ID in US science classes: yes

Public Forum | 2006 | Negative | ID
     “There is strong public support for teaching Darwin's theory critically. For example, a 2001 Zogby Poll found that 71 percent of Americans agree that ‘biology teachers should teach Darwin's theory of evolution but also the scientific evidence against it.’” This was written for the CQ Researcher by Representative Mark E. Sounder in July 2005. Really, at the face of it, the Representative makes good sense. Scientific theories on creation and evolution should be taught with a critical view, because science is self improving. After all, nothing is infallible. However, to jump from teaching a valid scientific theory with a critical viewpoint to teaching a completely theological notion that is at best a scientific hypothesis is incredibly absurd. This is why my partner I can see nothing but a negative vote on the resolution before us today. Resolved: In the United States, public high school science curriculum should include the study of the Theory of Intelligent Design.
To begin we would simply like to put forth that intelligent design is not a scientific theory, and should not be taught in a science curriculum. The three main basics of a scientific theory are, 1) it must be widely accepted and based upon several sources of evidence, 2) It must be falsifiable and dynamic, able to change based upon research and experimentation, and 3) it must provide testable predictions about the phenomena that it wishes to explain. This definition was obtained from the Encyclopedia Britannica online edition. Frankly, intelligent design doesn’t meet any of those criteria. It is not based upon solid sources of evidence. It cannot be proven, disproven, or changed based upon research or experiments, and it cannot provide testable predictions about the creation of the universe, the phenomena it wishes to explain. There is simply no way to argue intelligent design as a scientific theory. Says Alan Leshner, the CEO for the American Association for the Advancement of the Sciences in July 2005, “But advocates of intelligent design, while seeking to cloak themselves in the language of science, have yet to propose testable hypotheses that can be subjected to the methods of experimental science. Intelligent design presupposes that an intelligent, supernatural agent is responsible for biological structures and processes deemed to be ‘irreducibly complex.’ But whether such an intelligent designer exists is a matter of belief or faith, not science.” The simple fact of the matter is that intelligent design is still a matter of faith, and cannot be dressed up and pretended to be science. The fact that it can be an alternative to the acceptance of the Darwinian Theory of Evolution is not grounds for inclusion in the realm of science. It’s like the belief in “intelligent falling”- the belief that things don’t fall to the ground because of gravity, but because of an intelligent force pushing them down. This isn’t a valid scientific theory, and neither is intelligent design. Therefore, it should not be taught in the science curriculum. It would be like an English teacher one day telling her students to pull out their calculators, because it was the day set aside for math.
     Our second point is that teaching intelligent design in a science classroom would be doing the students a disservice, as well as the idea itself. It will not serve to better educate them, and will in fact bring more harm then good. To set about teaching intelligent design, there are two basic ways that it can be worked into an evolutionary curriculum. The teacher can briefly mention that intelligent design is another way to explain the existence of the earth and all things, taking about 14 seconds to complete a vague, indescript explanation of a hugely complicated topic. Now the former method is similar to a teacher saying, “Class, today we’re going to learn math,” holding up a picture of the number two, and moving on. The latter method is a better one to use. Because no science teacher is that adept at teaching an area of their subject, they would soon feel the need to explain the idea in more detail. Soon, the entire science curriculum will give way towards teaching intelligent design, and no student will be able to do physics or chemistry, but they’ll sure have a good grasp of intelligent design. Destroying an entire science course for something that isn’t really science is something that schools today simply don’t have time or money for.
     This leads us to our final point: cost. Everything has a cost, sometimes a trivial portion of the benefits that can be made. But the cost for a science class to teach something that isn’t science, and that isn’t helpful, is simply too great for the “benefits” that the affirmative is proposing. Think of it. Books to reprint, teachers to train and retrain, lesson plans to be changed. The schools will end up bearing the brunt of this cost.  Our government simply cannot provide the funds needed to accomplish all of these things. There is no funding for forcing a science program to include something that isn’t science, that isn’t beneficial, and that doesn’t need to be included.
     Judge, intelligent design is not something that is part of the realm of science. It is cannot be done justice in the amount of time that science teachers will have to spend on the subject. The government and our schools simply do not have the funding needed to accomplish a project of this scale. Therefore, my partner and I can see nothing but a negative ballot in today’s debate. Thank you.