06.24.08
Does it matter?
Jerry Pournelle
Intelligent Design: Answers and Questions
As far as I can see, if every school district in the land that wanted to put Intelligent Design as an alternative to the Dawkins theory that an undifferentiated cloud of gas would inevitably turn into creatures that write Dante’s Inferno, perform Swan Lake, devise both the Newtonian and Relativistic theories, and write Darwin’s Origin of Species, there might be as many as a hundred who would actually do that. One may speculate as to the practical effect this might have; I suspect it wouldn’t have much effect at all. Most students in today’s schools have no training in or love of science and its tools of logic and mathematics, and whether they believe in Dawkinsism or Intelligent Design won’t matter a hill of beans in their or anyone else’s lives. Actually, there might be a positive benefit: the discussion might get them thinking about the subject.