SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY, MYTHOLOGY: MISCONCEIVING SCIENCE & THE IMPORTANCE OF ALTERNATIVE CULTURAL NARRATIVES

Two crucial but seldom explored aspects of the debate over teaching intelligent design are the misunderstanding of science, and the lack of knowledge of other cultural explanations of creation. Many people seem to assume that science is merely the use of test tubes and fancy laboratory equipment. They don't understand science as a meticulous and creative means of problem solving, a mode of thought as well as practice that transcends the laboratory and applies to innumerable everyday questions. Science attends the ubiquitous question, “how do I know?” In terms of teaching, both everyday problems and historical examples of failed and successful science could be used as vivid and intriguing pedagogical parables. In addition, readings in philosophy that debate these same issues might be introduced. Two hundred years ago David Hume elegantly debated intelligent design and illustrated with ironic humor the problematic inferences made by those attempting to describe the telos of the universe. Finally, I would suggest introducing myths and narratives from other cultures, not only to make the students aware of other cultures, but to juxtapose such creation narratives, ask how they could discern which of these might not also compete with Western theological explanations, and return to the issue of what qualifies as science, empirical data, and reasonable inference.