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Smuggling Religion into School

"Intelligent Design" isn't science.  It is religion.  It is the Creation Story with the Creator hiding behind an apple tree, where you cannot see him.  


Try to imagine an intelligent design without saying anything about the designer.  Try to imagine the intelligent designer without saying "God".  "I didn't say, 'God'!  It is obvious, but I didn't say it." 


William Paley, in 1802, had a famous watchmaker argument.  Should you take a stroll and stumble upon a watch, and be amazed by it, you would conclude that someone intelligent had made it.  And so you would.  It is an industrial revolution argument.  Machines are made.  A watch is a machine.  


It is not an argument from nature.  Should you take a stroll and stumble upon a baby Robin, and be amazed by it, you would not conclude that it had been intelligently designed.  You would look for its mother or father.  Nature does not manufacture baby Robins:  it evolves them.  And as for complexity, a baby Robin makes a watch seem rather simple.  


One can as easily make an argument for an incompetent designer.  Who designed Alzheimer's disease?  Cancer?  Paranoia?  Science and natural selection posit that nature tries almost everything, and that some variations are advantageous, and some are not, under the circumstances.  If the circumstances change, what is an advantage somewhere else may be a hindrance here.  Penguins and ostriches take advantage of what might be debilitating to the other.  


Some religious people argue that "intelligent design" ought to be taught as an alternative science, even though it is obvious that simply not saying that "God" is the Intelligent Designer does not mean it is not God they are talking about.  Of course, it is!


(And while we are at it, should you take a stroll and stumble upon an Intelligent Designer, and be amazed by Him, would you not conclude that a Very Intelligent Designer Indeed! had designed the Intelligent Designer?)


Michele Bachmann wants Intelligent Design to be taught in our public schools as an alternative science, so that intelligent students can choose which they prefer--science, or religious creationism--although she is going to pretend that if she never says, "God", no one will ever guess that is what she really means.  And given the condition of our educational system, maybe no one will ever guess just that.    


Should you take a stroll and stumble upon Michele Bachmann, and be amazed, would you not conclude that she is perfectly designing woman?  A natural selection?  

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