Bush Advocates Teaching Intelligent Design in Public Schools

Though he still asserts that curriculum decisions should be made by local school districts (within the constraints placed upon them by the No Child Left Behind Act), the President yesterday advocated teaching intelligent design theory as an alternative to the theory of evolution.


I am a Christian who has no problem with the theory of evolution. Evolution is an ongoing creation process, and I believe in a living God who continues to create. And I don't have a problem with intelligent design. I do, however, feel that this philosophical viewpoint should not be taught as science.

For one, intelligent design theory isn't entirely scientific. While the idea of irreducible complexity is intriguing, it and intelligent design in general rely heavily on gaps in evolutionary theory as evidence for a greater intelligence. In essence, intelligent design theorists fill in scientific holes with God. Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett in Evolution From Creation to New Creation point out the theological flaw in this reasoning:

The problem with this position is that by placing God within the gaps of our knowledge we run the risk that when science advances such that a natural explanation is found, the place of God disappears. . . . This confuses primary cause (divine action) and secondary causes (the law-like behavior of the universe).

I affirm the idea that a greater intelligence works through the laws of nature but don't think that one's belief in a divine creator should be reduced to science or taught in public-school science classes. Rather, churches should point to the natural world and the vast universe as products of God's magnificent creativity.