Intelligent Design In Public Schools

Public Schools:

Why they should stick to the facts

Since the day immigrants landed on the shores of this Nation it has been a high priority of the government to ensure that all citizens have the opportunity to receive a equal and proper education. The Public school system is an opportunity for children of all social and economic backgrounds to obtain a standard education in this country. For the most part, if a student is willing to put in hard work and good effort, they are provided with the potential to take their education to the next level and then onwards to a fulfilling career. In order for the system to be as effective as possible, a consistent standard must be implemented around the country. The theory of evolution and creationism has become a sensitive issue as of late and many feel changes need to be made in how it is taught in public schools.

There is so much we have yet to discover about our evolution and the evolution of the universe and until we learn more it is important to teach children facts that have concrete proof as opposed to ideas and theories which are more religiously based. Also, since our country is founded on diversity, different people/students have different viewpoints on many subject matters, including creationism or design. For these reasons, I believe intelligent design should not be taught in public schools. If a child or parent is curious about the subject, they should seek outside instruction and allow for public schools to teach factual curriculum in order to maintain a level of consistency.

From the dawn of time, we as humans have been attempting to explain and identify events and phenomena which we have experienced. Many of these events such as the creation of the Earth and its different species have been virtually unexplainable due to a lack of knowledge and information. As a result, humans, from confusion and curiosity, developed theories and ideas attempting to explain what could not originally be explained. Distinct groups of people would soon come to collective conclusions on certain matters and as a result religions have formed.

Religious values are extremely important in society as they provide us with proper morals and respect for one another, regardless of what religion way may choose to follow. Religion is a subject that should be taught to a child by a parent in the household, it is not something that should be learned in a public school setting. A parent has the option of sending their child to a religious school if they really want someone else to teach religion to their child. Teaching a child religion is equivalent to teaching a child to be kind to others, to respect their elders, to chew with their mouth closed, and so on. These aren't topics one would expect a schoolteacher to instruct a child on, these are topics parents teach their children. I am a strong advocate of religion. I believe it teaches a child many important principles and values that he or she can carry with them throughout the course of their lives.

I agree with many aspects of intelligent design. I am a firm believer in the existence of God or an equivalent force or being with infinitely more power and knowledge than a human being. Michael Behe, a proponent of intelligent design provided an interesting synopsis of what this idea is about, "Ð'...a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning (Behe, Molecular Machines: Experimental support for the Design Inference)."

This is apparently the design principle of the intelligent design theory. This is the system which the designer creates and all of the components must be working uniformly. This is a very accurate example of how designers and engineers create a working, functioning product. The intelligent design argument however is that nature could not have created such an intricate, complex system. Critics counter-argue this point, however regardless of who is right or wrong the argument containing the most evidence to this data is that of natural selection and evolution. There may very well be something or someone creating species and other systems however the idea is too vague at this point in time and therefore can not be taken as fact and therefore should not be taught to children in public schools.

Human knowledge has been evolving at a phenomenal rate throughout the course of history. Ideas and theories have arisen, some true and some false. Early on, some false ideas were accepted as true and those who opposed them were brutally punished. "Friar Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 for suggesting that the earth traveled around the sun, rather than the other way around. The same belief, published by Galileo, led to his conviction and arrest in 1631." (Linder)

The Church was originally so convinced that their theories were true they would not even listen to any opposing view points. As time has passed, people have recognized there faults and errors and this has allowed for us to continue to become more knowledgeable as a species. Even now, there is a lot more to learn however we must accept what we know now as true and educate children this certain knowledge. In order for society to move onwards (become more knowledgeable), we must accept what we know now as fact and then apply these facts to discover more information about our World. We are now privileged to have scientists and great minds who have evidence to support scientific theories and this evidence supports facts and because of this we can teach children of these facts and how they were developed and proven.

Intelligent design has not yet been distinctly proven and so should not yet be taught to students. We need to stick to factual evidence in order for students to gain the basic understanding they need to become even more intelligent than their predecessors. Teaching a subject that is vague and still not understood creates confusion and doesn't promote our advancement as a society. Young children are not yet able to take in information, analyze it, and interpret is as their own and because of this, we must stick to curriculum based on reason and rationale alone.

Rene Descartes was a highly regarded philosopher who "Ð'...stands not only as the father of modern philosophy, but also as the original archetype of the modern rationalist (Soccio, 264). Intelligent design is a direct contradiction of the coherence theory of truth, a truth test in which new or unclear ideas are evaluated in term of rational or logical consistency and in relation to already established truths. It is a disorganized though that does not