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 Why Intelligent Design should not be taught in science class (15)

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AveSatanas(4443) pic



Why Intelligent Design should not be taught in science class

I wrote this persuasive speech for school and i thought some of you would appreciate it. But i do wanna know if it makes sense and, in your opinion, disputes intelligent design as being science while also respecting religion. Thanks!

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines Intelligent Design as-:  the theory that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were created by a designing intelligence.

 And defines science as- knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation.

Now that we’ve established these things, we can get to the issue at hand, the teaching of intelligent design in science class.

The high school day is divided into multiple periods, each devoted to a different area of study as you’re no doubt familiar with. This categorization is extremely important in keeping the vast amount of information we have organized. For example, you don’t teach Shakespeare in Algebra class. This isn’t because Shakespeare is wrong or inferior to algebra, it is just because Shakespeare does not fit the math category and is therefore inappropriate to be taught in that class. The rules that math operates under, and the way we analyze literature are two entirely different things. It is for this reason that intelligent design should not be taught in science class. Its simply inappropriate.

Science is performed by adhering to a strict method. The scientific method. It goes roughly like this. First a hypothesis is formed, usually based on previous scientific findings, next, experiments are conducted and/ or things are observed seeking to disprove the hypothesis. Based on the findings a conclusion is made about the hypothesis, either that it was supported by the data or not. If it is supported it keeps being tested, if it isn’t supported it is rejected.

If it is supported, experimentation will continue until it is proven untrue, if ever. This is the method by which every, well, every self-respecting and reputable scientist conducts their work today, and it is the only foolproof method of discovering truth. It is the method by which germs were discovered and the lighbulb was invented. Science class should only teach knowledge gathered through this method. Nothing else.

Intelligent design is not science because it was not formed through the scientific method. In truth it was formed essentially by doing science backwards. Intelligent design proponents began with their conclusion: an intelligence, ie a god, created the world and everything in it. They then sought to gather evidence to back this up instead of prove it false….to then reach the conclusion that an intelligence ie; a god, created the world and everything in it. Its circular.

 

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Some intelligent design proponents even skip the whole “gathering evidence” part and just push their conclusion as a finished theory. And here’s where we run into an issue. Intelligent design proponents will claim that because evolution is “just a theory” then there should be no problem with teaching the theory of intelligent design side by side.

Theyre both theories right? Potato potato? Not at all. A theory in layman’s English is exactly that, just an idea; whether backed by evidence or not. In science the word theory takes on an entirely different meaning. A scientific theory is a conclusion reached through the scientific method, and not only that, but one that has been reached many times in many ways; meaning that experiments done to test a hypothesis have been done so many times and in so many ways and have never displayed inconsistent results that the conclusion is elevated to the level of theory. Basically a theory in science is as close to a fact that science can get without declaring it a fact.

Theories also contain explainations of the mechanisms by which each theory works. For example the theory of evolution doesn’t just state that it happens, it explains all the mechanisms that cause it. Intelligent design doesn’t do this. It doesn’t explain how the intelligence made the world, it merely states that it happened.

The nature of theories also allows them to be used to make predictions about future events. For example, the theory of gravity stating that objects with mass attract eachother, makes the prediction that if I drop this ball it should be attracted to the earth and fall towards it. drop ball Ta-da. Intelligent design makes no predictions of future events whatsoever.

As I stated before evolution is a scientific theory; and so is the light spectrum, gravity, and germs causing disease. If we were to revert science to accepting anything brandishing the laymans title of theory then we would have germ theory taught alongside the theory that voodoo magic causes disease, and the theory that the sun revolves around the earth taught alongside the heliocentric model. This is absolutely absurd and undermines everything that science stands for and is meant to teach students.

“But its only intellectually honest” they claim. This isn’t true because, at least within science, things don’t have to be considered just because they are possibilities; and especially not if they are not supported by sufficient evidence. By their logic we would have to consider every single creation story from every single text, culture, and religion in order to be “fair”. But in reality it wouldn’t really be fair. It wouldn’t be fair to the student seeking to learn what is true and instead learning what maybe, might possibly be technically plausible.

Remember what I said a second ago about a theory being as close to a fact as science can get? That is because science by nature must be falsifiable or disprovable. And this is yet another reason why intelligent design is not science. Every single scientific theory to date contains no unfalsifiable element to it. Intelligent design on the other hand does contain an unfalsifiable element. The “intelligence” in intelligent design. Some intelligent design proponents say that they don’t know where it is, what it is, or what its made of. Some say it is beyond space and time. Either way we have no way of testing for it, so forming a theory on how such a thing made the world is unfalsifiable and therefore not science.

The real underlying reason for this unfalsifiability is that at its very core intelligent design is really a religious belief. There’s nothing wrong with this, being a religious belief doesn’t automatically make something wrong. But what it does, is changes its category or subject.

Remember what I talked about with algebra and Shakespeare? Intelligent design doesn’t belong in science just as Shakespeare doesn’t belong in algebra, not because its wrong but because it has its own category: religion. And being in this category doesn’t mean that intelligent design cant be taught in schools period. Many schools have World Religion classes for exactly this purpose and if students wish to learn only one religion specifically that’s why churches, mosques and other religious buildings exist.

To conclude I will reiterate once more, intelligent design is not wrong, or stupid. Its just not science. And therefore should not be taught in science class.

Thank you

1 point

What about after the science period of the class? Science in the morning, followed by history, math, and intelligent design.

1 point

Just make sure that the teacher isn't named Jesus. By the end of the year, everything he taught will be misinterpreted.

Mathlete(153) Disputed
1 point

why not have intelligent design in Literature classes? It is a fictional story based on stone age mythology.

I think this argument is overthinking things.

One reason that Intelligent Design should not be taught in science class is because it's a fundamentally flawed term. We don't exactly have a scientific consensus on exactly what constitutes intelligence, after all. Not to mention that 'Intelligent Design' is somewhat redundant because the term 'design' implies that there is intelligence behind it.

That said- Laboratory work is the most important part of any science education. I don't believe there are any valid, scientific laboratory exercises that could be performed to 'test' intelligent design, or draw and measure predictions when assuming Intelligent Design as a premise (the hypothesis, if you will). If proponents of intelligent design in science classrooms could provide some ideas for lab work, I'd be willing to hear them out. Labs are VITAL for science education. If you don't have labs, then you don't have any business in the science classroom.

0 points

Evolution should not be taught in the science class. There is simply no mechanism which has been shown to increase information in the genome.

This makes evolution unscientific.

pakicetus(1455) Disputed
2 points

Oy vey, yet another case of critical research failure.

Here's a good vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2a-oMNbei4

And here's another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfybuMJVWj0

Mathlete(153) Disputed
2 points

I smell lack of education in combination with a bit of bible brainwash :D

MuckaMcCaw(1970) Disputed
1 point

Information is something WE extract from the world around us. It is not considered information until there is somebody to be informed.

DNA is simply a very complex stream of chemical and energetic reactions. Many, if not all, of these reactions have multiple outcomes. The frequency of certain reactions, proximity of certain chemicals and functionality of support mechanisms can and will all vary, and these variances determine, among other things, expressed traits. One tiny change at a specific point can result in a totally different set of expressed traits, some of which may have never been featured in that genetic line before. That would be "new" in terms of the species, even if it was just a different arrangement of chemicals.

Assuming that by "information" you mean new codes...you are absolutely wrong. We see new codes in virtually every new generation of organisms. Mutation is a big part of this, but simple recombination can provide this newness as well.

I give you the word "east". You rearrange the letters to form the word "eats". Someone else comes along and uses the same letters to spell "seat". Three different people created three different words without adding "new information." Since there are billions of ways a single strand of dna can be rearranged, it would be possible to have a nearly infinite variety of permutations even without changing the number of molecules. And that number WILL change due to coding errors.

Due to the way chemistry works, the only way you could say "no new information si added" (if that sentence really even made sense in this context) would be if every SINGLE chemical interaction in DNA replicated EXACTLY the same way for all organisms. And if that was the case...there would only be one species.

Mathlete(153) Clarified
1 point

Information is the difference between states. it is always present (bit more complicated around Firewalls and Black Holes). What you mean is knowledge.

Nomoturtle(857) Disputed
1 point

Giantant, several microbes (due to their rapid reproduction) have been observed to have undergone evolutionary changes in which parts of its structure have been 'deleted' or their functions slowly changing in some way due to alterations within dna.