Well, after reading through this thread, I've come to the conclusion that I.D. should not be taught in science classes, and probably shouldn't be taught in schools in general either. I thought maybe it should before, but now I don't.
For the record, I am agnostic regarding the existence of the Christian God, yet open to spirituality in general. I don't believe Genesis 1 and 2 because they read like mythological accounts of creation in general and like Mesopotamian/Canaanite mythology in particular. I suspected I.D. might have something useful to say about origins although I recognize it's part of a broader political/theological agenda that I don't much like.
But my question is whether the grand theory of evolution, the larger narrative, should be taught in science classes either. Here's my thinking.
I'll start by going back to a part of an article by Stephen Jay Gould mentioned earlier in the thread. (If you do a google search on the quoted text, you'll find it.) He begins by pointing out that a "theory" in science is something pretty solid. Like gravitational theory. He then points out that the idea that life originates through evolution can be proved through a number of means. First, evolution it can be observed continuing to happen in the laboratory. But then he goes on to build his case this way:
"[FONT="]The second and third arguments for evolutionthe case for major changesdo not involve direct observation of evolution in action. They rest upon inference, but are no less secure for that reason.[/FONT]"
So here's Gould's admission. The narrative that evolution gives us about where life came from is only partly proved through science. The rest is proved through inferences from data. The narrative for how we got here is proved in much the same way as history is proved: through looking at the data available and drawing conclusions. Doing scientific tests about the principles that underlie the universe is only part of how the historical narrative regarding origins is constructed.
So I think I.D., rather than being science itself, brings into focus the limitations of science and of broad historical narratives. (I personally think there are probably better ways of bringing these ideas up than an I.D. scenario since I.D. is mostly about introducing an alternative narrative.)
Suppose that an alien ship actually did stop by our planet a million years ago and dropped off a couple of new species that happened to work well on our planet and maybe included a new innovation or two. (And I use the alien space ship here because I have serious doubts about the existence of the Christian God and because I like cliche science fiction scenarios.
) It seems to me that if this were the case, it would be impossible to either verify or deny the fact in a laboratory. We might be able to find other evidence from which we could make inferences that this is what happened. (The alien landing pad, for example.) Or we might not. The aliens might have covered their tracks really well and besides its been a long time since then. The landing pad might have been destroyed. But in any case, those space aliens are not coming back so science and pretty much just rational inference as well, is out as far as confirming things.
From what I can tell, the way evolutionists would react to the presence of the species introduced would be to make up a number of different inferences about ways of explaining how those species evolved from other, pre-existent species, debate the merits of their ideas, and then come to some sort of conclusion which fit the species into the broader evolutionary framework.
Now I'll be the first to admit, this is a far out scenario. But it seems to me that constructing a grand narrative of how we all got here is a very difficult task and is not entirely scientific, though science might be used as a part of how such a narrative would be created.
In science class, it seems to me that it's a good idea to teach about scientific evolutionary theories about how things work right now, but it might be better to move the broad histories to other areas such as classes in history or mythology.
