Friday, March 10, 2006
Design Philosophy
In December, Martin Roth professor of philosophy of science at Knox taught a short philosophy course titled, "Intelligent Design," to explore the topic historically and critically at the secular college. ...
Roth designed the course to "look at intelligent design on three levels: as an argument for the existence of God, as an alternative to evolution in science, and in the context of the current debate over evolution and religion." According to Roth, it is important to understand that ID is not something recently installed on today’s front page like an ice block to cool the seething evolution-creation debate. Rather, "intelligent design has a long history. The idea originated well before Darwin’s work in the 1850s," Roth said.
The course delves into the history of the intelligent design movement, beginning with Plato, the first philosopher to make an argument for the existence of God based upon the design of this world. Our seemingly miraculous, biological design and the fine-tuning of the universe allowing for the existence of life have become the chief supports for this argument. Second, the class tackled current scientific debates, including Darwin’s argument for natural selection and whether or not intelligent design fits into the category of science as enterprise. Finally, the class discussed the multi-faceted question of how this affects religion and morality.
