This is the quality of argument that the Intelligent Design folks are up against in Harrisburg:
"Intelligent design is not a science and therefore it cannot be construed as a science whatsoever." - Ken Miller, Brown University biology professor, the only witness to testify Monday.
ID is not science therefore it is not science. Very compelling. And then there's this:
A group calling itself the Campaign to Defend the Constitution created a Web site to promote the teaching of evolution and attack what it defines as the "religious right."
Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, and former ACLU executive director Ira Glasser are among the group's leaders.
The group said in a news release that on Thursday it will release a letter, signed by Nobel laureates, leading scientists and clergy, that urges governors of all 50 states to ensure science classes teach evolution and "base curricula on established science, not ideology."
The release of this letter would be a strange move for people interested in arguing that ID should not be taught in science class because it's not testable and because it's inherently religious.
As we wrote the other day in Viewpoint:
Thirty eight Nobel winners might sound like a powerful voice on behalf of evolution, but we shouldn't be too hasty to allow ourselves to be impressed. The letter contains these words:
"Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection."
Thirty eight Nobel winners, 34 of them scientists, signed off on this definition. Why is this remarkable? Two reasons: The first is that this statement accurately defines Darwinian evolution, but it does not define a scientific theory. How can the claim that evolution is unguided and unplanned ever be subjected to testing? What experiments or observations would count for or against it? The answer, of course, is that there are none. These brilliant scientists are in effect calling for schools to teach metaphysics in public school science classes while at the same time demanding that a competing metaphysical theory, Intelligent Design, be banished from science classes because it can't be scientifically tested.
The Nobel winners, by signing this letter, also signed off on a theological claim. If life is the result solely of "unguided, unplanned processes" then by teaching evolution, schools are, by implication, teaching that God has nothing to do with life on earth. To the extent that this definition for evolution will be presented to students, they will be taught that evolution makes God irrelevant. This is exactly what the Dover school board was seeking to avoid by crafting the statement to be read to students that evolution is not necessarily the truth of the matter.
The irony of this lawsuit is obvious. The plaintiffs allege that it is illicit for some people to claim that an intelligent designer, or even God, did have a role to play in the emergence of life but that it's not illicit for others to deny that any designer or God was involved. Why is the former claim considered an unacceptable conflation of church and state but the latter is not?
We hope Dover's attorneys ask these questions of the plaintiff's witnesses.
