Intelligent Design Has No Place in a Science Course

I read the intelligent-design debate (Commentary, Feb. 13) with great interest.

I am a scientist actively engaged in geological research. I am also a professor at Old Dominion University, where I teach courses that include evolutionary theory. And I am a member of a local church. So I feel qualified to respond.

I do not consider intelligent design a scientific concept nor do any of the scientists whom I have met during my 41-year career.

The response of the Rev. Barry Lynn to the lawyer who wished to equate intelligent design with science was clear, concise and appropriate, and I have only one point to add.

Intelligent design is rejected by scientists because it violates the first rule of science: For an idea to be acceptable, it must be testable.

To argue for a supernatural cause for a natural phenomenon is to immediately render the cause untestable and the argument unscientific. That doesnt mean that the argument is invalid. It means that it concerns a kind of knowledge that cannot be obtained by scientific methods.

On the other hand, the theory of evolution is testable. When Darwin presented his hypothesis of evolution, he was careful to provide it with a series of backward tests examples of the kinds of observations that the theory could explain.

More excitingly, the theory could be used to make forward tests, a series of specific predictions. In the 149 years since publication of The Origin of Species, these predictions have been tested again and again and again, and in each case the tests have upheld Darwins explanation. (See the November 04 issue of National Geographic.)

Because Darwins idea has survived these repeated tests, it is no longer a hypothesis. It is now an accepted theory, in a class with Newtons theory of gravity or Einsteins theory of relativity.

Intelligent design has no place in a science course. I agree with Jay Sekulow on one point, however. Intelligent design should appear in the schools. It should appear wherever courses in comparative religion are taught.

Donald Swift

Norfolk