This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The movie "Expelled" is, once again, unfortunately bringing to the foreground the creationist flanking maneuver of so-called Intelligent Design.
First, I want to be clear where I'm coming from. I am a biology professor and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I take particular delight in being raised a Mormon who was taught that education and knowledge are among our highest ideals.
Many are surprised to find that I am also an evolutionary biologist. I am also a member of the Society for the Study of Evolution, the United States' leading evolutionary science organization, and have published papers in its journal Evolution. I have published numerous scientific papers on the topic of evolution and believe that it is the best explanation for the diversity of life we see around us.
Evolution is at the heart of the biological revolution that has transformed everything from genetics, and medicine, to drug discovery and managing antibiotic resistance. As the great 20th century biologist Dobzhansky said, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."
As a biologist, I could not agree more. BYU has a number of faithful evolutionary biologists and evolutionary science is taught at Brigham Young University just as it is at any other accredited university. Intelligent Design has no place in BYU's science curriculum.
Let me be blunt. I find nothing of value in Intelligent Design for both scientific and religious reasons. Intelligent Design posits that evolutionary theory cannot explain the origin of biological complexity. This is nonsense. Evolution is the best explanation for complexity. The purveyors of Intelligent Design argue that complex structures like the eye cannot be explained by bouts of mutation and selection; they call this irreproducible complexity. However, the truth is the eye has been explained exactly in those terms, by many evolutionary thinkers.
The argument is tantamount to saying that skyscrapers are impossible to build because there is no crane large enough to construct one. In fact, the crane was part of the building as it was raised and finally was dismantled when no longer needed. In the evolutionary history of life, this happened again and again. We see the remnants of these "cranes" all over the place. The history of life is full of things being used and retooled, then lost. A whale's leg being turned into flippers, for example.
My next complaint about the Intelligent Design fiasco is its pretence to science. Exactly what makes it a science is not clear. It offers no testable hypotheses. It has established no research program. The theory of evolution has offered testable hypotheses that have been confirmed again and again. The theory of evolution says that we should find certain things in the fossil record, the genetic code of our genes, the distribution of plants and animals on the earth. We find those things.
Do not be detracted by supposed missing transitional forms. Fossilization is a rare process and we expect to find few transitional forms. But consider the recent lovely fossils coming out of China detailing the evolution of flight in birds from bird-like reptiles.
My last complaint about Intelligent Design is that it sets religion and science against each other. It puts forward a false dichotomy in students' minds that suggests that evolution and faith are incompatible. It makes people of religious faith suspicious of science. When students genuinely think that science and religion are incompatible, one of two things typically happens. They embrace science and, since it is incompatible to religion, religion is abandoned. The other is that they maintain their faith but remain inappropriately suspicious of science and dismiss its methods and findings, inclining themselves to superstition and pseudoscience.
I have to wonder if the reason science education in the U.S. is falling behind that of other countries is because misinformed people of faith have been dissing science to the point that many students are choosing other paths.
Faith and science need not be enemies. I embrace both fully and without reservation. My religious convictions are part of who I am. My science and faith reciprocate and inform one another. They are part of the way I understand my place in the universe.
Intelligent Design does nothing to promote the search for understanding and cooperation between these two vital ways of knowing. It is a darkening of the mind on every level, both religiously and scientifically. Please do not let it be taught to my children as a science. It is bad for both religion and science.
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* STEVEN L. PECK is an associate professor in the Department of Biology at Brigham Young University. E-mail: steven peck@byu.edu
Faith and science need not be enemies. I embrace both fully and without reservation. My religious convictions are part of who I am. My science and faith reciprocate and inform one another. They are part of the way I understand my place in the universe. Intelligent Design does nothing to promote the search for understanding and cooperation between these two vital ways of knowing.