The religious theory, according to which God created all creatures as they are, is devoid of any proof. However, different streams are required for teaching in science classes, say Dawkins and evolution expert Jerry Coyne.
In an article published by Richard Dawkins, author of the book "The Selfish Garden", and a lecturer at the University of Oxford on making science available to the public, and Jerry Coyne, a researcher in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, and which was translated today in Israel, they attack President Bush's proposal to teach both evolution and creativity and let the students decide for themselves. "At first impression, the combination 'both sides' warms the hearts of educators like us. As lecturers, we discovered that our students' immersion in the arguments of "both sides" of controversial issues made a tremendous contribution to their education. So what is wrong with studying both sides of the apparent controversy between the theory of evolution and creationism, or in its more recent name - the theory of "intelligent design"? Why do we join all the biologists and are not ready to apply the method of study, which we advocate, to this apparent controversy?"
Well, say the two: the answer is simple. "This is not a scientific dispute at all. And this is a diversion that causes a waste of time, because perhaps more than any other important science, evolution is steeped in real controversies (in areas such as sexual selection, punctuated equilibrium, evolutionary psychology, mass extinctions, and more). "
"Intelligent planning is not an argument that belongs in this type of discussion. In fact, this is not a scientific argument but a religious one. It has no place in a biology class just as alchemy has no place in a chemistry class and just as Hasidism has no place in a sex education class. In the last two cases the demand that "the two theories" receive equal class time was ridiculous. Another example: would it be conceivable that someone would suggest that in a lesson on the history of the XNUMXth century equal time be devoted to the study of the Holocaust and the theory that denies the Holocaust? "
And the two continue: "Why are we, along with most biologists, so sure that intelligent design is not a real scientific theory, worthy of the attitude of "presenting the arguments of both sides"? If it were a scientific theory, findings that could confirm it would fill scientific journals, where researchers criticize and test each other. This is not happening. Not because the editors of these journals refuse to publish studies by the followers of intelligent design, but because there simply are no such studies. The proponents of the theory bypass the normal scientific procedure by directly addressing the public, and in their great wisdom - also to government officials. The argument that the proponents of the theory put forward is always the same - they never bring findings that support the existence of intelligent design. All they do is rattle off a list of supposed flaws in the theory of evolution. They tell us about "holes and gaps" in the fossil record. Or they declare, without any supporting evidence, that various organs are "complex in a way that cannot be simplified", and therefore it is impossible for them to have developed through a process of natural selection.
In all those cases there is a hidden basic premise of "default", which the followers of intelligent planning hardly bother trying to hide. According to this assumption, if theory A has some difficulty in explaining phenomenon C, then we should automatically prefer theory B, without asking whether this theory (in this case creationism) explains the phenomenon better. Note how unbalanced this premise is. One side is required to provide evidence at every step of the way. The other side is never required to provide a shred of proof, and declares itself the winner as soon as the first side encounters difficulty.
There is no proof of creationism
What, after all, is a gap in the fossil record? Such a gap means that we do not have complete "cinematic" documentation of each and every step in the evolutionary process. But what an unbelievable presumption is the demand for full documentation, given the fact that only a tiny fraction of the deaths left behind fossils.
A parallel demand for proof from creationists would have been a complete filmic record of God's behavior on the day he worked, say, on the ear bones of the mammals or on the bacterial rod - the small hair-like organ that drives mobile bacteria. Even the most ardent devotee of intelligent design does not claim that such a divine videotape will ever be available.
In contrast, biologists can confidently claim that they have a "cinematic" sequence of fossils in many evolutionary processes. Not in all of them, but in many, including our own origins. And what is much more enlightening - no authentic fossil is ever found in the "wrong" place in the evolutionary sequence. If such an anachronistic fossil were discovered, it would blow up the theory of evolution.
As the great biologist JBS Haldane growled whenever he was asked what could disprove the theory of evolution: "rabbit fossils in the Precambrian era". Evolution, like all good theories, is subject to criticism. Needless to say, she came out of every rebuttal attempt with the upper hand.
Similarly, the argument that something, said the Shotton, is too complex to have evolved through natural selection - supposedly, using the common but incorrect trick, supports the theory of intelligent design as a default for the theory of evolution. This type of argument leaves open the possibility that if the bat is too complex to have evolved by natural selection, perhaps it is also too complex to be created. Indeed, one moment is enough to show that any god capable of creating a shotton (not to mention a universe) would have to be a much more complex being than the shotton itself, and its existence requires even more explanation than the object it supposedly created.
Evolution is a fact
There is also evidence regarding the development of the human race (Photo: Reuters) If complex bodies require an explanation, a complex planner also requires an explanation. And it is impossible to accept as a solution the theologian's argument that God (or the intelligent designer) is immune from the usual demands of scientific explanation. Whoever does this is shooting himself in the foot. You can't eat the cake and have it whole. Either the place of rational planning is in science classes, in which case the theory must be subject to the standards demanded from a scientific hypothesis, or the place of the theory is not there, in which case it should be taken out of science classes and returned to the churches.
There is no finding that supports intelligent design - there are only apparent gaps in the completeness of the evolutionary description, combined with the "default fallacy". And while it is absolutely true that evolutionary science is not complete and complete, the positive evidence confirming the fact of evolution is truly enormous and consists of hundreds of thousands of observations that confirm each other. They come from fields such as geology, paleontology, comparative anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, ethology, biogeography, embryology, and more and more nowadays - molecular genetics. The weight of these proofs is so great that opposition to the very existence of evolution is ridiculous in the eyes of anyone who knows even a trace of the material that has been published on the subject. Evolution is a fact, as the earth revolving around the sun is a fact.
Why does it matter if these issues are discussed in science classes? After all, it would only take ten minutes to exhaust the creationist argument. The concern stems from the fact that the deceptive language of "let's study both sides of the dispute" conveys the false idea that there really are two sides here. This will distract the students from the really important and interesting controversies that breathe life into the evolutionary discourse. Worse, it would give creationism the only victory it can aspire to. Without its proponents having to make a single good argument in any debate, they will have a form of supernaturalism recognized as an authentic component of science. This will be the end of science education in America.
