I’ve tried very hard to resist the temptation. I really have. I’ve watched the situation unfold with varying degrees of mirth and concern, and I’ve largely kept quiet about it, except to friends and loved ones.I am, of course, talking about the latest kerfuffle surrounding intelligent design and evolution. No, no, not that one – PZ Myers and Ben Stein make an interesting side show, but there’s something happening in the center ring that’s caught my interest. I’m talking about the law suit against the University of California by several Christian schools concerning UC’s admission standards and their exclusion of any biology course taught from certain creationist textbooks.
I don’t know the details – I haven’t the time to dig deeply into the matter. All I know is that Michael Behe testified for the plaintiffs and wound up having his own words served back to him as an argument for the defense in the judge’s decision – UC has decisively won this round.
Honestly, though, I’m not really interested in the particulars. What has me interested is the larger issue of creationism, masquerading as intelligent design, and the people attempting to lever it into the scientific arena using politics and rhetoric, and how ultimately these people are likely shooting themselves in the foot.
Imagine you’ve spent your entire life being taught evolution is wrong, meritless, even dangerous. Imagine that these teachings have been aimed at you by every authority figure you’ve ever known – your parents, your pastor, your teachers in the private schools you attended, all the way up through until you are ready to go to college. Hoping for a career in medicine, you pick a school with a good biology program and are accepted. And then you attend your first biology class.
Here you sit, learning, for example, that biologists figure out what particular bits of the genome actually code for something useful in part by comparing genomes across species and looking for the bits in closely related species that haven’t much changed, as these are the parts that result in damage to the organism if they break. This is something that would not work if we weren’t related to the organisms we compare our genome to; it wouldn’t work if evolution were false. What does this realization do to your world view?
Here you have every authority figure in your life telling you one thing, then compelling evidence that they were flat out wrong in this one very important area. Doesn’t that call into doubt everything they’ve ever taught you? Wouldn’t you be inclined to start questioning the entirety of their teachings, right up to the existence of the God they hold so dear? Very likely – I know I would. (But then again, I was born questioning, so your mileage may vary!) 
By sheltering their children from the idea of evolution, aren’t they maybe setting their children up for massive disillusionment and to question the idea they hold most important, the existence of a deity itself?
Tags: creationism, evolution, intelligent design
