explanation for his boiling kettle:
The plaintiffs have carefully called expert witnesses who believe not only in the separation of church and state but also in God. Mr Miller [another expert witness quoted earlier in the article] is a practising Roman Catholic. So is John Haught, a theology professor who testified on September 30th that life is like a cup of tea.
To illustrate the difference between scientific and religious “levels of understanding”, Mr Haught asked a simple question. What causes a kettle to boil? One could answer, he said, that it is the rapid vibration of water molecules. Or that it is because one has asked one's spouse to switch on the stove. Or that it is “because I want a cup of tea.” None of these explanations conflicts with the others. In the same way, belief in evolution is compatible with religious faith: an omnipotent God could have created a universe in which life subsequently evolved.
It makes no sense, argued the professor, to confuse the study of molecular movements by bringing in the “I want tea” explanation. That, he argued, is what the proponents of intelligent design are trying to do when they seek to air their theorywhich he called “appalling theology”in science classes.
Comments
But doesn't even this analogy show an interaction between intelligent intent and physical outcome?
At any rate, it answers the wrong question. ID is not trying to integrate theology anywhere. It is simply a research program that tries to answer the question, "Is there evidence in nature of intelligent design?"
The metaphysical presuppositions of ID are less restrictive than most biologists already hold. Most biologists hold that all explanations must be material and physical, and that any other statement is meaningless or nonsensical. ID suggests that there may be (not is, but may be) another category of explanation, and that it's appropriate to ask the question of whether that category of explanation is more helpful than the purely physical category in some limited instances.
Tom,
In your final sentence you are saying exactly what I take that quote from Haught to mean (excluding the "appaling theology" part, which is a separate issue and one on which I'm not qualified to comment). ID is a different category of explanation from scientific ones, and therefore does not belong in a science class. I'm not interested in debating whether or not ID may be correct on its own terms—and that question is irrelevant to the Dover PA case—but whether it's appropriate to be teaching it in science classes.
You are being very presumptuous by deciding that biologists hold that any statement outside the domain of science is meaningless or nonensical. Even as an atheist scientist (and the last time I did a straw poll on this only about half of scientists turned out to be atheists) I don't hold such a strong belief. Any scientist who is religious must clearly feel that there is a role in the world and their lives for explanations that seek to do what science can't.
To put it another way, science has no place for the 'why' questions, but answers the 'how' and 'what will happen next' questions. I'm not trying to argue that the 'why' questions shouldn't be asked or answered [my personal response to them is pretty nihilistic, but that's a personal response only], but they are not scientific questions, they can't be answered using the scientific method, and the answers to them have no impact on science. Put ID in a philosophy or religion class, and I (and I suspect most other people who are angered by attempts to present it as science) will be perfectly happy. In fact I'd argue that it actively should be discussed there, regardless of whether the teacher happens to believe in it or not, just as the philosophy class I took in high school included a range of ideas, not all of which the teacher agreed with.
I agree--it's not ready yet for science classes, not at the high school level, at least.
ID leaders agree too, by the way.