Intelligent Design, Part One

I wrote out a long post on Intelligent Design, which I have decided to split into two parts. Here's the first part:

What is to be done about Intelligent Design, the newest flat-earthism masquerading as science? To liberals and conservatives alike, the answers might seem obvious, but I don't think it's as cut-and-dried as each would like.

First, let me dispense with the obvious: Intelligent Design has absolutely no place in science classrooms, in public or private school. Period. It is not a scientific theory. It is not a theory at all. It is simply the latest faith-based appeal to Biblical literalism.

The arguments of conservatives that it is a legitimate theory that should be taught alongside evolution (in order to expose children to competing viewpoints) are both laughable and sad. These are the same arguments that conservatives deride when it comes to things like history, sociology, and politics. Furthermore, we already had this debate! When evolution was first introduced in the late 1700s, it was wildly unpopular and criticized by most educated people, until 1859, when Darwin came along with a theory so elegant and airtight that it became accepted as fact. Since then, further work has only strengthened the theory, not weakened it. So there is literally nothing to debate anymore (except for the details of the theory). Intelligent Design is not falsifiable, so there is no need to debunk it. For true-believers, it cannot be debunk. For the rest of us, it's just plain bunk.

Second, thought this may seem to be merely another salvo in the culture wars, this is more than an academic debate. The triumph of ID in schools would inevitably lead to a decline in the quality of American science teaching, specifically in biology, a field that underpins modern medicine, including stem-cell research, cloning, and gene therapies. If Americans do not lead these fields, someone else will (already the Koreans, Italians, and others are taking the lead in cloning).

History shows that voluntarily declining to pursue valuable technologies can have devastating effects for nations. In the 15th Century, the Chinese led the world in naval technology, but gave it up right as the European nations (with far inferior ships) ventured out in the Age of Exploration. Similarly, in the 17th Century, the Japanese led the world in the production of firearms. BUt they gave it up in deference to the Samurai class. Ships and firearms, of course, were the two of the prime technologies that led to the nations of Europe controlling the entire world. China and Japan were reduced to a shadow of their former selves, under European domination (from which Japan emerged only once it embraced Western knowledge and technology). This sort of fate is clearly a worst-case scenario, but we truly can't afford to be complacent about science education.