Krugman on "Confusion" and Design

Paul Krugman's editorial today illustrates what strikes me as a regrettable trend, i.e, the tendency of those who oppose the teaching (in any context) of "Intelligent Design" in schools to charge smugly that those who are willing to entertain the possibility of presenting, in some fashion, to students the idea that the physical universe as it exists today was -- evolutionary change notwithstanding -- in some meaningful sense "designed" are just, well, stupid.

To be clear:  I believe strongly that "science" classes -- in both public and private schools -- should teach "science" and only "science."  Reason and science are capable of identifying facts, testing hypotheses, increasing knowledge, and discarding error; and nothing in Christianity can or should lead any particular Christian to reject facts established by science as contrary to revealed truth.  What's more, I am happy to concede that an argument that "God planned and / or directed the evolution that clearly has taken place over millions of years" is not "science."

Krugman writes:  "The important thing to remember is that like supply-side economics or global-warming skepticism, intelligent design doesn't have to attract significant support from actual researchers to be effective.  All it has to do is create confusion, to make it seem as if there really is a controversy about the validity of evolutionary theory.  That, together with the political muscle of the religious right, may be enough to start a process that ends with banishing Darwin from the classroom."  Um, not likely.  It might well be that there are biblical fundamentalists who want to "banish[] Darwin from the classroom."  They should, and certainly will, fail in this effort.  But it seems to me that the vast majority of those who are, at least in part, sympathetic to the "Intelligent Design" movement are not biblical fundamentalists.  I suspect that their support does not reflect a considered judgment that "evolution is just a theory" or that "God designed the universe" is "science", but rather a concern that "evolution" sometimes serves not as the fundamental (and fundamentally sound) account of the universe's history and development, but as a kind of religio-philosophical creed.  That is, I suspect that most who harbor some sympathy with the Intelligent Design movement have no interest in introducing religion into science classes, but simply in making sure that science is not made into a religion.

Would Krugman object -- would anyone object -- to a science teacher saying, "of course, as scientists we are utterly unable responsibly to say anything about the reasons why there is something rather than nothing; we know and can show that our physical universe has evolved over millions of years, but we cannot show -- and would not, as scientists, presume to try -- that God does not exist or sustain, in some fundamental way, the existence of all that is."

Rick