When President Bush recently backed into the debate over intelligent design, scientists broadly and properly protested the idea of incorporating religion into the classroom laboratory. But scientists who have taught in those labs should also know that assaults on evolution gain support not only through the argument for intelligent design but also because of a lack of understanding of evolution itself.

Intelligent design is based on the belief that because living organisms work in such marvelously complex ways they could not simply have evolved that way; some force – God – must have steered their design. It is a comforting idea, and even as scientists have exposed its faults and internal conflicts, intelligent design continues to grow in popularity as various groups demand it be included in school science curriculums. President Bush was prodded into saying something about it a couple of weeks ago and recalled his time as governor of Texas when, he said, “I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught.”‘

That is not a strong endorsement of intelligent design, which isn’t, after all, the other side of a debate with the theory of evolution because it’s not a theory at all but an assertion that no theory is needed. It survives because of its tactic of disparaging evolution, pointing out gaps in knowledge, and the fact that all of science presents itself as a set of ideas to be tested and amended as new knowledge arises. Science’s open methods of inquiry and its complex nature make intelligent design more difficult to refute.

However, Kenneth Miller, a Brown University biologist and a Christian, finds one way to do this in his book “Finding Darwin’s God” by comparing science with the field of history. “A Christian, specifically, sees his life, his family, and his small place in history as parts of God’s plan,” he writes. “He has faith that God expects him to use his talents and abilities in God’s name … These noncontroversial elements of Christian teaching are so ordinary that we sometimes forget what they imply about the interplay of history, free will, and chance.”

Later, Professor Miller makes the link with science: “Evolution answers the question of chance and purpose exactly the same way that history answers the questions about the course of human events.” The biologist, like the historian, may see the role of chance in the way species evolve, just as chance affects countless moments of human history. “No one seems to think that a religious person engaged in the study of history must find a way that God rigged human events in order to cause the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution or the Holocaust. Yet curiously, that is exactly what many expect of a religious person engaged in the study of natural history – they want to know how God could have ensured the success of mammals, the rise of flowering plants, the ascent of man.”

The point is a good one and reinforces the requirement for a strong science curriculum, particularly in lower grades so that students become familiar with how science works as much as its specific disciplines. Fortunately, the president’s No Child Left Behind policies emphasize this idea. Perhaps it will eventually help clear up the current conflict.