[Note: a first version of this posting disappeared from the site, for reasons I don't understand...This is my attempt to recreate it.]
Some readers have remarked on my recommendation of Michael Rea's book World Without Design, a stimulating critique of philosophical naturalism that suggests, ultimately, that ours may be a "world with design." At the same time, it is rather obvious that I am livid about the attempt to teach intelligent design in public school science classrooms.
Am I contradicting myself? No, and here's why:
(1) Of course, university researchers and students should be debating Intelligent Design, philosophical naturalism, the nature of evolution, and so on: that's what universities are for, and that's why one of my other obsessions is academic freedom. Rea's important book helps philosophers enter these debates. It's too bad, though probably revealing, that intelligent design theorists don't enter the scholarly fray with biologists in peer-refereed biology journals, or that when their scientific arguments (like those in Michael Behe's book) are refuted, they don't pursue a scientific defense in appropriate scientific fora. But no one ought to object to universities being sites of such debates, if the intelligent design proponents would enter them (again, it is revealing, I think, that they prefer to enter the fray with laypeople on boards of education and state legislatures, rather than with real scientists).
(2) The important academic freedom of university researchers and students to debate all manner of ideas has no bearing, however, on the question what should be taught in textbooks to be used by schoolchildren. There is an important issue here about division of epistemic labor. Textbooks, in all fields, ought to present the expert consensus in a way that is intelligible to those new to the subjects. Where there is expert divergence of opinion, textbooks should present that too. But what I object to is lying about the state of scientific opinion in order to inject religious views in to the science classrooms in the public schools. That is venal and reprehensible.
Who can say what the scientific consensus will be in 50 years? There is no evidence, of course, it will move in the direction of intelligent design, especially given the failure of the proponents of the latest version of creationism to engage in scientific debate. But today's textbooks ought to convey, clearly and unmistakably, that there are no serious scientific doubts about Darwin's theory of evolution. As David Hillis, a distinguished evolutionary biologist at the University of Texas, remarked during a press conference today:
"There is no debate about evolution in college textbooks, where scientists
select the best books for use. The debate is at the level of secondary school textbooks, precisely because that is where non-scientists can exert influence. These objections to the textbooks are not about science or facts; they are about pushing a political and religious agenda."
Let the intelligent design theorists prevail, or even make an inroad, in the marketplace of ideas among scholars and researchers, the marketplace that academic freedom makes possible. Until then, they ought to stay out of the highschool classroom, and save it for Sunday School.
