Intelligent Design as High School Science

Well, far be it for me to criticize a really poor decision, but get this,

In a crucial test case, education officials in rural Pennsylvania have defended their decision to require students to learn about an alternative theory to evolution to explain the origin of life.

Lawyers for the Dover area school board argued yesterday that the decision to teach intelligent design - a theory condemned by a majority of scientists as little more than "creationism-lite" - was not an attempt to force a religious agenda but a desire for pupils to keep an open mind.

"This case is about free inquiry in education, not about a religious agenda," argued Patrick Gillen of the Thomas More Law Centre, a non-profit Christian law firm which is representing the board.

You know, I might accept that this isn't trying to force religion into schools. You can easily de-emphasize any direct link to any specific religion. But, this still isn't science. Calling ID and alternative theory to evolutionary theory is preposterous. ID carries just about all of Evolutionary theory and just replaces the random chance causation with a theistic causation.

Eighty 80 years after the Scopes monkey trial in Tennessee - when a teacher, John Scopes, was convicted for teaching evolution - polls show that at least 45 per cent of Americans believe God made man in his current form. Only 26 per cent believe in the central tenet of evolution, that all life descended from a single ancestor, and 65 per cent believe schools should teach creationism as well as evolution.

Those are some disturbing figures.

Mostly, I just fail to see the need for ID. I would even state that it fails to reach the level of a theory. The theistic causation hypothesis is in no way even vaguely demonstrable. Which puts a dent in scientific methodology as applied to ID.