A solution in search of a problem: Creation science and Intelligent Design.

[Disclaimer: I'm sure countless others have expressed the following thoughts far more cogently than I'm about to do. But they're not here at the moment. So tough.]

Imagine, if you will, that you're a working astronomer or cosmologist, and a stranger shows up at your office door one day with a new "theory" of planetary dynamics. He's quite adamant that there's no truth to this sun-centered, elliptical orbit nonsense, no sir. He's firmly convinced that the Earth is at the centre of it all and that the planets orbit in aesthetically-pleasing perfect circles, within an outermost shell of fixed stars. What would you say? Well, you have a number of choices.

Given that this is kind of your field and you're aware of its history, you could dismiss him pretty quickly, pointing out that that's what people used to believe until observations and empirical evidence proved that it just wasn't so. In other words, with your expertise, you'd know that he was wrong.

If, however, you weren't an expert in the field, another option would be to entertain his suggestions and set about doing some experiments which would, of course, ultimately prove that the gentleman was, in fact, full of it. But there's a third possibility.

If you were relatively knowledgeable in the field, you could reject this person's claims by simply pointing out that they didn't solve anything currently unsolved. Put another way, the current theory involving a heliocentric system with elliptical orbits that behaves according to the laws of gravitation seems to work perfectly well, which means there's just no need to be entertaining alternative theories. In short, the gentleman has presented you with a solution for which there is no corresponding problem to be solved, and that's more than enough to tell him to get lost.

The above is one of the hallmarks of science: theories are generally advanced to solve currently-unsolved issues, or improve on existing theories in some way. There's little value in a theory that's proposed just because someone wants to propose a new theory. Very few people are going to be willing to invest any time in examining a new "theory" that is nothing more than an unnecessary "alternative" to an existing theory, and it's for just that reason that there's no real reason to give such theories "equal time" in, say, public school science classes. If they don't explain anything, or don't answer any questions, then, quite simply, they have no scientific value and are therefore worthless.

As another example, say someone proposed an "alternative" to the current atomic theory. Would anyone take him seriously? Unless this alternative shed new light on something, probably not. What would be the point? Once again, science doesn't have a lot of time for solutions to non-problems. And is this starting to sound familiar?

Welcome to creation science, which is pretty much the poster child for solutions in search of something to be a solution for. As it stands now, the proposal of a very old earth, combined with biological evolution, seems to be working just fine, thank you, as an explanation for the biological diversity of life and things like geology and so forth. It all seems to fit and all these different areas of science appear to be pleasantly consistent which makes this, for now, an acceptable explanation for, well, damned near everything.

The standard Biblically-based creation scientists, of course, are adamant that they have an alternative to all of this, but it's not at all clear why anyone needs an alternative, given that mainstream science is, again, doing nicely, thank you very much, which makes the creationist demand for things like "equal time" more than a little baffling since they seem determined to present their alternative for which there is absolutely no obvious need.

Put another way, one can reject the notion of creation science not so much because it's wrong, but because it is utterly, totally and completely unnecessary. It solves nothing and is therefore worth exactly as much. Which brings us, finally, to Intelligent Design.

To give the IDers credit, they have at least proposed that ID solves an allegedly unsolved problem -- that of apparent, unnatural complexity. Fair enough, but that doesn't give them the right to ask for equal time. Rather, they have to establish, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this problem actually exists before they start trying to show that they have the answer, and this is something that they haven't done yet.

The proponents of ID are desperately trying to get their nonsense into the classrooms with the claim that, "We think there's a problem." Unfortunately, that's not good enough. What they need to say to be taken seriously is, "We can prove there's a problem, and here's our solution to it." However, since they still haven't nailed down part one, there's absolutely no need to take them seriously regarding part two.