Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Intelligent Design is Going to Win!? Nonsense.

“Dan” linked to this blog entry in his comment on my “Are People Coming to Their Senses?” post:

TCS: Tech Central Station – Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win
It doesn’t matter if you like it or not. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s true or not. Intelligent Design theory is destined to supplant Darwinism as the primary scientific explanation for the origin of human life. ID will be taught in public schools as a matter of course. It will happen in our lifetime. It’s happening right now, actually.

Okay, I’ll bite.

First, referring to Intelligent Design as a “scientific explanation” betrays a complete misunderstanding of what science is. One might argue that since “science” is just a word it can mean whatever we want it to mean — but that simply is not true. You can call a pig an eagle, but that won’t make it fly. Intelligent Design is a religious idea. That’s what it always will be. Science — REAL science — has given us everything that makes the modern world modern. Few people are ready to abandon the benefits of science and return to the Dark Ages. That’s why, as the majority of people in this country seem to be putting their brains back in gear, Intelligent Design will continue to lose support. (Consider that all eight of the pro-ID school board members in Dover, PA were voted out of office in the last election. Before the controvery there, people in Dover just weren’t paying attention. Now they’re paying attention.)

There’s another reason why Intelligent Design is losing ground. When a person accepts Intelligent Design as an explanation for the complexity of life on earth, they are, in essence, saying “I’m going to quit trying to understand this. It’s too hard. I’m not smart enough.” People are beginning to realize that Intelligent Design is a symptom of intellectual laziness — and intellectual laziness inevitably leads to cultural decline. We can’t afford to get stupider. If we want to continue to advance as a species, we need to keep getting smarter and science — real science — is the only proven way to become smarter about the world around us.

Finally, the creation of Intelligent Design “theory” and the increased influence of fundamentalist religions are nothing more than predictable reactions to a rapidly changing world. When people experience an unsettling rate of cultural change, many find comfort in the idea of a supernatural creator who’s in control of everything. They may turn to unambiguous black-and-white explanations of how the world works. This sort of intellectual back-sliding is always temporary. I have no doubt that Intelligent Design — like so many other fanciful ideas of the past — will eventually be nothing more than a slightly embarrassing footnote in the history books.