Morning Call – August 31, 2005

Intelligent Design

Dear Friends,

Good morning. Will local schools be teaching intelligent design any time soon? After reading a Morning Call article about Lehigh University’s Michael Behe, a Ph. D., I called two local school superintendents to find out. Behe is a biochemist and author of “Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution,” which has sold more than 200,000 copies in multiple languages.

”The Lehigh University professor regularly appears in national newspapers and magazines and his speaking schedule, which includes a patchwork of universities and legislative hearings across the country, fills months in advance,” the Call reported (Aug. 22).

Behe is controversial. “A president of the academy [National Academy of Scientists] has publicly denounced his [Behe’s] work, thousands of his peers have ostracized him, scholarly journals shrug off his articles and most of the scientific community considers him a mockery,” the article stated.

Weighing into the controversy, President Bush believes that intelligent design should accompany the subject of evolution which public schools have taught for decades. I was surprised that most Americans agree with the President. “More than half the adults surveyed in a recent Harris poll believe children should be taught creationism and intelligent design in addition to evolution,” the Call story continued.

Will Pennsylvania schools follow Ohio and Kansas, which are including the intelligent design debate over evolution? Last spring, the Pennsylvania legislature introduced a bill to include instruction on intelligent design.

But you won’t find intelligent design in Pennridge and Quakertown classrooms anytime soon. “We haven’t had any public pressure to teach intelligent design,” Dr. Robert Kish told me. The Pennridge School Superintendent believes that intelligent design is fake science.

“Don’t let this [intelligent design] happen here,” Kish reported about his community’s response thus far. “If we can continue to fly under the [intelligent design] radar screen, so much the better. The debate over evolution is a reflection of what is happening in America,” he added. “I don’t want someone telling me that God told me what to do.”

“I haven’t had any pressure to teach intelligent design either,” Dr. James Scanlon observed. “It’s not on our curriculum map this year,” the Quakertown School Superintendent said. “We’re trying o make our kids better writers, thinkers, mathematicians, and problem solvers.”

Scanlon asked me what I thought about teaching intelligent design? I think it makes sense to expose students to both sides of any debate, I replied. I likened the intelligent design controversy to the raging argument about teaching Christian values in the public schools…the constitutional question of church versus state. Wouldn’t it make more sense to teach the major religions of the world, I asked? Shouldn’t each student have a clear understanding about what Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews and Moslems believe? Scanlon agreed.

But I stray.

The conservative wing of both parties and the religious right claim that evolution is flawed. Michael Behe would probably agree with the Call’s intelligent design sub head, which introduced the story: First, “The intelligent design movement says Darwin’s theory of evolution does not completely explain how life originated.” And second, “Proponents say some features of the natural world are so ordered and complex that their cause is best explained by an overarching intelligence.”

On the other hand, opponents believe that intelligent design is a slick, political end run around the teaching of creationism…and, in my opinion, that’s closer to the truth. The Pennridge and Quakertown superintendents agreed.

Sincerely,

Charles Meredith