NOW is an uncomfortable time to be a Darwinist in the US. Eighty years after the infamous 鈥渕onkey trial鈥�, when John Scopes was tried for teaching evolution, pressure on Darwin鈥檚 theory is growing once again. Creationist voices are becoming louder, and a new player is adding to the noise. Intelligent design (ID) uses the language of science to argue that we will never understand nature unless we take the supernatural into account.
Although ID has been around for more than a decade, it has only recently started to make a significant impact on university campuses and school boards, which decide what pupils are taught (see 鈥淭oo much TV isn鈥檛 smart鈥�). Its advocates argue that various biological structures are too complex to have been created by natural selection and so must have been designed.
To press home their case, they introduce two concepts. 鈥淚rreducible complexity鈥� proposes that some molecular systems, such as the one that triggers blood clotting in humans, cannot be broken down into smaller functioning units, and so could not have been created by natural selection. 鈥淪pecified complexity鈥� uses probability theory to try to show that certain biological structures are so unlikely to have emerged through natural processes that they must have been designed.
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These ideas seem plausible on the surface and so can have a powerful impact. Only with scientific understanding does it become clear that they are fundamentally flawed (see 鈥淎 sceptic鈥檚 guide to intelligent design鈥�). Crucially, they cannot be tested in any meaningful way, so they cannot qualify as science. If ID ever came to be accepted, it would stifle research. Molecular biologists would call a halt whenever they came across a biological structure that they could not explain and hence must be the work of the 鈥渄esigner鈥�. Science as an open-ended pursuit would come to an end, halted by an impenetrable barrier labelled 鈥渢he designer did it鈥�.
Advocates of ID have persuaded many people that they have found evolution鈥檚 Achilles heel. In the name of fairness and balance, they argue, students should be taught the controversy surrounding evolution and ID. This plays to a sense of even-handedness amongst non-scientists. But it is disingenuous. We don鈥檛 teach children half-baked challenges to other scientific theories that have not run the gauntlet of scientific scrutiny, so why should ID be any different?
Worse, 鈥渢each the controversy鈥� has fostered the notion that there is something fundamentally wrong with Darwin鈥檚 big idea. Yet this is simply not borne out by the facts. Evolution by natural selection has survived 146 years of scientific scrutiny and has been called the 鈥渕ost important concept in modern biology鈥� by the US National Academies of Sciences.
Evolution has helped us to interpret the fossil record, understand how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, and described the rapid changes in species taking place before our eyes (see 鈥淚n the blink of an eye鈥�). It explains some spectacular examples of mal-design, such as cave-dwelling species with functional eyes that are covered by skin flaps. Natural selection has even been harnessed by the biotechnology industry to create new drugs. By contrast, ID has produced not one prediction of value. Evidence against it is mounting from many branches of science, while supporting evidence comes only from a small group of committed ID advocates.
鈥淚ntelligent design cannot be tested in any meaningful way and so cannot qualify as a science鈥�
There is no scientific controversy between ID and evolution. The case for teaching them as valid alternatives is no stronger than the case for teaching students about some supposed controversy between astrology and astronomy.
Lurking beneath this debate is the issue of whether religion should make an appearance in science classes 鈥� as the creationist movement has long wanted it to. Here it is difficult not to suspect that the people behind ID are being disingenuous. In their books and papers. They would rather readers saw ID as purely scientific. Yet one of the governing goals of the Discovery Institute, ID鈥檚 spiritual home, is to spread the word 鈥渢hat nature and human beings are created by God鈥�.
Let鈥檚 be honest. This is creationism by another name. Tell a class of teenagers that the tail of a bacterium did not evolve but was designed, and who will they think the designer is? ID may qualify as a religious belief, but it is not science. Teach it in philosophy or sociology by all means. Its proper resting place, however, will be in history.
