Commentary: It's Science Because I Said So!

Ever since the Kansas Board of Education began considering proposals to include the teaching of Intelligent Design (hereafter ID) in the Science Curriculum, the debate about whether Intelligent Design is even science has gone on, mostly unnoticed by the media. In light of all of this, Philip Johnson, author of the book Darwin on Trial is coming to Topeka in three weeks. The responses from the pro-evolution camp so far have been typical and hardly surprising.

Argument number one centers on whether debate is valid. "Evolutionary theory is science, and you don't debate science," these people argue, "because science is the observation of facts and therefore not open to debate."
The problem with this statement is the idea that one does not debate science. Not only is it incorrect, it is absurd. While it is true that one does not debate about the existence of facts, one can -- and should -- debate the interpretation of these facts. Evolutionary theory is not a fact; it is is merely an interpretation of the facts. Not all of the facts we currently know support the evolutionary theory that Darwin proposed. There has been debate for years among the science community about how to handle these anomolies. The theory of evolution is constantly being revised, and this revision results from a constant debate within the scientific community. Thus, the argument that one does not debate science is false. The scientific community is always debating, and this is healthy. If the scientific community ever ceased to debate, then science would cease to grow.
A second common response to the suggestion of teaching ID is that ID is not science. The arguers then proceed to suggest several criteria that science has to meet. The problem with their criteria is that their criteria also exclude evolution from being scientific. Space prohibits a full discussion, but I recommend the book The Creation Hypothesis by JP Moreland for a full discussion of this. One example, however, of the common criteria used to dismiss ID is that ID does not make any verifiable predictions. Scientific theories, ID detractors argue, should make verifiable predictions. However, the problem with this criterion is that evolutionary theory also fails to make any verifiable predictions. No predictions made by evolutionary theory can be verified in the typical scientific manner. It is hard to run lab tests that last for the millions of years required by evolution.
So, if evolution does not meet the criteria of science held up by its proponents, why is it science? Because it is easier simply say, "Evolution is science because I said so," than to seriously consider that a theory that one has held for years might be wrong. Fear drives a demarcationist argument such as this.
Sadly, this debate does not appear to be going away any time soon. Evolution has become a part of the American worldview, and the mainstream media and scientific community have so accepted it as indisputible fact that nothing short of educating a new generation in potential alternatives will allow science in the area of origins to return to a healthy state.