Earlier this week, President Bush apparently weighed in on the whole “teaching of non-science in the science classroom” debate. As “reported by the New York Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/politics/03bush.html?hp&ex=1123041600&en=c1600f3f547f7dc7&ei=5094&partner=homepage,
in a meeting with Texas reporters the President expressed that he felt both sides should be taught.
I’m gonna have to “side with Bob Park”:http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn080505.html – what is the “other side” to which he is referring? In the science community, there are no other sides to the reality of evolution. Cells evolve, diseases evolve, macroscopic organisms evolve. This process occurs as systems adapt to their environment. There is no say how fast or slow it can occur – that depends on circumstances and the speed with which a favorable mutation happens to occur. There is no saying about whether the existence of evolution is due to a creator or a “designer” – that is for religions to discuss. The evidence collected over the last century all tell us that the universe evolves.
So just what “other side” is the President referring to? The only thing I can glean from this is that he means that someplace in school one must teach different views of the spiritual interpretation of the universe. A good place for that would be a comparative religion class. Why is that a good place? Because the science class is where students should learn how to observe the natural world, collect data, and propose hypotheses that explain that data and also have testable consequences that confirm or refute their validity.
It’s that last point that must have prompted the President’s science advisor, John Marburger III, to come out and clarify the President’s meaning. Said Mr. Marburger, “evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology” and “intelligent design is not a scientific concept.” Thank-you, Mr. Marburger, for clarifying this fact. Intelligent design offers no testable consequences, and merely expresses a philosophical viewpoint that ascribes the origin of complex organisms to a higher designer. No testable consequences = *not science*, and thus does not deserve to be in the science classroom.
Children taking science must learn how to participate in the scientific process. They will learn that debate about conclusions drawn from data is a natural part of science, and in fact is a reflection of its health by pointing to high activity in the field. However, an idea entered into the debate which cannot be tested is not science, and thus is excluded from the process of science. That’s the natural working of the process. That’s what students should learn.
For science, there is no debate about evolution. It occurs. Why it ever started occuring in the first place seems a natural consequence of the forces between quarks, leptons, atoms, and molecules, the structure of nature at its most fundamental and macroscopic levels, and random chance. These are principles which can be put to the test in the laboratory. However, the idea that a nameless, faceless designer chose to set this all in motion is untestable unless somebody can propose a way to (1) locate the designer and/or (2) get their notes or plan, and vet them. That’s the definition, then, of a philosophy or a religious belief, and should be left to religious discussion or philosophical treaties.
The President would do well to take a dose of that science education of which his own education policies remind us the nation is daily deprived.
