THIS CANNOT BE EXPLAINED NATURALLY! ADDRESSING INTELLIGENT DESIGN CREATIONISM WHILE TEACHING ABOUT THE NATURE OF SCIENCE USING AN “IMPOSSIBLE OBJECT”

A basic claim of the intelligent design movement is that the nature of some biochemical pathways and structures defy natural, evolutionary explanations. Critics have dismissed many intelligent design (ID) claims as restatements of the traditional “god-of-the-gaps” argument, albeit cloaked in more modern scientific language. In essence, some arguments of the modern ID movement equate “unexplained” with “unexplainable”. Unfortunately, this flawed conclusion often resonates with the general public, which wrongly believes that the lack of an explanation is the endpoint of scientific inquiry rather than its beginning.

The exercise discussed here uses a traditional “impossible object” or “whimsey” to teach students about the difference between “unexplained” and “unexplainable” while also sharing the excitement that scientists feel when faced by the unexplained. Whimsies are folk-art objects that were widely known and sold during the 19^th century. They were constructed using methods that were known only to the initiated, hence to the purchaser’s untrained eyes whimsies defy natural explanation. Perhaps the most widely known whimsy is the iconic “ship-in-the-bottle”.

Students are presented with a traditional, but little-known whimsey in which a nail is present inside a single block of wood without any obvious means of having penetrated through the outside of the block itself. Students are asked to formulate various hypotheses on how the nail got inside the block and to discuss which of their hypotheses are actually testable (i.e. those that suppose mechanisms that leave traces) and which are not. Because the puzzle’s creation requires more than a casual understanding of traditional wood-working methods, the students are faced with an object that defies explanation. As part of the discussion students are challenged to accept that the object might truly be “unexplainable” because its origins cannot be explained by any natural process known to them. The limits of scientific certainty and the importance of previous knowledge in hypothesis formulation are addressed. Finally, students are asked to draw parallels between the whimsey, a clearly man-made object that nevertheless defies explanation, and the conclusions drawn by the ID movement.