Another in a series of “framing the conversation.”

Evolution is real. It is concrete. It stands on millions of fossils that all fall into place perfectly with one another, none of them out of place, nothing contradicting the theory. Referring to it as a theory is like referring to the “theory of gravity” as just a theory. Last time I looked out the window, the neighbors weren’t floating over their porches.

The whole idea of teaching “intelligent design” (ID) in our biology classes is anathema to me, but many people think it’s a good idea. There are probably a couple of reasons for that: a large part of the population is religious, another large part of the population has a distrust of science (or anything they don’t understand–I don’t understand what’s under the hood of my car, and I’m notoriously distrustful of it and mechanics), and because the right-wing pundits have done an excellent job of framing the discussion.

The big thing here is that the people pushing ID are really pushing creationism, which was already outlawed in our schools by the Supreme Court under the whole separation of church and state principle. They claim they’re not, but they are. They claim that the complexity of living things is such that they had to have a Creator, err, creator.

Religion is defined as “belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.” Simply put, the belief that someone or something created us is a religious belief. Having that belief is fine. The vast majority of people believe that. It can and should be taught in theology classes and in Sunday school classes at whatever church people want to attend. But not in science classes.

Science is based on testable evidence. As I said, there are millions of fossils supporting evolution, and not one contradicting it. There is no controversy here (the ID movement loves the phrase “teach the controversy”). So let’s frame the conversation in such a way as to make these points more obvious.

Whenever someone brings up the topic of ID, I propose specifically referring to it as creationism in your response. When they balk at that, and they will, you’ll have changed the conversation from “teach the controvery” to “defend the idea that ID is not creationism.” They have to argue that it isn’t creationism because that is already banned from schools. If they don’t argue it, you can point out their implicit acknowledgement that creationism and ID are the same thing.

This is great. Because now you can spend the entire time arguing over whether or not ID is creationism and you’ll have the high ground in the argument. The debate never has to progress to the point of discussing whether creationism (remember, it’s not ID) should be taught in schools.

It’s also a good idea to attack the idea of what they are trying to do. They are attacking scientific principles and the teaching of science. It’s important to frame it that way as opposed to “they are trying to teach/push religion in schools” since the vast majority of people are religious and many of them support the notion of teaching science in schools. As I said above, it’s okay to teach religion in a theology class in a public school. That’s not what this is about.

A question such as “why are you attacking science?” is good. It isn’t inflammatory, and it is a legitimate question that allows follow-up questions of the scientific principles of creationism, for which there are none.