Two school boards in the US have made further challenges against the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution in science classes by offering Intelligent Design as an alternative. Their complaint is that the theory of evolution is not fact. My counter-claim is that Intelligent Design is not science, and has no place in the science classroom. This regulation is akin to mandating that the theory of evolution is given its due observance during religious services in churches, mosques, and temples. No theory should see the light of day in a science classroom unless it has undergone the rigorous tests of the scientific method and been subjected to, and survived, the scrutiny of the science community.
I realise that Intelligent Design is distinct from Creationism. But the fact of the matter is that Creationists lobbied for this regulation, not scientists. If Intelligent Design was a worthy scientific theory, then it would already be taught in schools across the globe. Intelligent Design is not science because its central hypothesis (that the world around us, and especially the cells that form the basis of life, are too intricate and "clever" to have evolved through selective processes) relies on a leap with no scientific basis. In any case, such an argument only shifts the grand question to who/what is/are the intelligent designer(s), and who/what intelligently designed him/her/it/them, and so on and so forth?
Darwin’s well-known hypothesis requires no such leap. It is based on empirical evidence of the links between both living and extinct species, and more recently on real-time observation of the changes in certain kinds of species (fruit flies, for example).
That’s my two cents’ worth.
