Facts and faith bad fit for class

EDUCATION

Facts and faith bad fit for class

By Dan Gelber

October 3, 2005

The national debate over whether "intelligent design" should be taught in our public schools is fast approaching our state. Florida will soon need to review its science standards in order to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind Act, and that will undoubtedly embolden those who are pushing the idea that the scientific theory of evolution should be taught alongside concepts of "intelligent design."

While our governor has, so far, remained silent on this topic, it is pretty evident where this administration is headed. Just last year, the chair of the Legislature's Education Council introduced a measure that would have given intelligent design a place in Florida's higher education curriculum. And the recently appointed Florida public school chancellor, Cheri Yecke, was accused by colleagues in her last job of trying to get intelligent design recognized in the Minnesota school curriculum.

Though President Bush recently gave intelligent design public support, stating that "both sides ought to be properly taught" in our public schools, it would be a great mistake to give intelligent design -- or any other faux science -- a home in Florida's science classes.

One of the problems with teaching intelligent design as the "other side" of Darwin's scientific theory is that it is not an opposing scientific theory. It is religion posing as science. While the theory of evolution argues that man and other species evolve through the process of natural selection, intelligent design is an assertion that living things are simply so complex that they are best explained as the act of some intelligent designer.

Unlike Darwin's evolutionary theory -- which was published over 150 years ago and has been examined and scrutinized by countless scientists and academicians -- proponents of intelligent design do not subject their claims to peer-reviewed publications. Unlike Darwin's theories, which are subject to experiments and studies, intelligent design cannot be tested in a laboratory. Even the president's own science adviser has said there "is simply no debate," that intelligent design is "not a science."

Intelligent design is not a science that can be tested because it is ultimately premised on something that cannot be proven scientifically: faith. This is why it is so dangerous -- to both religion and science -- to teach them side by side. Imagine the problems that would occur when our public schools foster debates in science classes about what part a higher deity had in designing life. While knowledge of scientific theories can be tested, how would a teacher grade a student's support of creationism based solely on faith?

If you have to teach creationism because it has been dressed up in a pretend scientific theory, what about those creation theories that forgo involvement of a deity and credit man's creation to intelligent designers from another galaxy? Imagine how parents would react when they hear their child learned from the science teacher that aliens created the Earth and everything on it, without any scientific evidence?

As a parent of public school children, I prefer to have my children learn about faith and religion in our home and synagogue, not in our public schools -- and definitely not from the government. Both our national and state constitutions have an Establishment Clause that commands a division of church from state. This line of separation has served us well and should remain inviolate.

In fact, it is people of faith who should be most concerned about efforts to force religious beliefs to be debated in a secular context without parental involvement and where they could be inaccurately portrayed.

It doesn't matter whether you subscribe to Darwin's scientific theories that mankind evolved over time or arrived in precisely the manner described in Genesis: Adam and Eve's week-long creation. Florida should resist efforts to include "intelligent design" in public school science classes. Mixing together faith and science can only harm both.

Dan Gelber, D- Miami Beach, is the incoming Democratic leader of the Florida House.