Yesterday I received an e-mail forwarding a statement released by Aguadth Israel. It was in response to a court ordered restriction against teaching "Intelligent Design".
In part it stated:
“The judge determined that the "Intelligent Designer" behind "Intelligent Design" is G-d. In this respect, he is right. If our Constitution, however, is to be understood as forbidding any mention in public schools of even the possibility that the universe was brought into being by the Creator that should deeply trouble all Americans.
Rabbi David Zwiebel - Executive Vice President for Government and Public Affairs”
Well, it is indeed troubling. But Agudah’s concern is misplaced. The fact happens to be that the concept of intelligent design does not belong in a class about science. I agree with the court.
The problem of course is that the way evolution is taught in virtually all levels of education in this country. It is taught as supporting the notion of a universe absent of God. This is in effect anti-religion even if it isn't intended that way. Or... perhaps that IS the intention. In either case, it is just as contemptuous of the establishment clause of the constitution to advocate atheism as it is advocating God’s existence.
If I were the Agudah I would advocate a different approach. In a public school system science class of a secular society such as ours I would support teaching evolution in a way that states the theory as clearly and logically as possible without any mention of God but that would include the probability statistics of the randomness factor.
Why mention probability in teaching evolution? Because the component of evolution that speaks of natural selection also speaks of sudden ...random... mutations. Once you mention the word "random" you eliminate the necessity of an "Intelligent Designer" i.e. God. In a secular classroom it is OK to teach that the world evolved into its present state randomly. In the world of statistics, even one chance in a “Gazillion” means that... it’s possible! But the statistical improbability of such randomness is that randomness alone makes evolution a highly unlikely occurrence. Even given the age of the universe as 15 billion years old, the likelihood of it happening is infinitesimally small. Doing it this way leaves out any theological teaching; it leaves it to the student to draw his own conclusions. In a secular society a science teacher should neither make the claim of God's existence nor deny it. But in fairness if randomness is taught, than statistically probabilities should be taught as well.
If students then have questions about the origins of the species, i.e. whether it was created by an “Intelligent Designer” or happened by itself randomly, they would be told that this is a science class and not a religion class.
Teaching evolution this way enables us to determine to some degree in what fashion the world of the present came into being. Whether there was a guiding force behind it or not is not a matter for science to be able to determine so itis left out of the science classroom.
“Intelligent Design” is a euphemism for God. Bringing it into a classroom and calling it science is as dishonest as is teaching atheism.
