Intelligent design

I DON'T UNDERSTAND J. Scott Turner's defense of teaching intelligent design in high school on the basis of academic freedom ("Signs of design," June 12). I have always thought the latter was only for professors or teachers and not for students. Shouldn't the argument about what to teach be based on pedagogy--what best helps the student? Teleological thinking is just not helpful in physics.

As a Christian I believe that the universe was made--designed, if you will. However, my belief doesn't make it so; this matter is within the context of faith. It is true that many scientists, including Newton, have made use of this context. Should this have any necessary influence on causal explanation?

Jim Langworthy

Silver Spring, Md.

My quarrel with the teaching of evolution is that it fails to teach certain facts, such as (1) there are many other possible selection scenarios; (2) contrary to what most seem to believe regarding Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, natural selection is a monotypic, rather than polytypic, theory (i.e., it explains change in one species, rather than the emergence of new ones; (3) natural selection is a minor phenomenon in nature--especially with "higher" species.

Turner is correct in noting that many scientists react irrationally to ID. I would simply add that they also so react to criticisms of the natural-selection theory, so infatuated do they seem to be with it and with the "holy writ" Origin.

Alton C. Thompson

Greendale, Wis.

While I agree with Turner that intelligent design is not "stealth creationism," ID also is not science. Turner correctly identifies ID as raising issues of "the philosophical roots of biology and the nature of science." As such, ID is a topic for discussion in a philosophy or history of science class, but not in a science class as a "scientific" alternative to neo-Darwinian biology.

Science, by its very nature, asks how, not why. At the intelligent design trial in Dover, Kenneth Miller, who teaches at Brown University, said, "The exclusion of the supernatural is unavoidable and correct, a kind of methodological guardrail to keep science from driving off a cliff." Modern science attaches great importance to sticking with natural explanations, all of which can be tested. The assertion of an "intelligent designer" can explain any finding, because ultimately the "designer" can do anything. But if a proposition cannot be proved true or false, it is not scientific.

Patrick M. Magee

San Jose, Calif.

Turner reacts to the problem of having a judge determine what science is and the repercussions of this judgment for academic freedom. I share these concerns. However, I cannot couple them with even a partial justification of intelligent design. The evidence at the Dover trial was conclusive that the recommended book Of Pandas and People began as a young-earth creationist work. The original creationist language was simply altered to conform to ID terminology in the final text. Since Judge Jones was explicitly requested to determine whether ID is science, his ruling on that could hardly have been avoided. The Lutheran jurist is not an "activist," as charged by those who did not like the decision.

David F. Siemens Jr.

Mesa, Ariz.

Turner's article is a knowledgeable and thoughtful examination of many of the philosophical issues at the heart of the debate over intelligent design. But its weak spot--on practical issues--is revealed when Turner asks, "What ... is the harm in allowing teachers to deal with the subject as each sees fit?"

The practical reality is that a significant number of biology teachers in U.S. middle schools and high schools still teach biology without using the "e" word, evolution. Some teachers use the ruse of teaching slowly enough so that they don't reach the textbook's section on evolution before the school year ends. Such teachers do not enjoy Turner's privilege as a college professor of doing biology, as he puts it, with "evolution ... at the core of virtually everything I think about."

Bruce Yaeger

Houston, Tex.

Adamant supporters of intelligent design primarily continue to attack Darwin and his work of almost 150 years ago. They fail to recognize the research conducted and knowledge gained since that time. Much of our understanding of biological phenomena from morning sickness to the resurgent strains of tuberculosis (June 2007's scare du jour) is best explained in terms of evolution.

ID advocates are being dishonest when they refuse to identify the "designer" as their understanding of God. ID fails as science because it relies on persistent intervention. There is no framework of understanding or predictability, only capriciousness. While ID fails as a scientific theory, it fails even worse as a statement of theology. In trying to present a "science" based on a literal English translation of the Bible, ID proponents reduce God to a poor imitation of a human watchmaker who cannot get it right.