Creationism as Intelligent Design
Just before Christmas, John Jones, a Federal Court Judge in Pennsylvania, reached an historic judgement. In response to a claim by parents of students at Dover High School, to the effect that a decision by the since ousted School Board to include intelligent design alongside the theory of evolution in the curriculum was unconstitutional, Judge Jones agreed.
The parents had argued that the proposal to raise intelligent design to the level of a scientific theory was a violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution which prohibits the state establishment of religion. The Judge’s decision demonstrated beyond question that what its advocates refer to as ‘intelligent design’ is in fact a supernatural explanation of the natural world which relies on religious faith and asserts that the hand of God created our world. It is ultimately an attempt by creationists to obscure the religious basis of their intentions and to dress their religious convictions in the clothes of scientific theory.
Thirty other States are lining up to include intelligent design into the school curriculum so one suspects that Judge Jones’s ruling may not be the last word on the matter. His judgement nevertheless contributes an element of common sense to a debate which is not of interest to America alone, but to many other countries as well. Thus the debate about science and creationism has become a major issue for New Zealand, and it was significant that the New Zealand Herald’s sole editorial for Boxing Day addressed the US judgement and was headed “Intelligent Ruling on Creationism”. Like the USA, New Zealand was founded as a secular state in which religion has no official status, but New Zealand has on the one hand been far more strict in maintaining the separation of Church and State in the legislative process while on the other being far more liberal in allowing for example, schools to include prayers at morning assembly if that is consistent with the school’s ethos.
While Christian fundamentalists make a lot of noise in New Zealand, unless they elect a Christian fundamentalist party to power, they have no significant voice in government. At the last election under New Zealand’s system of proportional representation in which governments are frequently coalitions of parties, their representation in Parliament went from tiny to miniscule after the leader of the major Christian party was jailed for sexual offences. So the current situation that pertains in the United States, where there is ostensibly a separation between Church and State, yet through the Christian fundamentalist ascendancy within the Republican Party there has developed during the Bush presidency a virtual Christian fundamentalist State, is simply not possible in New Zealand.
The Herald editorial took the view that a victory for the creationists “would limit the horizons of Western civilization”. I imagine their argument is that the Enlightenment project with its gift of rational enquiry which has prompted the diminution of superstitious explanations for reality, would become fatally flawed, and human experience and progress retarded should the creationists have their way. Their long campaign through the US court system from the 1920’s onwards has revealed the objective of placing curbs on human knowledge and turning science into a religion. In the Pennsylvania case their submission was that intelligent design is a science even though it fundamentally contradicts scientific method. The Herald is encouraged that while the creationists may have had the better of the earlier court battles, the recent trends has been for the courts to have taken the view that creationism violates the constitution.
I have also followed the debate about evolution and creation within the UK closely. There it is a focus for serious academic debate and I have enjoyed reading books by one of the leading Oxford Darwinists, Richard Dawkins. His works can be at the same time compelling and irritating and in respect to one of his recent books, The Devil’s Chaplain, Richard Holloway, the retired Primus (Archbishop) of the Scottish Episcopal Church, declared that it ought to be required theological reading. There are extraordinarily poetic passages in Dawkins’ works, and I read him in the same way as I read the Bible, not as literally true, but as appealing to the human spirit, to our imagination, and to the power to transform our lives. But his Darwinian theories are no more ultimate explanations than the Genesis view that the world was created in six days. Paradoxically both are also ‘true’ in that they are true to the human quest for meaning in the world we inhabit.
I am encouraged by the Pennsylvania court case not because I believe that science can provide all the answers, for science has in my view significantly failed to provide for example, solutions to world poverty. Nor do I wish to deny genuine creationists the opportunity to freely propagate their views as there is no reason that high school students should not be encouraged to discuss the relative merits and disadvantages of creationism in their classes. But I am committed to an open society in which theories can be created, debated and tested, while as an anarchist I cannot ultimately subject myself to a theory. Such an act of subjugation would cede authority to something which may be fallible. Rather I affirm the words of Bukanin who said that he was a lover of liberty which is the only condition under which all latent human talents and attributes may be developed in their most complete form. And if you were to press me further I would offer an essentially religious allusion: that we have a model of humanity in its most mature form in the personality, intentions and actions of the man Jesus.
The parents had argued that the proposal to raise intelligent design to the level of a scientific theory was a violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution which prohibits the state establishment of religion. The Judge’s decision demonstrated beyond question that what its advocates refer to as ‘intelligent design’ is in fact a supernatural explanation of the natural world which relies on religious faith and asserts that the hand of God created our world. It is ultimately an attempt by creationists to obscure the religious basis of their intentions and to dress their religious convictions in the clothes of scientific theory.
Thirty other States are lining up to include intelligent design into the school curriculum so one suspects that Judge Jones’s ruling may not be the last word on the matter. His judgement nevertheless contributes an element of common sense to a debate which is not of interest to America alone, but to many other countries as well. Thus the debate about science and creationism has become a major issue for New Zealand, and it was significant that the New Zealand Herald’s sole editorial for Boxing Day addressed the US judgement and was headed “Intelligent Ruling on Creationism”. Like the USA, New Zealand was founded as a secular state in which religion has no official status, but New Zealand has on the one hand been far more strict in maintaining the separation of Church and State in the legislative process while on the other being far more liberal in allowing for example, schools to include prayers at morning assembly if that is consistent with the school’s ethos.
While Christian fundamentalists make a lot of noise in New Zealand, unless they elect a Christian fundamentalist party to power, they have no significant voice in government. At the last election under New Zealand’s system of proportional representation in which governments are frequently coalitions of parties, their representation in Parliament went from tiny to miniscule after the leader of the major Christian party was jailed for sexual offences. So the current situation that pertains in the United States, where there is ostensibly a separation between Church and State, yet through the Christian fundamentalist ascendancy within the Republican Party there has developed during the Bush presidency a virtual Christian fundamentalist State, is simply not possible in New Zealand.
The Herald editorial took the view that a victory for the creationists “would limit the horizons of Western civilization”. I imagine their argument is that the Enlightenment project with its gift of rational enquiry which has prompted the diminution of superstitious explanations for reality, would become fatally flawed, and human experience and progress retarded should the creationists have their way. Their long campaign through the US court system from the 1920’s onwards has revealed the objective of placing curbs on human knowledge and turning science into a religion. In the Pennsylvania case their submission was that intelligent design is a science even though it fundamentally contradicts scientific method. The Herald is encouraged that while the creationists may have had the better of the earlier court battles, the recent trends has been for the courts to have taken the view that creationism violates the constitution.
I have also followed the debate about evolution and creation within the UK closely. There it is a focus for serious academic debate and I have enjoyed reading books by one of the leading Oxford Darwinists, Richard Dawkins. His works can be at the same time compelling and irritating and in respect to one of his recent books, The Devil’s Chaplain, Richard Holloway, the retired Primus (Archbishop) of the Scottish Episcopal Church, declared that it ought to be required theological reading. There are extraordinarily poetic passages in Dawkins’ works, and I read him in the same way as I read the Bible, not as literally true, but as appealing to the human spirit, to our imagination, and to the power to transform our lives. But his Darwinian theories are no more ultimate explanations than the Genesis view that the world was created in six days. Paradoxically both are also ‘true’ in that they are true to the human quest for meaning in the world we inhabit.
I am encouraged by the Pennsylvania court case not because I believe that science can provide all the answers, for science has in my view significantly failed to provide for example, solutions to world poverty. Nor do I wish to deny genuine creationists the opportunity to freely propagate their views as there is no reason that high school students should not be encouraged to discuss the relative merits and disadvantages of creationism in their classes. But I am committed to an open society in which theories can be created, debated and tested, while as an anarchist I cannot ultimately subject myself to a theory. Such an act of subjugation would cede authority to something which may be fallible. Rather I affirm the words of Bukanin who said that he was a lover of liberty which is the only condition under which all latent human talents and attributes may be developed in their most complete form. And if you were to press me further I would offer an essentially religious allusion: that we have a model of humanity in its most mature form in the personality, intentions and actions of the man Jesus.
posted by MichaelElliott @ 8:22 AM
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