Lots of people have weighed in on the intelligent design issue, but I feel like I want to as well. I would recommend to anyone looking into the issue that they go to
www.slate.com and read articles by Dahlia Lithwick and William Saletan on the topic. They say it more eloquently than I can. Still, here it is.
I am critical of "intelligent" design theory because it is not science, but it attempts to replace science in the secular school classroom. I believe in G-d, I believe G-d created the universe and I believe that there are some things that natural science cannot explain. I also believe that the more science discovers, the more that the complexity of the world might be evidence of the creator.
However, that's not what intelligent design is or says. It says, that there are things that are so complex that science cannot explain them, and then says that G-d fills in the gaps. Now, while this may be comforting to people, it is NOT science. In fact, it is the opposite of science. Science looks at things that we don't understand and tries to figure them out. Intelligent design, or
Creationism, looks at things we don't understand and says "oh well, that's G-d".
Can you imagine if scientists 100 years ago had adopted that attitude? If Einstein, instead of trying to wrestle with the complexities of the physical universe and mathematics, instead just forgot about pursuing his theories? How many scientific innovations might not exist today? No cures for diseases, since those people would look at terrible things going on that they didn't understand and say "oh well, that's G-d, we can't do anything about it". There would be no technology, no modern medicine.
There is a proper place for people to wrestle with questions of faith and address the biblical creation story - that is with their families and at religious school. That's what it's there for.Also, you said that science is just as much based on faith as religion is. That's not really true. While evolution is just a "theory", so is gravity. It is however, a scientific theory which means that there actually has been actual scientific testing and empirical review. Evolution, along with other peer-reviewed scientific theories, can be tested. You look at various genetic mutations over time, along with historical and fossil records. How, exactly do you test the theory of intelligent design? You can't, because it's not even a real theory. How can you test a religious belief? You can't, there's no way. That is why they call them "faiths", because they rely on a belief in things unseen and unknowable. I'm not anti-religion, after all I am a practicing and believing Jew, and I was a religion minor in college. I love the study of religion, I love the intricacy and beauty of people's faiths, but it is not the same as science. Trying to bring the two together is a recipe for trouble.
Scientists don't want to take away your right to believe in the Bible, and neither do I. Many scientists are people of faith, and they know that there are things they don't understand. In fact, a researcher I once heard about said that the more he learned about the structure of cells the more he believed in a divine creator. This is a little different than intelligent design though, because all that does is critique the theory of evolution and act as a Trojan horse for creationism in the schools. It has no research, no data to back it up. All it has is faith, which means that the proper place for discussion of intelligent design is in the cultural and political arena, not in the science classroom. When they can actually produce scientific data that supports their non-theory, then I say that they can be in the science classroom.
Also, American students are really stupid. They lag far behind other countries (like for example, South Korea, where incredible scientific advances are being made in biology). The last thing that dumb American kids need is to have their minds clouded even further by something that isn't science. How can we expect to continue to compete on the global stage if this is the stuff we're teaching our kids?
Besides, I don't believe that the creation story is not meant to be taken literally. It is difficult to believe that the world was created 5766 years ago. In general terms, the recounting of the creation story does parallel the historical development of the universe, and because it does that, it is all the more impressive. First there was a black void, and then there was light, and then there were the seas and then there was land, and then there were little animals, and then there were bigger animals, and then there was man. That, as far as I know, is a pretty accurate description of the creation of the universe. I personally take the usage of the word "day" to mean "age" or "period of time".
The only issue is that with carbon dating, and with the red shifting of stars, we know that our planet and the universe are billions of years old. Think about when we see something like another galaxy millions of light years away. To say that the world is only as old as the bible says, you have to be willing to throw out the notion of the speed of light, and the extension of that being that we are seeing where objects were millions of years ago. That's a whole lot of provable science you have to be willing to throw out the window.
Also, another problem I have with the methods of intelligent design is that they don't have any actual ideas of their own, but all they do is critique other people's theories. In a way, they are a lot like Holocaust deniers. The main technique Holocaust deniers use is to point to some kind of disagreement between scholars. For example, someone might say that 200,000 people died at a certain camp, others might say it was 300,000. A Holocaust denier will point to that controversy and say "see, they don't agree, therefore no one died at that camp". In the same way, so-called intelligent design scholars will point to some minor debate at the margins of scientific scholarship and say "see, they don’t agree, therefore the whole thing falls apart". I reject the idea that this is legitimate scholarship. Besides, 95% of scientists agree on 95% of the stuff, so any debates are at the margins.
To conclude, I think that both faith and science have their place in the world. They are different ways of understanding the universe. Sometimes, though, it is best of they are left to their separate spheres. After all, you wouldn't want math and science being taught at Hebrew school, would you? That would make kids even less likely to want to go to Hebrew school. I had plenty of excuses when I didn't want to go.
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