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Intelligent Design and the Sense of Entitlement
Posted by Kevin

Jeff at Dawn Treader, one of my favorite evangelicals, has a wide ranging post on “Intelligent Design”. There is a lot to talk about, but I want to start with this:

Bottom line: turning ID into a political weapon is a mistake. It is a mistake for the left to elevate this issue to the stratosphere because they will feed the stereotypes that have already been killing them (elitist, religion hating, cold secularists).

Opposition to ID does not in any way shape or form make on religion hating. If it did, then you would have to include the Pope and the heads of most major religions as religion hating leftists. ID is the hobby horse of a certain sect of Christianity. There is nothing in evolution that challenges God unless you subscribe to the view that the Bible is to be taken literally. And that is the view of only one sect of Christianity. So to claim that evolution is religion hating is to claim that only the opinions of one sect of one religion count as real religion. In a society based upon individual freedom and the notion of private paths to hell, that alone is a very dangerous notion.

Just as dangerous is the notion that defending the scientific method is “elitist”. Think about the situation for a moment. ID is not science. It makes no falsifiable predictions, it provides nothing in the way of a coherent theory, it doesn’t even provide even so much as a method of determining what was and what was not designed. It defines itself not by what it is, but by what it opposes. It is not science in any meaningful sense of the word. And yet, its proponents want it taught as science without having done any of the hard work necessary to earn that place in the science classroom.

Evolution is science. It does make falsifiable predictions. It does present a coherent theory. It has been tested and refined by the research and experimentation of tens of thousands of scientists over the course of more than one hundred years. It has earned its place in the science classroom.

So we have two camps — ID and evolution. The ID camp cannot claim to be science, cannot claim to have any scientific evidence, and cannot claim a serious body of work that supports it. Evolution’s merit has been proven by the constant application of the scientific method. ID advocates claims it should have entry to the same places evolution has entry — science classrooms — based on nothing more than their sense of entitlement based upon their position in society. ID advocates feel entitled to what they have not earned, rewards they have not worked for, and respect they do not deserve — and evolution is elitist?

I am sorry, but I was raised to respect hard work and honest effort and to disdain demands based on a sense of entitlement . ID advocates have the same chance to prove their notions though the scientific method as the advocates of every other notion. The fact that they have not done so is their own fault. Respect is earned, not handed out to everyone who feels entitled to it without the work respect requires. Some ID proponents (not Jeff, I hasten to add – Jeff, at least, seems willing to have ID do the work) are fond of saying that schools should teach the controversy. There is no scientific controversy. There is only a group of people who feel that their religion and position in society entitle them to a place in science classrooms that they have not done the hard, honest work to earn.

August 8th, 2005 Church & State, Culture, Science | one comment