Gerry Coyne is an astronomer and Catholic priest whose views about God and creation seem a little out of step with those of his church. He recently gave a lecture at The College of New Jersey (formerly Trenton State College) in which he said that although he believes in God, and believes God created the universe, he cannot as a scientist believe in intelligent design:
"God gave the universe a certain structure so we could come about, but he didn't predetermine it. He created the universe and then let it go."
This is standard-issue deism which seems odd coming from a Catholic priest, but I suppose such theological tepidness is no less uncommon among Catholic clergy than it is among protestant clergy.
According to Coyne, it is the parents' duty to teach their child about God, if they want, but its not the science teacher's responsibility.
Well, yes, but what does this have to do with intelligent design? Coyne is neither stupid nor new to the debates over ID so one has to think that he's deliberately dissembling here when he implies that teaching ID in a science class would amount to teaching about God. As he surely knows ID is silent on who or what the designer of the cosmos is.
But let's play along. Suppose we agree with Fr. Coyne and banish ID and all of its intellectual cousins from the public school science classroom. Will we then be teaching nothing about God? Actually, no. By implicitly teaching that the universe and life came about by purely mechanical, naturalistic means we are tacitly teaching that God is neither necessary nor in any way relevant. We're subtly teaching, in fact, that if God exists he's little more than the same remote and impotent deity that Fr. Coyne believes in. How convenient.
Excluding God from the science classroom is not nearly as easy as Fr. Coyne thinks. Even if God is never mentioned students are still being taught theology. They're being taught that God has almost nothing to do with life as it has developed which is certainly a theological claim.
Freshman Stephanie Laurent got the message. Asked about the lecture she said:
"It was good. It really cleared up a couple of things I had been wondering about. Religion is abstract and you can't really touch it. Science, you could find evidence and actually believe that it's true. Religion only uses the Bible, and you can't really explain it."
This is depressing. It's certainly the case that its easy to believe a particular explanation if the only evidence you're allowed to consider is the evidence supporting that explanation. That's the state of affairs that Fr. Coyne wants to see prevail in our public schools.
RLC
