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Pekker, Aryeh Eng 110 Paper 2 October 10, 2009

In his essay “One side can be wrong”, Richard Dawkins argues against intelligent design

and the proposal of allowing the subject equal time to be taught in public schools by pointing out

the illogical premises from which his opponents draw their conclusions. I intend to reaffirm

Dawkins’ assertions by further diluting the arguments in favor of teaching intelligent design.

The idea of teaching intelligent design or creationism as it is also known was largely a

compromise offered by the religious right in response to the acceptance of evolution as a fact

rather than a theory by the public. The goal was that if evolution can’t be refuted, then at least

there will be another idea challenging it on the premise of someone else’s beliefs. In no way

does this actually make sense. I am not opposed to acknowledging the fact that there are ideas

that challenge evolution and that the people offering these challenges truly believe what they are

saying, but to give credence to these ideas and teach them in schools on the basis that someone

believes them is preposterous! To paraphrase Dawkins, you wouldn’t teach the idea that the

Holocaust never happened simply because someone believes that to be true would you? The

answer should be obvious, and the question is the kind that should be asked more often when it

comes to things like teaching intelligent design in public schools.

One cannot reasonably say that it is only fair to teach both sides of an issue when, as

Dawkins correctly states “One side is required to produce evidence, every step of the way” (p.

72). In this case the sciences. While there is apparently a double standard when it comes to

intelligent design since “There simply isn’t any Intelligent Design research to publish.” (p. 71).

The proponents of intelligent design attempt to push this idea using the same logic they

use to prove the existence of God and that is, that you cannot disprove God. Although it may be

true that no one can disprove God and that no one can fully assert that one’s beliefs are wrong,
one can and many already have indisputably disproved and declared null and void the idea of

intelligent design. Richard Dawkins is just one of thousands of professors and scientists

speaking out in the name of logic and reason.

If it were to pass, and public school children would be taught both evolution and

intelligent design in the name of “fairness” to both sides, how fair would that really be? First off,

America is one of the most diverse nations in the world. We have people from all kinds of

cultures with all kinds of beliefs. In other words, there are not only two sides. If we were to

teach intelligent design as a way to accommodate a Judeo-Christian view of how the world

began, isn’t it only fair to include other beliefs such as: Hinduism, Shintoism, Islam,

Scientology, Taoism, or Rastafarianism. If the idea is to be fair to people’s beliefs and ideas, we

would be obligated to include every idea or belief that any person had. If I said that I believed in

Zeus and that he created the world by firing a large lightning bolt, by this logic, it would have to

be taught in schools. Second, would including this in the curriculum be fair to the students?

Students have enough on their hands as it is learning the proven view of the world’s conception.

Why burden the minds of students simply because a certain group of people refuse to accept

something that is true.

Dawkins makes another crucial point in his essay when responding to the claim that a

bacterial flagellum “is too complex to have evolved by natural selection…” (p. 73). This

argument is used, as Dawkins points out; to support intelligent design by default, in that if there

is one aspect of evolution that seems more implausible than other aspects, it automatically means

that it is void and intelligent design must be correct. Again, there is no logic in such an

argument. It’s as if a murderer was on a trial and was caught on camera killing dozens of people

and the jury acquitted this person on the basis that they simply could not believe that one person
could kill so many other people, despite seeing it with their own eyes. Furthermore, this same

jury used this argument to convict another person on the basis that they believe that person was

the one who committed the murders. In this case the first person would be evolution, the

murders would be the flagellum, and the second person would either intelligent design or God.

So this jury has ruled out evolution being responsible for the development of a flagellum because

they believe that only the second person could be capable of creating something as incredible and

complex as a bacterial flagellum. The conclusion does not follow in any way, shape, or form

from the premise. In other words, it is an invalid argument. Even if the facts were true, the

structure is wrong.

Unfortunately, this fact clearly has not deterred those who are still supportive of the

argument rather, they are even so arrogant as to want it treated with the same respect as any other

scientific theory or practice. In spite of their beliefs, they would joyously risk undermining

centuries of intellectual study and patient research without consideration to the possible and

likely inevitable consequences. One may ask what sort of consequences will there be? Dawkins

does well to point out exactly what the consequences would be in the final paragraph of his

essay, and that is acceptance.

Intelligent design and the people who want it taught in schools have no leg to stand on;

they have no evidence to prove a single opinion that they deem assertions; they have nothing to

offer. They claim to win all their arguments simply by the fact that the opposition has failed to

provide one specific piece of evidence, whom without which evolution would still be as factual

and real as the first time it was proposed, only the number of facts would lessen. To give

intelligent design legitimacy in the classroom would give its advocates, and anyone else who

doubts facts, a level of respect we often don’t even give to some of the greatest minds of our day
until they have provided papers and books of evidence for their theories and discoveries. To

pass this would give a great deal of truth to the phrase “science has questions that may never be

answered, religion has answers that may never be questioned.”

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