By Jason Schwalm
The concepts of intelligent design operate far from the level of reasoned disputation expected by modern science. It is the belief that evolution is an inadequate explanation for the origin of humankind on the grounds that life is too complex to have simply developed, but must have been expressly created by an intelligent force, and any conversation with a proponent of this theory is absurdly circular. It usually goes something like:
“An intelligent force must have created the universe.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it is so complex that an intelligent force must have created it.”
Nevertheless parents across the country are suing school boards to ensure that their children are as ill-prepared for a university science curriculum as possible, asking that intelligent design be taught along side Darwinian evolution in high school biology classes. They do so while muttering under their breaths the disclaimer, “any similarity to the Scopes Monkey trial is entirely coincidental.”
We have been here before. Religious anti-science has already been legally barred from classrooms, but by insisting that their particular variety of superstitious nonsense is somehow different from creationism, intelligent design theorists have again won a day in the sun for a theological and dogmatic explanation of our origin.
Legal precedent supports the removal of creationism from science classrooms. Therefore, rather than arguing against intelligent design theory on its questionable merits, to settle the matter we need only effectively explain that it is in fact synonymous with the creationist viewpoint.
Intelligent design theory is and has always been creationism in disguise. It proceeds from the exact same point, alleging that modern science is incapable of fully and comprehensively explaining the origin of matter and the development of life on this planet. And both arguments lead to similarly groundless conclusions: specifically, the notion that if evolution hasn’t explained the ‘miracle’ of life yet, it won’t ever be able to explain it at all.
Ultimately, saying that a nameless intelligent force created humans and saying that God, a specific intelligent force, created humans is not any different. The very idea of “design” implies intention, and intention, mixed with desire, is fundamentally a human quality. The true weakness of this and every religious or crypto-theological attempt to explain our origins is the need to anthropomorphize the source.
The quality that marks us as perpetually flawed humans is the impulse to externalize our subjective experience into creations (everything from cave paintings to cathedrals to this op-ed column) in the name of immortality.
We project this same narcissism onto the divine to explain our genesis. Intelligent design theory, like the myth of God’s act of creation, has all over it the fingerprints of a needy, childish desperation to make our “creator” think and behave in a suspiciously human fashion.
Intelligent design theory is a joke that we, briefly and with great aggravation, must endure. Similar junk sciences, like phrenology, eugenics or supply-side economics, also banged their tambourines before being mercifully ejected from the band. As always, reactionaries value comforting orthodoxy over science, and it is their children who suffer most.
Jason Schwalm is a senior majoring in English and the Opinion Editor for The Louisville Cardinal. Contact him at: jschwalm@louisvillecardinal.com
