From Colin MacLeod
So, one of the US Republican presidential hopefuls claims that intelligent design is “a legitimate scientific theory that should be taught in science class” (17 September, p 5). Most scientists would fight this. However, this is a battle we are losing, and I want to suggest a new tactic.
As an evolutionary ecologist, I am happy with the demand to include intelligent design – and its central principle of irreducible complexity – in science lessons, as long as we accept that it has been tested hundreds of times as a scientific theory, and each time has failed.
Let’s teach it in the way I was taught about Lamarckian evolution – as an outmoded theory that has repeatedly failed even the most basic scientific testing of its key principles. This may be the way to finally see it off.
Glasgow, UK
