Does Intelligent Design Have Merit?

• “No”

  

  “Public Schools Are Not Supposed To Promote Religion”

• “Objection”

  

  “Motives Don't Matter & Sauce for the Goose is Sauce for the Gander”
  

Public Schools Are Not Supposed To Promote Religion

Americans United

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Recommend (6) Comments (53)

Public schools are not supposed to be in the business of promoting religion. ID proponents have made a half-hearted effort to secularize ID, but at the end of the day, their true motivations always shine through. Phillip Johnson, the so-called "father of Intelligent Design," once told a religious audience that his goal is to use ID to instill doubt about evolution in people's minds and then introduce them to "the truth" of Jesus Christ. If convincing someone to adopt a new religion is your end goal, what you are doing is not science. It is proselytizing.

In light of this, public schools would do well to steer way clear of Intelligent Design. Any schools that seek to introduce it into the classroom are likely to end up like the board in Dover -- as international laughingstocks facing huge legal bills.

By the way, voters in Dover go so tired of the antics of the pro-ID faction on the board that they voted out every last one of them. Even in small-town America, it seems, the desire is for real science education in the classroom and religious instruction in church.

Next Argument

"No" AUSCS

• Intelligent Design Is Unconstitutional
  5
• Public Schools Are Not Supposed To Promote Religion
  6

"No" Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights

• It's Peddled as Science
  11
• Intelligent Design is in Fact Religiously Based
  15
• Intelligent Design is a Quest for the Supernatural
  13
• It's Bait and Switch
  11

"No" National Center for Science Education

• Intelligent Design is a Religiously Motivated Attack on Science
  10
• Scientists See No Scientific Merit in ID
  8
• ID is a Relabeling of Creationist Attacks on Science Education
  6
• Teaching ID in the Public Schools Infringes Constitutional Rights
  6
• Academic Freedom isn’t a License to Present Non-Science like ID
  9

"Yes" Discovery Institute

• ID Uses Scien. Method; Infers Design by Testing Positive Predictions
  7
• Intelligent Design Has Scientific Merit in Paleontology
  6
• Any Larger Implications Do Not Disqualify ID From Having Merit
  5
• ID Does Not Address Religious Claims About the Supernatural
  6
• ID is Constitutional and has Educational and Legal Merit
  6
• ID Promises To Open Up New Avenues of Scientific Research
  5

"Yes" Michael Behe

• Detecting Design is a Matter of Physical Evidence and Logic
  6
• Darwin's Mechanism Doesn't Produce Design
  4
• The Sophisticated Nanotechnology of the Cell Reeks of Design
  4

"Yes" Jay W Richards PhD

• Is Intelligent Design Science?
  5
• Is There Merit for ID in Cosmology, Physics, and Astronomy?
  5
• Isn’t ID Just a Sneaky Way to Get God into the Public Square?
  7

Most Objections

• Intelligent Design Is Unconstitutional
  5
• Public Schools Are Not Supposed To Promote Religion
  6
• Intelligent Design is in Fact Religiously Based
  15
• It's Peddled as Science
  11
• Intelligent Design is a Quest for the Supernatural
  13
• It's Bait and Switch
  11
• Intelligent Design is a Religiously Motivated Attack on Science
  10
• Scientists See No Scientific Merit in ID
  8
• ID is a Relabeling of Creationist Attacks on Science Education
  6
• Teaching ID in the Public Schools Infringes Constitutional Rights
  6
• Academic Freedom isn’t a License to Present Non-Science like ID
  9
• ID Uses Scien. Method; Infers Design by Testing Positive Predictions
  7
• ID Does Not Address Religious Claims About the Supernatural
  6

Intelligent Design?

• Yes
• No

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