Intelligent Design?
Evolution is a robust theory, in the scientific sense, that has
been tested and confirmed again and again. Intelligent design is not a
theory at all, as scientists understand the word, but a well-financed
political and religious campaign to muddy science. Its basic
proposition - the intervention of a designer, a k a God - cannot be
tested. It has no evidence to offer, and its assumptions that humans
were divinely created are the same as its conclusions. Its objections
to evolution are based on syllogistic reasoning and a highly selective
treatment of the physical evidence.
Accepting the fact of
evolution does not necessarily mean discarding a personal faith in God.
But accepting intelligent design means discarding science. Much has
been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans
believe that the Earth - and humans with it - was created as described
in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn't a
triumph of faith. It's a failure of education.