The ID Report

The GEE-ology of Biology Education in America
© 2006 by Kevin Wirth
Updated 02/25/06
Word count: 4325

It’s come to this: Extortion is now the acceptable tactic for determining what our kids get taught. Think I’m exaggerating?

Then consider this: In recent years, Intelligent Design (ID) has come into the forefront of the culture war in American education as an alternative explanation for how life came to be on our planet. In the battle over how to best present the origins issue in American public schools, there seems to be a ‘missing link’ in the way the state understands how this is supposed to work. I call this missing link the “Gee” factor, because there’s just a lot stuff that seems pretty obvious to parents, but doesn’t seem to be connecting in the neurons of our brilliant court judges. The whole concept of thuggery on the part of those who oppose the notion of ID seems to conveniently escape their notice.

The way education should work is, we hire the state to use their expertise and come up with standards, and they advise and facilitate the education process for our kids with the best available curriculum they can muster. Meanwhile, the state must answer to the people (esp. taxpaying parents) for what it produces. And, if the state, in its infinite wisdom, determines that some topics should be presented in a manner that a significant number of parents object to – regardless of what the state thinks about it - then the state needs to figure out an effective way to deal with it for all concerned instead of telling one group of parents their views cannot be accommodated simply because they are out of sync with the majority.

It’s come to the point where our educators are afraid of permitting a presentation of an intelligent agent at work in the natural world because they have been bullied and threatened with an ACLU-instant, budget-breaking lawsuit, and so they feel that the best policy is to duck and run.

I don’t call that just crass intimidation – but felony extortion in my view. It’s like telling your local school district “You don’t teach ID and we won’t sue you to the point where you can’t afford to buy textbooks for the next 10 years”. Thugs do that. Not people who respect the individual right of people to make up their own minds.

I mean, come on – our education curriculum includes perspectives from a HUGE variety of minority perspectives. Yet somehow – the perspective that life on this planet might be the result of some (undefined) intelligent agent is just too far afield to be included because, we are conveniently told, it’s a “religious” view. Even if it has no specific object of veneration or worship, we are told that to include ID in our science curriculums would be ‘unconstitutional’.

BA-loney! Don’t you believe it. Not for one second. That’s what the ideological opponents of ID would like us all to think – but it simply isn’t accurate.

First of all, it’s not unconstitutional if it doesn’t advocate a religious belief system (which ID doesn’t). Opponents of ID make this wild-eyed and erroneous claim of “it’s religious!” because they think it’s the only way they can keep ID out of our schools. If ID ever becomes acknowledged as good science, then it’s all over (and they know it).

If solid empirical evidence for Darwin’s claim is so lacking, thoughtful students can hardly fail to pose to themselves the question, what makes the theory of evolution so successful an idea? In answer to this perplexing question, one might assert that the phenomenon of acceptance … is propelled to some degree by a deep-seated urge to formulate a non-religious model to explain the appearance of all living things through natural laws. With the establishment of a natural law model such as Darwinism, it is invariably true that only ideas or theories based on natural principles will be accepted. (emphasis added)

Secondly, the ID perspective actually advocates for better science, not religion. It’s a sad fact that the ideological opponents of ID have mis-characterized the issue as a ‘religious’ one when the architects of ID do not promote ANY religious doctrine in their approach. Even sadder, however, is the seeming inability of the ID camp to overcome this handicap with an effective and compelling message. They currently suffer from being mistaken as ‘creationism in a tuxedo’.

Meanwhile, isn’t it interesting that while our education system is becoming more and more I.D. averse, it consistently cranks out a science curriculum that includes the following message: “Although the universe LOOKS like it was designed, no intelligent agent was needed for the assimilation of life because life evolved by purely chance processes”. It seems if you mention the possibility of an intelligent agent at work it’s somehow impermissible and unconstitutional, yet, if we teach our kids that no such intelligence is necessary, that’s OK. So, mentioning an intelligent agent is actually just fine, as long as it’s the opinion that such an agent isn’t necessary.

Excuse me? Does anyone detect the insanity in this approach?

Many educators and science professionals are absolutely gob-smacked that the number of Americans who believe that a Creator was responsible for life on Earth hasn’t changed at all, technically speaking, in recent decades. How is that possible, after all that hard work to make sure our kids get ‘properly educated’ in the biological sciences?

See, in a Democracy we all understand the need for our kids to get educated in the basics – like reading, writing, and how to use a calculator. And we all understand the difficulties the state has in trying to be all things to all people. But having said that, the state does not have the right to infringe on the values parents seek to impart to their kids – that job belongs to parents. And to suggest, as many opponents to ID do, that evolution does not impart any value judgments, is a bald farce.

(to read the rest of this report, please download the full pdf version here)