"But is it Science?"

One of my favorite political writers is John Derbyshire, a blunt Englishman who works primarily for National Review. When it comes to current events, I share Derbyshire’s dislike of political conformity and stale, conventional, partisan thinking. However, Derbyshire is also a forceful, unapologetic critic of Intelligent Design. In 2005, he wrote an NR piece attacking I.D. with the provocative title, “But is it science?” I’ve seen him use that line in other online squabbles with I.D. adherents. And for a long time, that question perplexed me: “Can Intelligent Design can be described as ‘science?’”

And the answer is “yes. Absolutely yes.” And here’s why: For the same reason that reading Japanese military documents from World War II is part of “history” (even if Japan lost the war). For the same reason that Ayn Rand’s short stories are part of “literature” (even if they never became as famous as Atlas Shrugged). These areas of research help us gain a better understanding of “history” and “literature.” They add to our base of knowledge. They (sometimes) cause new ways of thinking through both old problems, and new problems. Every once in awhile, they can even create a “paradigm shift” (as we’ve seen in the outbreak of “historical revisionism” and “literary criticism”).

The same principle applies to the “hard sciences” and I.D. Even if I.D. isn’t a scientific method, per se, it forces scientists to come face-to-face with serious gaps with the current materialist paradigm, spurring them either to fill in those gaps WITHIN the paradigm, or possibly (ever so gradually) creating a new paradigm. In science (as in life) there is no great crime in confronting your shortcomings, especially if it helps to spur new knowledge and understanding. In fact, science – more than any other area of human endeavor – should understand this, and even applaud it.

-Todd