16th November, 2005

ROB NYHUIS

The possibility that our existence might be the product of some purposeful intelligent intervention, rather than of random processes, is certainly not a new consideration and has not always been pushed solely by Biblical creationists. Current debate over this possibility has, in Australia, been ignited by the openness of the Federal Minister for Education, Brendan Nelson, to the introduction of 'intelligent design' in Australian science classes, albeit with parental consent.

This theory suggests that many natural features of our world are the result of an intelligent cause, rather than undirected chance, as in natural selection. While it is adopted by many who would profess a religious faith, it is also supported by many who would not. If it offers one unifying principle amongst its adherents, then it is perhaps that the seemingly universal and uncritical acceptance of traditional Darwinian evolution is not warranted by an examination of the scientific evidence for our origins.

The absence of an underlying religious premise does not diminish the obvious religious implications of intelligent design. These have therefore caused great alarm amongst many scientists and educators who hold that intelligent design is merely creationism in disguise. This puzzling conflation is quite remarkable, however, given the insistence, by many scientists who hold to traditional Darwinian evolution, on semantic precision when it comes to defining the acceptability of content in school science courses.

The Australian Academy of Science claims that more than 70,000 scientists and science teachers have supported the publication of an open letter in Australian newspapers roundly condemning intelligent design as an unscientific theory. (How they could be certain of the support of 70,000 people is quite mystifying and suggests extrapolation from a statistical sample or the assumption that any scientist or science educator could not hold to the theory of intelligent design). Objection to intelligent design is, according to the letter, based upon its inability to be tested, either directly or indirectly, thus rendering it unscientific.

For example, proponents of intelligent design suggest that irreducible complexity refutes traditional Darwinian evolution. Any irreducibly complex biological device (whether a bacterial flagellum, an eye, or any similar example) needs all of its component parts to be present in order for it to function. The problem with the Darwinian explanation for the origin of these devices is that their gradual evolution is simply not possible by means of an accumulation of random changes in successive generations, for there is no competitive advantage to the species to necessitate the evolution of such a device.

Of course, five per cent of an eye does not guarantee five per cent vision. The scientists opposed to invoking intelligence in order to account for this anomaly are concerned that the intelligent cause is not amenable to scientific investigation. This, they say, is sufficient reason to banish such speculation from science classrooms, lest a generation of young Australians grow up exposed to a worldview that is not purely based upon testable hypotheses capable of advancing a thoroughly quantifiable understanding of our world.

But herein lies a fundamental problem. The key objection to intelligent design is based upon the view that it philosophically invokes a “God of the gaps” to account for aspects of our origins which cannot yet be fully explained by science, rather than just doing more (and better) science in order to close these gaps and thereby fully develop a continuum of understanding. Why is it then that so many scientists are opposed to a mere hypothesis explaining how this might happen, when science generally seeks to verify hypotheses, anyway, and when intelligent design adherents are so often scientists without a religious platform who genuinely seek to advance scientific inquiry?

I fear that the answer is little more than a preconception that no such intelligent design can possibly exist. Nevertheless, if scientists will not permit such intelligence to hold a valid place in the explanation of our origins, simply because it transcends the bounds of objective rational inquiry, then the very nature of the science put forward in our school classrooms will be that of a self-serving - indeed self-deifying - body of knowledge that fails to respect its own finiteness.

Quite simply, the absence of a complete picture of our origins does not warrant the wholesale rejection of theories put forward to further the development of that complete picture. A science classroom is, furthermore, not the place to be muddying the waters by suggesting that intelligent design can be likened to a clearly disproved flat earth cosmology. Responsible science education in any educational sector must leave room for speculation on those aspects of science that are not concretely understood, while encouraging the production of confirmatory testing and evidence where possible. Are we really scared to say that science does not have all the answers? Does science really shoot itself in the foot, or jeopardise its funding, or risk credibility, or even fall from its magisterial pedestal of certitude in the face of this admission?

As a Year 7-12 science educator of more than fifteen years experience in Victorian classrooms, I am astounded by the wider scientific community’s persistent efforts to lampoon or silence science educators honest enough to point out to their students both the limitations of scientific theories such as that of Darwinian evolution and the limitations of science as a means of objectively accounting for the world in which we live.

It is my experience that very few science educators are ever forced to grapple with why it is that they hold to a secular worldview when its evolutionary platform is so easily called into question. Why is it that so few will ever discuss their views publicly? This is quite simply because - and this would be a shock to most students and parents given the self-proclaimed objectivity of the discipline - most science teachers have accommodated and never questioned the so-called “fact” of Darwinian evolution. In reality many topics within junior science courses in schools are taught from textbooks by teachers who parrot a Darwinian worldview perpetuated through the generations of science education, teachers who are of course seldom specifically trained in all key topic areas within general science courses upon which that worldview is built, teachers who are therefore unqualified to comment specifically upon the evolutionary implications of all of these topic areas. For such a worldview to be held to in blind faith by so many makes one wonder how different it really is to any religion. Both religious belief and Darwinian evolution are developed on the basis of some degree of verifiable, tangible evidence, but both then need to extrapolate that evidence most 'unscientifically'.

Indeed, intelligent design is no more a religious concept than that of traditional evolution itself. To the often-asked question, “If God made us, then who made God?” one could sincerely reply that, just as no-one can explain the origin of God from a scientific viewpoint, so no-one can explain the origin of the 'Big Bang', for whatever the starting point one might determine, there is always some necessary precursor. Since both traditional evolution and intelligent design suggest questions beyond the limits of current scientific knowledge, yet appeal to the pursuit of further scientific inquiry in order to provide answers to those questions, intelligent design must surely therefore demand a place in every Australian science classroom. Failure to give it serious consideration is to maintain a not-so-intelligently-designed course of science education.

Rob Nyhuis (B. Sc., Grad. Dip. Ed.) has been a teacher in Victorian Christian schools for 16 years where he has also served in roles such as head of science and assistant principal. He is currently teaching at Hillcrest Christian College, completing a masters degree in Christian Studies at Tabor College, and pastoring a church in Narre Warren.