[Part 5 in a multi-part series on Science & Religion from an LDS perspective.  Previous entries in the series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4]

Imagine a university with both math and literature classes.  (Okay, maybe that's not that hard to 'imagine'…)

Let’s suppose the literature professors create a syllabus for a literature class emphasizing a study of “Hamlet”, which the professors term “Shakespeare’s greatest play”. 

Suddenly, the math professors object, and--asserting their authority--make a requirement that before that literature class can be taught, the literature professors must first prove mathematically that Hamlet is, in fact, “Shakespeare’s greatest play”.  (Can’t just make assertions without proof, you know...)

Now this may seem absurd, since math and literature are in completely different spheres of human knowledge and how would one go about ‘proving’ Hamlet’s superiority through math, anyway?

Let’s suppose, though, that the literature professors accept this challenge, study up a little on math, and make the attempt.

There are two primary problems here:

(1)    They are bound to fail, since they are fighting on their opponent’s home turf, as it were—attempting to win a challenge in a venue that they have very limited experience in.  If the math professors don’t have proof of Hamlet’s value using math, how can the literature professors hope to?

(2)    By even accepting the challenge in the first place, they are lending credence to the absurd assumption that mathematics is, in fact, the proper way to assess the quality of literature to begin with.  By using math to defend literature, they are implicitly accepting the math professors’ assertion that math is the proper way to judge literature (or anything for that matter).  By conceding this assumption, a subsequent failure will likely be viewed as a repudiation of their initial assertion, not that the task was fundamentally impossible (and completely unsuitable) to begin with.

One of the recent developments in the science vs. religion debates is the introduction of Intelligent Design (ID) as an ‘alternate theory’ aimed at being taught alongside (if not outright in lieu of) evolution.

First of all, we should note that it is possible to believe that the universe had an intelligent designer, without actually supporting the educational and scientific paradigm of Intelligent Design.  I would submit, in fact, that ID is fundamentally flawed and doesn’t really deserve support, even from religious believers.

Let’s start by assuming for the moment that God does exist and that He did create the world.  That leaves us with two possibilities:

(1)    God works within science and natural processes (as theorized earlier in this series), in which case there would be no chance of “proof” of ID, since all the scientific evidence supporting an intelligent designer is already included in current science.  In this case, ID is redundant.

(2)    God works outside of science and natural processes, in which case there certainly wouldn’t be *scientific* proof of ID because…it’s outside of science, by definition.  In this case, ID is useless.

Either way, the assumption that ID could be considered as an ‘alternate theory’ in regards to evolution from a scientific perspective has some huge problems—the equivalent of those literature professors attempting to explain Shakespeare with math.  If there are mathematical elements to Shakespeare (iambic pentameter, for example), they are already a part of “math” and the lit profs have nothing additional to add beyond what the math professors already have.  If the elements of Shakespeare’s value lie outside of math…then obviously trying to use math to explain them is going to fail by definition, and they would be foolish to make the attempt.

Attempting to define a scientific (-ish) field of study to find evidence of higher intelligence seems doomed to fail in the same way.  The basic assumption seems to be, once again, that *IF* the universe had an intelligent designer, it would have been created differently than what science has already discovered.  Basically, evolution (and science in general) must be wrong in order for ID to be correct.

But, even assuming this is the case, how can you then use science to prove ID to be correct, when you’ve started the whole process by discrediting the ability of science to discover accurate truths about the universe in the first place?  Surely we can’t assume that the supporters of ID are such brilliant scientists (and all others hopelessly incompetent) that they can produce scientific evidence that’s completely different than what has already been discovered.

(A fundamental problem here is that you just can’t prove something had a designer.  A piece of art may LOOK like random blotches of color, as if paint had just randomly splattered onto the canvas without an artist’s guidance…but what if that’s exactly how the artist wanted it to look?  How can you prove otherwise?)

What ID ends up being, in lieu of actual progressive ideas, is a set of “anti-“ arguments.  ID proponents point out holes and questions in existing evolutionary theory, with the assertion that science’s inability to connect the dots through existing knowledge and currently understood random processes inherently implies having an Intelligent Designer.  A “God-in-the-Gaps” idea, essentially—where ‘proof’ of God consists of the lack of proof of “No God”.

This is correct in the sense that evolutionary theory is incomplete (and has many, many holes and gaps in painting a complete picture of the origin of man), but by definition an “anti-“ argument is inherently weak as it has nothing positive to be “pro-“ about.  ID is stuck pointing out flaws and asking questions about science’s progress, but has nothing positive to produce to support its own cause…and has nowhere to go if one day science does, in fact, make new discoveries that fill in those gaps.  (If we take the view that God works within science, this is not only possible, but inevitable...)

(This is directly comparable to “anti-“ LDS Church arguments, which ask questions and try to poke holes in existing explanations, but can produce no alternate theories that pass the laugh test to explain what evidence we DO have.  As with ID, arguments that “there’s no proof of X as it says in the Book of Mormon” have the same susceptibility to new discoveries which confirm X...and make the questioner look foolish.)

There’s nothing wrong with asking questions, or noting missing links—especially since science tends to overstate its own knowledge about the whole of human development anyway—but ID can’t possibly be considered as any kind of alternative field of science with nothing more than questions about the other side's factual foundation, without producing a factual foundation of their own.

ID appears to be a reflection of the fear and nervousness that many in the religious community feel towards the progress of science.  Science does not inherently repudiate religion, although certainly many on both sides of the debate may feel it does.  The real debate is not over scientific discoveries, but about conclusions.  Religion does not like that many (on both sides) look at current scientific research and conclude (whether rationally or not) that such research is incompatible with religion.

ID, though, is an over-reaction—attempting to ‘fight back’ against science through science rather than having confidence that their own side is ultimately compatible with whatever conclusions science comes up with, and letting things happen as they may.  By fighting on the other side's "home turf", religion (ironically) weakens their own position through ID, by essentially admitting that science is the only proper way to answer religious questions.

Attempting to prove religion through science becomes a tacit admission that failure to explain religion through science is a weakness of religion, rather than potentially being a fundamental limitation of science, instead.  (Certain things that are true about the universe may just be unanalyzable, unprovable, and ultimately incomprehensible to the human intellect)  By moving the burden of scientific proof off of science onto religion--which is almost certain to fail--the attempt to conform to science's expectations for religion through ID I believe will ultimately prove to be a backwards step for religion instead of forwards.

Next: The art of 'reconciliation'