Intelligent design: What it is, and isn’t

The concept of “intelligent design” is neither anti-evolution nor necessarily religious, agreed two professors during a lunchtime presentation at the Law Center.  And regardless, the subject is too important not to be examined in the nation’s classrooms.

“If you teach it intelligently, it will force the students to think,” said Prof. Arnold Loewy of Texas Tech University School of Law.  But what about parents who fear this new way of “thinking” could steer their offspring in new directions?  “The risk (of teaching this information) is worth it as long as we teach students to think because, frankly, I don’t think we do enough of it,” Loewy said.

The Federalist Society at the Law Center hosted the discussion between Loewy and Prof. David Crump of the Law Center.  Under a banner of “Intelligently Designing a Course on Intelligent Design,” the two professors focused less on debate and more on discussing common ground.

Crump defined intelligent design as the idea that “natural selection can’t explain everything” and that the “very complexity of life rules against evolution alone.”  Loewy opined that intelligent design doesn’t remotely conflict with evolution, and instead represents the antithesis of atheism.  In his view, teaching the topic does not prescribe a deity, but rather raises a debatable question that should be welcomed by all sides of the issue.

“It is irrelevant whether it is good science or bad science,” he said. “To deify science doesn’t make a whole lot of sense” given the track record that science has scored over the years. If people object to teaching the topic in science classes, Loewy said, then schools should teach it in literature or philosophy classes.
“The argument that it is not science falls flat with me,” Crump said, flatly.  He noted that if that argument is employed, then other disciplines should also be ruled out because their theories can’t be definitely proved or recreated either. “The nature of science is that it is never complete,” Crump said.

Prof. Seth Chandler, one of several Law Center professors among the largely student audience, commented that he would trust either of the two professors to teach his children about the origins and development of life.  Crump accepted the compliment, and offered advice for parents concerned about the risks of covering intelligent design in schools.  “Read the textbooks. There are too many reasons for teaching it, and it’s too bad it is being censored.”