Morality and Intelligent Design
Argument from Ignorance
What should a teacher say to a student who, every time he comes to a question on a test he cannot answer, writes “God did it.”? Then, when he hands in the test, he expects — even demands — a perfect score and a pat on the head.
What should parents say to a teacher who, every time their child or some other student asks the teacher a question that the teacher cannot answer, the teacher makes no attempt to research the question? Instead, he simply says to the class, “God did it,” then goes to the principal and demands a promotion and a raise.
Now, imagine that the teacher is the one asking these questions of the students. The teacher hands out to his students these questions he has not researched, then says, “I do not know the answer to these questions; therefore, God exists?”
An Example
For example, a chemistry teacher offers tutorials to his students. At those tutorials, he hands out a set of problems for the students to solve. The questions center around an alleged scientific “proof” that there could not have been enough nitrogen in the sea for life to begin. Then, when the tutorial is over, the teacher goes on to explain, “God did it.”
This is an example of a teacher who hands out a piece of paper with a question on it he has not researched, who then tells his students, in effect, “I do not know the answer to this question. Therefore, God exists.”
The teacher’s “not enough nitrogen” argument assumes that all nitrogen is evenly distributed in an ocean that is exactly the same size as today’s oceans. Thus, the nitrogen is too diluted for life to begin.
However, if we look at the concentrations of salt in today’s water, we see several bodies of water with different levels of salt concentrations. We see mountain lakes with almost no salt, heavily salted oceans, and places like the Dead Sea and the Great Salt Lake with massive concentrations of salt. Differences in salt concentrations within the ocean itself are the cause of the Great Conveyer Belt that creates currents such as the Gulf Stream in the oceans.
Why assume that nitrogen concentrations 3.9 billion years ago behaved any different than salt concentrations today? Why assume they were evenly distributed? Why assume that the oceans of 3.9 billion years ago are exactly as big as today’s oceans?
The reason to assume these things is to generate a question — not a legitimate scientific question but a phony question — that the teacher cannot answer, and that the teacher falsely asserts others cannot answer either. The teacher does this to create an opportunity to say to his students, “I do not know the answer to this question. Therefore, God exists.”
The problem is that this teacher is supposed to be teaching science, and scientists do have answers to this question.
A teacher has a moral responsibility to teach his students. When a morally respectable teacher is asked a question he does not know the answer to, he first admits to his class, “I do not know”, then he goes through the effort to find out. He consults experts. With email and the Internet, it is far easier to find answers to questions than it has been at any time in the past, if one knows where and how to look -- as a teacher should. He then goes back to the student and says, “These are the best answers available at the moment.”
This is not just a polite suggestion for what a responsible teacher may do if he wants. This is an obligation that a person who has chosen to enter the teaching profession has volunteered to accept. This is what a morally responsible teacher must do.
The teacher in this example has abdicated his moral responsibility.
Wrongs
In this example, we know that such a teacher is giving his students wrong answers. This is his first wrong.
Every teacher has an obligation to subject the claims he makes to his students to some measure of professional scrutiny. He has an obligation to worry, “Is this right? Am I making sure that my students have the best understanding of the subject available?” A teacher who does not do this is not only a bad teacher, he is a morally contemptible teacher.
Second, he is giving his students misinformation for the purpose of creating an opportunity to seduce them into his religious beliefs. We must add this fact to the fact that his students are in a position where they look upon the teacher as somebody in a position of authority and trust. When we do, we see that this is a situation where a teacher is abusing his status as a person in a position of authority and trust for the purpose of gaining converts to his church.
Third, teachers do not only teach a particular set of facts. They are also role models of morality and character. In this, they teach by example, and they teach through the standards they apply to their own work.
The teacher in this example is saying to his students that a scholar of good moral character is one who does not pursue answers to tough questions.
Compare the message that this teacher is giving his students about how a scholar handles tough questions to the message given by a different sort of teacher. This different sort of teacher takes a question that the student raises and says, “I don’t know the answer to that question right now, but I’ll see what I find out. I will have it for you by the next class.”
That teacher then goes out and does some research. She calls the chemistry department at a local university, posts the question on reliable bulletin boards on the internet, and does some reading and researches herself. When the class next meets, she says, “It turns out that your question had some false assumptions. You assumed that there were no processes that could concentrate nitrogen into pools, and you assumed that ancient oceans were as large as the oceans today.” She can then go on and explain how this affects the answer to the question. In addition, she can explain what she did to find the answer - who she contacted and how, and provided citations for the answers she found.
This teacher’s students not only learned how to answer this question, they learned that they need to check their assumptions. They also learned a lesson about the character of good teachers, scientists, and citizens. First, that a person of good character says, “I do not know” when they do not know. Second, they learn that a person of good character then goes to the effort of researching questions that others expect them to be able to answer. Third, they learn how to do the research and to cite their sources.
Our first teacher, in contrast, is teaching his students, “Use whatever assumptions you like and assert them with authority even though you have not checked them. Never say, ‘I do not know’ but, instead, say ‘God did it.’ Do not do anything to discover the answers to questions you do not know. Make your assertions without citing sources, even when talking to people over whom you are in a position of authority and trust.”
Our first teacher is teaching his students not only bad science. He is also teaching them bad ethics, and is teaching them by example.
The Message
This essay does not apply to just one hypothetical teacher. It applies to all people who seek to promote intelligent design as a part of any science curriculum. Intelligent design, at its essence, teaches students, “Do not pursue the answer to tough questions. Instead, simply write, ‘God did it,’ and move on. Your answer will be treated as a right answer.”
The message that sits at the core of ‘intelligent design’ is this: “If you try to answer this question, you must begin with the atheist-materialist assumption. This assumption is that there is an answer to be found. There is no difference between trying to discover the answers to these questions and trying to prove that God does not exist. A person of faith must not try to answer these questions, because the very act of seeking and comparing different answers denies faith. Faith in God means having faith that ‘God did it’ is the right answer to these tough questions.”
Furthermore, those who advocate including intelligent design in science classes couple their anti-science assertions with the claim that scientists who do not accept ‘God did it’ as a right answer — who would dare mark it wrong — are anti-religious (or, more specifically, anti-Christian) bigots. These advocates assert that any science teacher who does not accept a proclamation of faith as a correct answer to a scientific question is guilty of a moral failing.
In short, they are seeking to create new standards of academic excellence for writers. They are trying to create a culture in which students reject what these advocates call ‘the (atheist) materialist assumption’ that there is an answer to be found, and replace it with a culture within which a model scientist says, ‘God did it’ and shelves the question.
Curiosity, a quest for knowledge, a willingness to look at a tough question and say, “I do not know the answer to that question — yet, but I am not going to rest until I find out” — these are character traits that the proponent of intelligent design condemns and which they want to see squelched.
They want to replace a culture where teachers tell students, “Be curious, Ask questions. Do research. Find your answers and back them up with the best evidence available.” with teachers who say, “Write ‘God did it’ and go on to the next question. If you eat from the tree of knowledge, you will surely die.”
They say that this is the foundation of morality.
Against this, I started this essay with a moral question. What should a teacher say to a student who, every time he comes to a question on a test he cannot answer, writes “God did it.”? Then, when he hands in the test, he expects — even demands— a perfect score and a pat on the head.
What should we say of the moral character of a teacher who makes up hard questions, pretends that no answer exists (because he has not researched them), and uses this as a pretext to seducing other peoples’ children into accepting his religion?
What type of morality are these people pushing, really?