• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Pekker, AryehEng 110Paper 2October 10, 2009In his essay “One side can be wrong”, Richard Dawkins argues against intelligent designand the proposal of allowing the subject equal time to be taught in public schools by pointing outthe illogical premises from which his opponents draw their conclusions. I intend to reaffirmDawkins’ assertions by further diluting the arguments in favor of teaching intelligent design.The idea of teaching intelligent design or creationism as it is also known was largely acompromise offered by the religious right in response to the acceptance of evolution as a factrather than a theory by the public. The goal was that if evolution can’t be refuted, then at leastthere will be another idea challenging it on the premise of someone else’s beliefs. In no waydoes this actually make sense. I am not opposed to acknowledging the fact that there are ideasthat challenge evolution and that the people offering these challenges truly believe what they aresaying, but to give credence to these ideas and teach them in schools on the basis that someone believes them is preposterous! To paraphrase Dawkins, you wouldn’t teach the idea that theHolocaust never happened simply because someone believes that to be true would you? Theanswer should be obvious, and the question is the kind that should be asked more often when itcomes to things like teaching intelligent design in public schools.One cannot reasonably say that it is only fair to teach both sides of an issue when, asDawkins correctly states “One side is required to produce evidence, every step of the way” (p.72). In this case the sciences. While there is apparently a double standard when it comes tointelligent design since “There simply isn’t any Intelligent Design research to publish.” (p. 71).The proponents of intelligent design attempt to push this idea using the same logic theyuse to prove the existence of God and that is, that you cannot
disprove
God. Although it may betrue that no one can disprove God and that no one can fully assert that one’s beliefs are wrong,
 
one can and many already have indisputably disproved and declared null and void the idea of intelligent design. Richard Dawkins is just one of thousands of professors and scientistsspeaking out in the name of logic and reason.If it were to pass, and public school children would be taught both evolution andintelligent design in the name of “fairness” to both sides, how fair would that really be? First off,America is one of the most diverse nations in the world. We have people from all kinds of cultures with all kinds of beliefs. In other words, there are not only two sides. If we were toteach intelligent design as a way to accommodate a Judeo-Christian view of how the world began, isn’t it only
 fair 
to include other beliefs such as: Hinduism, Shintoism, Islam,Scientology, Taoism, or Rastafarianism. If the idea is to be fair to people’s beliefs and ideas, wewould be obligated to include every idea or belief that any person had. If I said that I believed inZeus and that he created the world by firing a large lightning bolt, by this logic, it would have to be taught in schools. Second, would including this in the curriculum be fair to the students?Students have enough on their hands as it is learning the proven view of the world’s conception.Why burden the minds of students simply because a certain group of people refuse to acceptsomething that is true.Dawkins makes another crucial point in his essay when responding to the claim that a bacterial flagellum “is too complex to have evolved by natural selection…” (p. 73). Thisargument is used, as Dawkins points out; to support intelligent design by default, in that if thereis one aspect of evolution that seems more implausible than other aspects, it automatically meansthat it is void and intelligent design must be correct. Again, there is no logic in such anargument. It’s as if a murderer was on a trial and was caught on camera killing dozens of peopleand the jury acquitted this person on the basis that they simply could not believe that one person
 
could kill so many other people, despite seeing it with their own eyes. Furthermore, this same jury used this argument to convict another person on the basis that they believe that person wasthe one who committed the murders. In this case the first person would be evolution, themurders would be the flagellum, and the second person would either intelligent design or God.So this jury has ruled out evolution being responsible for the development of a flagellum becausethey
believe
that only the second person could be capable of creating something as incredible andcomplex as a bacterial flagellum. The conclusion does not follow in any way, shape, or formfrom the premise. In other words, it is an invalid argument. Even if the facts were true, thestructure is wrong.Unfortunately, this fact clearly has not deterred those who are still supportive of theargument rather, they are even so arrogant as to want it treated with the same respect as any other scientific theory or practice. In spite of their beliefs, they would joyously risk underminingcenturies of intellectual study and patient research without consideration to the possible andlikely inevitable consequences. One may ask what sort of consequences will there be? Dawkinsdoes well to point out exactly what the consequences would be in the final paragraph of hisessay, and that is acceptance.Intelligent design and the people who want it taught in schools have no leg to stand on;they have no evidence to prove a single opinion that they deem assertions; they have nothing tooffer. They claim to win all their arguments simply by the fact that the opposition has failed to provide one specific piece of evidence, whom without which evolution would still be as factualand real as the first time it was proposed, only the number of facts would lessen. To giveintelligent design legitimacy in the classroom would give its advocates, and anyone else whodoubts facts, a level of respect we often don’t even give to some of the greatest minds of our day
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...