Provocative ID

Reader Gabriel Sanchez makes some helpful observations in comments posted to yesterday’s blog, Scopes 2005: ID in Federal Court. (His comments come second.)

I also had a provocative conversation with a friend about ID yesterday over lunch. Both Mr. Sanchez’s comments and my friend’s comments have caused me to think more deeply about the issue of ID and school boards, confirming cautions I have read from ID supporters.

Several observations, then about ID, schools, and, now, court cases.

1) Despite our wishes for it to be otherwise, these issues are often determined by political concerns. In a given school jurisdiction, to the extent the teaching of ID, as framed, is put forward as Christians taking back the schools, to that extent it  devolves into a matter of power politics, who has the most votes. Should the district become 51% Muslim, will Islamic science be taught?

2) Since the core ID proponents wish for the discussion of ID to remain within the realm of science, and this is a hard enough task to accomplish, given general peer-resistance to ID, any critique of Darwinism placed with the public school curriculum would seem best served as coming from scientists involved in ID. In other words, given the politics of this hot-button topic, modest ID critiques must be free from religious fingerprints.

3) There is a tangle of legal rulings on church/state issues, some of which were motivated by a secularist ideology. Still, I know my question, “Which religion is being established?” is one to which that the courts are deaf. Establishment clause rulings have broadened establishment, it would seem, to mean anything that favors “religion” in a generic sense. This seems overly restrictive, and problematic in many issues, not the least of which would be whether the government can in any way support chastity programs if the notion of chastity itself is deemed to be based on religious views only, and therefore one that cannot be part of a secular school system.

4) I realize that there are minefields here, and as neither a scientist nor lawyer myself, I have much to learn. Still, as I cited more than a year ago in a blog, “Is Darwinism Beyond Me?” Richard Weaver points out that laymen are capable of asking the right questions:

[I]f men are to be convinced that they are simply the products of evolution, the convincing needs to be done in accordance with the necessary laws of thought. This is merely saying that the layman has the right to ask about the connection between the factual evidence and the conclusion when that connection is not apparent to them. He has the right to ask philosophical questions about the way the facts have been handled and even about whether all of the relevant facts have been taken into consideration.”

As long as ID allowed within any science curricula can modestly present facts, there should be little problem. But politically, and more to the point, humanly speaking because egos are involved, “just the facts” and logic don’t always make for smooth sailing. Just watch court TV.