Maybe I’m just missing the boat here, but the Intelligent Design coverage I’ve read this morning seems to suffer from an over-reliance on “balance” and to miss the point. To me, the question is whether Intelligent Design should be taught as science. I don’t believe that anyone has objected to it being taught in philosophy classes or comparative religion classes or whatever. The debate ends, in my mind, if Intelligent Design is not science. Science is a process with testable, falsifiable hypotheses. “God did it” is not such a hypothesis. That issue should, therefore, be placed front and center in any article about whether ID should be taught in science classes. Not a bunch of back and forth about what this guy or that guy believes to be true or whether public opinion desires “all sides” to be heard.
A South Bend Tribune article mentions the “is it science or not” question only very late in the article:
But, Shermer contends, intelligent design is just not science “because it offers nothing in the way of testable hypotheses,” he wrote in a Los Angeles Times editorial.
And it’s only mentioned in a “he said, she said” kind of way. The reporter does not tell us whether ID does, in fact, offer testable hypotheses or explain that science is a process, part of which is the testing of such hypotheses.
But at least the South Bend Tribune article mentions the issue. I don’t see anything in this Indy Star article that discusses the “is it science” question.
On the other hand, I realize that when it looks like everyone else is wrong, you’ve gotta consider, maybe it’s you. So maybe I’m missing the boat here. Has there been any serious objection to teaching Intelligent Design as something other than science? If not, then why isn’t the first question addressed the question of whether Intelligent Design follows the scientific method.
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