Another perspective on Intelligent Design

Bonnie and I both live in New York. I spend a lot of time looking at The Hudson River; Bonnie spends a lot of time kayaaking, and crewing on other boats in The Hudson River.

I read Bonnie's blog Frogma to learn about our shared city from a totally different view point.  I'm constantly in awe of Bonnie's New York; it's much more fascinating than mine.

I'm a native New Yorker. Bonnie comes from a state far from the mainland and New York, Hawaii where the story she's going to tell really begins.

On Fridays at Bring it on!, we like to present guest authors with different perspectives, and voices. I like how Bonnie presents her arguments; with logic, reasoning, and she remembers high school science.

I have been following the debate over the teaching of Intelligent Design in our schools with great interest, concern, and not a little mystification over how this has gotten as far as it has. Recently, around the time that the article from which the above quote was taken first ran, I took a break during a late evening at work to participate in an online discussion of the topic, posing a few simple questions to those who were arguing in favor of ID.

"Much has been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans believe that the Earth - and humans with it - was created as described in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn't a triumph of faith. It's a failure of education."
-- Verlyn Klikenborg,

Their arguments seemed to be running in circles, and I was hoping that they'd break out of those circles and talk a little more about what was driving each of them. Having never had a chance to speak to anyone who was actually a supporter of that concept, I was curious to see what they'd say.

I am not an atheist; however, I do not feel that acceptance of the theory of evolution and belief in God are mutually exclusive; and in fact, as I see the issue, my personal religious convictions aren't even really relevant to whether I find the theory of evolution to be a convincing explanation of how life came to be as it is on this planet.

I began reflecting on why so many people now have come to believe that being a person of faith and being a person who understands (and accepts) the theory of evolution are somehow irreconcilable.

I speak as one who identifies herself as a Christian. Yet I cannot identify with, or even begin to agree with, those who would have Christian precepts taught in our public schools. I am in complete agreement with statements that have been made here and elsewhere that teaching ID in public schools is in violation of the First Amendment. And I think that our Founding Fathers were very wise to institute the separation of church and state, allowing Americans individual freedom of worship (or lack thereof, as the individual sees fit). And that's coming from someone who is, at least in part, the product of an education overseen by clergymen.

I am of the school of thought that finds religion and science to be, quite simply two entirely different modes of thought. They are only contradictory when the boundaries & purposes of the two are confused -- which I feel is definitely the case in the arguments in favor of Intelligent Design.

Following my brief participation in that on-line discussion, the quote with which I began this post kept running through my mind, and I began thinking about what I myself had been taught in a freshman or sophomore biology class in high school. It was a long time ago, but I have clear recollections of Lamarck's giraffes (taught as an example of a hypothesis that was directly contradicted by observable evidence), Darwin's finches, Mendel's genetic principles, peppered moths, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, convergent evolution, and a lot of other evidence offered in support of Darwin's theory of evolution that stuck in my head because it all worked so well together.

God (either as God per se, or in the guise of an "Intelligent Designer") was never mentioned in this classroom.

This is particularly noteworthy in light of the fact that the school, a very highly regarded institution in Hawaii, was a private one run by the Episcopalian Church. Religion was absolutely present there. The staff was made up of both laypeople and Episcopalian ministers. The headmaster was one of the latter. We attended chapel on a weekly basis; religion classes were part of the standard curriculum, and for those who were interested, Episcopalian confirmation classes were available. 

Science classes could easily have been run with a theological spin, had those in charge felt that was appropriate. Why did they not do so?

I don't know the answer for sure, but I suspect that it was because the primary mission of the school was to offer the children of Hawaii a quality education. Teaching science as science, religion as religion, and refraining from muddling the boundaries between the two was evidently completely in line with that commitment.

What I do know is that being taught as I was absolutely did not make me into an atheist. It just made me into a person who has an understanding of science that is separate from and does not conflict with my personal beliefs.

In fact, I remember learning about the two in very different styles -- as is, I think, appropriate to two very different types of thought.

Most of what I know about science and evolution, I learned at school. My religious beliefs were primarily formed by what I was taught and saw practiced at home, and at church, and I think that's as it should be. In fact, I have to admit that I can't remember any specifics of what the fathers taught in religion classes, just the most general recollections - like a concept that the ideas contained in the Bible were important and could lead a person to a spiritually fulfilling life. But that the Bible itself, from Genesis to Revelation, was a collection of writings by human beings - inspired and reverent human beings, yes, but still human, and therefore fallible.

The fathers at Iolani were intelligent, caring teachers with great confidence both in their faith and in the ability of our young minds to find room for our own faith to thrive alongside of the concepts we were being taught in science, math, history, literature, languages, and all the other secular subjects offered by the school. They were there to teach us, and their teaching did not include forcing any particular dogma down our throats.

By taking that approach, and teaching us in such a way that religion was not confused with other subjects, I think that the fathers allowed for a triumph of both faith and education (in a fashion of which Mr. Klickenborg would approve), in a fashion that the ID people don't seem to understand is possible. What I see in the statements I've read from ID supporters doesn't look to me like confidence in their beliefs.

Their need to have their personal spiritual beliefs validated by science, their thirst for secular acknowledgement - those don't strike me as things that people with real confidence in their beliefs would require at all.