ID Promises To Open Up New Avenues of Scientific Research

ID has scientific merit because it promises to open up new avenues of scientific research and to encourage academic freedom for minority, dissenting scientific viewpoints.

In our opening statements, my co-participants and I have argued that intelligent design (ID) is a relatively new scientific theory that holds scientific, legal, and educational merit.  

While ID may be a minority scientific view, there is no doubt that its proponents have made their case to the scientific community in mainstream scientific venues and that their views deserve the protection of academic freedom: Not only do ID proponents hold tenured positions at respected universities, but they have published their views in respected scientific venues.  If one scrutinizes many of the footnotes I have cited in my six opening statements, they will find some examples of the peer-reviewed and / or prestigiously published pro-ID scientific works come from sources such as Cambridge University Press, MIT Press, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Michigan State University Press, Protein Science, Rivista di Biologia / Biology Forum, and Journal of Molecular Biology.  As 85 scientists supporting academic freedom for ID wrote in their Kitzmiller amicus brief:

“Intelligent design, while admittedly a minority view, is currently being vigorously debated by scientists.  For example, Cambridge University Press recently published a volume entitled ‘Debating Design,’ in which scientists on both sides of the issue stated their respective cases.  Whether or not intelligent design is ultimately widely accepted as the most persuasive explanation for particular scientific phenomena, design theorists have formulated their theory based upon a scientific evaluation of the empirical evidence.  The current formulation of intelligent design theory by its proponents, and its application to recent scientific discoveries, is still in its youth compared to many other scientific theories.  For that very reason it is premature to conclude that one side has triumphed and the other has lost.  Simply because one group of scientists favors one interpretation, we must not relegate the other side to a category of ‘non-scientists’ who are ineligible to state their case.”(1)

Indeed, despite its youth ID promises to open up new avenues of scientific research in fields such as:

•    Biochemistry, where ID encourages scientists to recognize and understand the origin of complex and specified information in proteins and DNA;

•    Genetics, where ID encourages scientists to seek function for so-called “junk” DNA;

•    Systematics, where ID encourages scientists to understand whether similarities between living species, including examples of extreme genetic “convergence,” are best explained by intelligent design or unguided Darwinian causes;

•    Cell biology, where ID encourages scientists to view the cell as “designed structures rather than accidental by-products of neo-Darwinian evolution” (2)  which can allow them to better understand the workings of molecular machines;

•    Systems biology, where ID encourages biologists to look at various biological systems as integrated components of larger systems that are designed to work together in a top-down, coordinated fashion;

•    Animal biology, where ID encourage scientists to seek function for allegedly “vestigial” organs, structures, or systems;

•    Bioinformatics, where ID encourages scientists to look for new layers of information and functional language embedded in the genetic codes, as well as other codes within biology;

•    Information theory, where ID encourages scientists to understand where intelligent causes are superior to natural causes in producing certain types of information;

•    Paleontology, where ID encourages scientists to understand how the irreducibly complex nature of biological systems can predict punctuated change and stasis  throughout the history of life;

•    Physics and Cosmology, where ID encourages scientists to investigate and discover more instances of fine-tuning of the laws of physics and properties of our universe, that uniquely allow for the existence of advanced forms of life.

Despite the fact that ID holds strong promise in many scientific fields, like many dissenting minority scientific viewpoints, ID faces much political opposition in the academy. Those who support ID must be very careful because open support for ID can be highly damaging to a scientist’s career.  Some Darwinists in the scientific community are intolerant or outright hostile toward scientists who support ID.  This is not the fault of ID, of course.  It is the fault of those Darwinists who refuse to grant academic freedom to those who disagree with them.  

Science: A Wonderful but Unavoidably Human Enterprise
Before going any further, I must state that I am a huge fan of the power of science.  I have many fond memories of watching the sun rise from the laboratory where I did my masters thesis. There is absolutely no doubt that science has contributed immeasurably to the betterment of humankind.  Besides that, science is interesting, fun, and cool, and in my experience most scientists—regardless of whether I agree with them on the issue of evolution—are great people.  

While science is a wonderful thing, it is unavoidably a human enterprise.  Scientists may be great people, but they are still humans. And becoming a scientist does not change one’s human nature.  Those who live under the naivety that scientists are always objective, or are always granted the academic freedom to follow the evidence wherever it leads, should remember that not too long ago, the famous historian of science Thomas Kuhn explained that scientists are often intolerant of ideas that challenge the reigning paradigms:

“No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all. Nor do scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others.”(3)

As a new theory that challenges the reigning paradigm of neo-Darwinian evolution, ID faces this very type of intolerance in the academy.  A few examples will suffice.

Evidence of Intolerance Part 1: Press Releases Against IDeas
When scientific organizations issue press releases or bold proclamations against ideas, it’s clear that politics, rather than science, is driving their behavior.  This is in fact precisely how leading scientific organizations have responded to ID.  

In 2008, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued a statement declaring that ID “is not supported by scientific evidence” and “[t]here is no scientific controversy about the basic facts of evolution,” because evolution is “so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter” it.(4)   In 2002, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) adopted a resolution and issued a press release declaring that the "ID movement has failed to offer credible scientific evidence to support their claim."(5)    The resolution also “calls upon” AAAS members “to understand ... the inappropriateness of 'intelligent design theory' as subject matter for science education" and "encourages its affiliated societies to endorse this resolution."(6) 

Opponents of ID may quote these blanket statements as if they demonstrate that ID has been rejected by the scientific community.  Rather, what these statements actually document is the fact that much of the opposition to ID from the scientific community is not scientific in nature, but political, and is based upon fundamental misunderstandings and misrepresentations of ID.  After all, since when do leading scientific organizations issue press releases and edicts against an idea?  Indeed, Discovery Institute senior fellow John West found that AAAS “board members voted to brand intelligent design as unscientific without actually reading for themselves the academic books and articles by scientists proposing the theory.”(7) Similarly, the NAS’s statements against ID were based upon fundamental misrepresentations of the claims of ID.(8)

Additionally, consider the NAS's statement that ID “is not supported by scientific evidence” and “[t]here is no scientific controversy about the basic facts of evolution.”  Or consider the AAAS’s statement that its members should “understand the inappropriateness of ‘intelligent design theory.’”  Now imagine you are a biologist who supports ID and holds fundamental doubts about Darwinism, but you see the two most influential science organizations in the U.S. asserting that your views are not only wrong, but perhaps don’t even exist.  Does that make you feel you have the academic freedom to freely to express your views in the laboratory, the classroom, or in scientific journals?   I think not.

Evidence of Intolerance Part 2: Statements and Actions by Anti-ID Groups and Educators
If you still have doubts that there is intolerance towards ID in the academy, ask yourself the following question: Would pro-ID scientists, scholars, and students feel open and free to publicly support ID in classrooms, laboratories, and journal publications at the institutions where the following incidents took place?

•    At the University of Idaho, where the president instituted a campus-wide classroom speech-code, where “evolution” was “the only curriculum that is appropriate”(9)  for science classes and the head of the biochemistry department said “We’ve been careful to make sure people aren’t going into the classroom saying, you’ve gotta’ think about ‘intelligent design’”?(10)

•    At Cornell University, where the interim president devoted a state of the university address “to denounce ‘intelligent design,’ arguing that it has no place in science classrooms and calling on faculty members in a range of disciplines” to similarly attack ID?(11)

•    At the University of California at San Diego, where its website stated that “all first quarter freshmen” were “required to attend” a lecture at the campus’s sports arena given by an anti-ID activist titled, “Why the Judge Ruled Intelligent Design Creationism Out of Science”?(12)

•    At the University of Toronto, where an influential professor of biochemistry and leading textbook author publicly stated that students who support ID “should never have admitted” and a university should “just flunk the lot of them and make room for smart students”?(13)

•    At Southern Methodist University, where biology faculty taught a course attacking ID whose website stated, “You don't have to teach both sides of a debate if one side is a load of crap”?(14)

•    At Wesleyan College, where a Biology 101 faculty lecturer endorsed teaching students “inaccuracies” that are "wrong" if that enables educators to "gain their trust" and "help them accept evolution"?(15)

•    At James Madison University where a mathematics faculty member praised a university who denied tenure to a pro-ID scientist saying, "it is perfectly appropriate to deny tenure to someone you reasonably believe is going to devote much of his career to the professional advocacy of pseudoscience."(16)

•    At the Council of Europe, the leading European human rights organization, where it adopted a resolution calling ID “a threat to human rights”?(17)

•    At Iowa State University, where over 120 faculty members signed a petition denouncing ID and calling on “all faculty members to ... reject efforts to portray Intelligent Design as science”?(18)

•    At Ohio State University, where three top biology professors derailed a doctoral student’s thesis defense by writing a letter stating “there are no valid scientific data challenging macroevolution” and therefore the student’s teaching about problems with neo-Darwinism was “unethical” and “deliberate miseducation”? (19)

•    At the University of Minnesota Morris where a biologist who runs the most popular science blog on the internet (20) commented about a pro-ID biologist who lost her job saying “Heck yeah—[she] should have been fired,”(21)  and demanded “the public firing and humiliation of some teachers” who support ID?(22)

These are just a few of many examples that sadly show that forces within academia seek to hinder or harm the careers of scientists and students who publicly support ID or doubt neo-Darwinian evolution.  As someone who holds science in great regard, I feel that this trend is most unfortunate, because the real loser here is the prestige, authority, integrity, and influence of the scientific community.

Does ID Deserve this Intolerance?
As seen in some of the example above, Darwinists often attempt to justify their intolerance towards ID by arguing that ID proponents deserve the persecution they have received because ID is not science.  Not only does such a reply concede my point that ID faces intolerance, but it denies the very principles underlying academic freedom.   

Academic freedom does not just mean that you have the freedom to agree with the majority viewpoint. It also means that scientists who hold legitimate scientific views deserve to be heard even if their views differ from the consensus.  As noted earlier, ID proponents have made their case in respectable scientific venues, and ID opens up new lines of scientific research that should cause those interested in the progress of science to allow scientists to freely investigate and advocate ID.  Scientists who dispute ID’s claims have every right to do so.  But pro-ID scientists deserve to make their case to the scientific community, unhindered by biases and prejudices that stifle scientific advance.  

ID holds merit because the acceptance of ID will not only encourage new avenues of scientific research, but ID’s advance will help restore academic freedom to the scientific community for legitimate minority, dissenting scientific viewpoints.  As 85 scientists wrote to Judge Jones in an amicus brief during the Kitzmiller v. Dover case:

“The advance of scientific knowledge depends on uninhibited, robust investigation seeking the best explanation.  Over time, new evidence and new perspectives on existing evidence may require the modification of existing theories or even the abandonment of previously accepted theories that have lost their explanatory power.  The method of identifying intelligent causes is well established in many scientific fields.  … [T]he hypothesis of intelligent design can be an appropriate topic for discussion in a curriculum that addresses biological origins as well as for investigation in the laboratory.  Efforts to ban the scientific theory of intelligent design from the classroom, whether by a narrow definition of science or by a discriminatory attack on the personal motives of the scientists conducting scientific research into intelligent design, should be rejected by the Court.”(23)

While Judge Jones did not accept the advice of these 85 scientists, hopefully those who are concerned about recent offenses to academic freedom within the scientific community will pay heed to the contributions that ID can make in this arena.  Qualified scientists, educators, and students who openly doubt Darwin often face persecution.  Whether or not you agree with ID, everyone should support academic freedom for dissenting and minority scientific viewpoints like ID, because intellectual freedom is vital to the progress of science, a healthy democracy, and hopefully in the end, the betterment of humankind.