Tuesday 9 January 2007

Rearing its ugly head


I see in today's letters to the editor that the so called "intelligent design", raises its head yet again.
The writer bemoans intellectual critique that was offered earlier in the month which said that ID should be kept out of schools because it cannot be proved or sustained from the evidence.
"Aha" says the erstwhile writer. "If this is a reason for not teaching intelligent design, then it is the reason for not teaching evolution. Because evolution is a theory, and cannot be proved."
This is rather to miss the point. Virtually all education cannot be proved, it is 'theory'. That is it is open to test and then to being tested again and then again.
The writer rather misses the point that evolution as a theory undergoes continual testing and refinement.
I rather take the point that some (poor) scientists often treat theory as though it is fact, but no genuine scientist would do so. Everything surely is provisional, open to challenge and subject to refinement. Evolution has embraced this process, and continues to evolve! We are not at the point where Darwin began, and he would not expect us to be. The trouble with so-called intelligent design is that it wants to stand still at the eternal still point.
No education should stand still; history should grow and grow, any student of the Bible will tell you that it is not a static discipline. Language study that stand still goes backwards. Things change. (some previous thoughts about ID here)

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