Medary.com

More doublespeak? President Bush wants both the scientific theory of evolution and the tribal mythology of intelligent design taught in schools.

President George W. Bush stirred the debate on the teaching of evolution in schools when he said this week that he supported the teaching of alternative viewpoints - such as the theory of Intelligent Design - to help students "understand what the debate is about".

Now, if it were limited to that, I wouldn't have too much of an objection. If ID v. Evolution was noted in a current Events class or something like that, I'd think that would be OK. But I have a serious problem with Intelligent Design being taught in a science class.

Once again, here's the test of a scientific theory: how well does it explain observed phenomena. Note that it is not necessary for a theory to explain all observed phenomena, just that it explains more phenomena, better than any competing theory. As far as I can tell, Intelligent Design doesn't explain any observed phenomena. (Saying "A Creator Is Required" isn't scientific proof, it's religion. Correctly understood, science does not attempt to explain why the universe is here, it observes that it is here and tries to figure out how it works.)

The burden of proof is on the creationists to offer scientific arguments that Intelligent Design is superior, not the philosophical arguments which reside on various Intelligent Design web pages. Saying that Theory X is bad is not sufficient to promote Theory Y.

Apologias work in religion and in philosophy, but they are not sufficient or even appropriate scientific evidence.