help with school paper! (long)

[college kid]

I am writing a paper which will be printed in my university paper. It's a paper against ID. I haven't even looked at teh recent Sklansky post, but I was hoping you all could go over it and tear it apart. Whatever -- English mistakes, factual mistakes, you disagree and want to kill me--whatever. Just give me something. Thanks. The enitrety of it is below. I just finished it and am very sleepy, so tell me if it is still flowing ok by the end. Also, the indents and some italics are missing because I just did a straight copy/paste form Word.



Where Education Must Not Go Wrong… Even if Thinking Does
By college kid

In the October 3rd issue of the [school paper], one article caught my attention, “Defending the concept of intelligent design.” On the previous page was an article titled “Intelligent design is not science.” Intelligent design has recently become a hot topic, especially since George W. Bush told reporter Ron Hutcheson that intelligent design and evolution should have equal footing in public schools. That comment sparked heated debate and gave advocates of intelligent design more power.

The fact that intelligent design has gained such strength and popularity disturbs me more than a little bit. In truth, I am outraged and bewildered.

The articles listed above did a poor job of identifying and supporting exactly what the issue at hand is. They focused more on criticism and factual errors than what’s actually important. The topic which must be directly addressed is whether intelligent design is far enough from religion to be constitutionally allowed in schools, and if so, should it be?

To answer the first part, we need to know exactly what intelligent design is and exactly what religion is. I will use dictionary.com for this purpose. Intelligent design is “a theory which states that nature and complex biological structures were designed by ‘intelligent beings.’” These intelligent beings must, following the previous definition, be something supernatural (though not specifically God). Religion is “belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.” Intelligent design and religion are clearly and firmly connected by the mere definition of what they are. Such a close connection is inarguably too close for the Constitution to allow for the teaching of such a theory. But let’s say for the sake of argument that it is allowed to be taught in schools, since currently and unconstitutionally, it is.

Whether it is right or wrong to teach intelligent design with evolution is an interesting question because we must first understand the goals of public education. Parents and the general public have agreed, via numerous polls, that the goal of a public education is to endow young people with the academic knowledge and necessary skills that allow them to successfully contribute to society through gainful employment or enrollment in a higher learning institution. The overwhelming majority of teachers wish to do more than that—they wish to form the child into a whole. That is, to explore their individuality, creativity, ability to function in groups, learn to teach themselves, and gain an understanding of logic and critical thinking skills, among other things. Both goals are admirable and I am pleased that both are being executed in a harmonious fashion by teachers of various academic subjects and skillful trades. The problem occurs when teachers’ religious beliefs slip into their need to mold their students. Also, the problem is compounded when those beliefs affect choices and beliefs which would normally be associated with an independently thinking person. Teachers inadvertently spread religious doctrine and morals as absolute truth (only because they believe it to be so) and thus confuse and mix science and faith. Rational, independent thinking is pushed aside.

Since it cannot remotely fit with any other subject, intelligent design has attempted to pass as a form of science. Once again, let us go back to our friend, the dictionary. Science is nothing more than the practice of employing the scientific process; science is “the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.” A scientific theory is not just a theory as we would use the word socially; it is “an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers.” From wilstar.com:

"A scientific law is like a slingshot. A slingshot has but one moving part--the rubber band. If you put a rock in it and draw it back, the rock will fly out at a predictable speed, depending upon the distance the band is drawn back.

An automobile has many moving parts, all working in unison to perform the chore of transporting someone from one point to another point. An automobile is a complex piece of machinery. Sometimes, improvements are made to one or more component parts. A new set of spark plugs that are composed of a better alloy that can withstand heat better, for example, might replace the existing set. But the function of the automobile as a whole remains unchanged. A scientific theory is like the automobile. Components of it can be changed or improved upon, without changing the overall truth of the theory as a whole."

The theory of evolution is a set of correlated ideas and data, collected and verified independently, which follows from the idea of natural selection outlined in Darwin’s Origin of Species. Evolution is a valid scientific theory, on par with a scientific law: its effects can be observed, experiments reproduced, and data used for accurate predictions.

Intelligent design, on the other hand, is not even close to science. Its hypothesis cannot be tested or verified. There is no way to prove or disprove it. The idea is exactly as reasonable as my telling you that all black holes are filled with jelly doughnuts. You certainly could not prove me wrong, since no information can penetrate the event horizon of a black hole, but the theory itself is still invalid. It does not logically follow from any set of observations, nor does it provide useful or testable predictions. Also, and this is the most important part, it gives way to the fallacy that if something is unexplained, it is inexplicable without divine or supernatural intervention. This is, of course, flat out wrong.

I do not know how exactly the complex neural pathways in my brain work. I don’t know how they were formed or what exactly makes me sad, or how I remember images of my dead cat. I don’t know why I breathe without thinking about it, but have to exert an immense amount of concentration to throw a basketball in a hoop—and still miss. There are numerous complex workings in nature, similar and dissimilar to the inner workings of my brain. I don’t know how my brain works and I don’t know how many things in nature work. But that does not mean that I will never know or that there is some mystical force at work. With research in swarm intelligence and neurology and numerous other related fields, I can at least grasp that it is probably within human reach to find out exactly how my brain works. Even phenomena about which I and the rest of the world understand nothing do not dissuade me from the knowledge that its secrets will one day be discovered.

Over the centuries, religion has made all kinds wild claims and interfered with society on every level. Music, math, sickness, power, knowledge, money, and sex (to name a few from the infinite list) have all been markings of the devil throughout history. Some of those are still high on the list. Though religion greatly influences society, it always changes and adapts to fit modern society—otherwise it would lose its power. Faith in something greater than one’s self is a trait that I would argue all humans have programmed into them in some form or another; however, that does not mean that faith must be blind and/or illogical.

Intelligence is defined as “the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge; the faculty of thought and reason.” Stupidity is defined as “the tendency to make poor decisions, marked by a lack of intelligence.” Science gathers data, hypothesizes, tests, and then corrects itself. That is the very nature of science—to lend itself to close scrutiny for examination and reevaluation. Intelligent design offers no such return; it cannot be tested and reworked, and thus using information gained from such a theory to make any kind of useful determination would be a very poor decision indeed. That is because the “information” in such a theory has little or no basis in application or reason. While everybody is entitled to his opinion, clearly some opinions are more valid than others.

This is where the problems with education occur. Teaching children something which has no validity and telling them it is science is an abomination to science and to education. If the goal of education is to give students useful and applicable knowledge and to mold them into rational, creative, and functioning individuals, then providing such confusing and irrational concepts is extremely detrimental. Why do you suppose it’s always the “academics” and “scientists” who berate intelligent design? Teachers must understand their role in students’ lives and make sure that they stick to teaching applicable and rational material. Intelligent design could well be taught in an art class—after all it is a very creative idea, but don’t put it where it doesn’t belong. It is not science. It is not intelligent. Worst of all, it and many other religious ideas like it are the seeds of irrational thinking and behavior which are detrimental to productive society. This is where education must not go wrong… even if thinking on the individual level already has.