William Irvine writes in "Apes, Angels and Victorians" that one woman expressed her intellectual confusion by doing what any well brought up Victorian lady would do to escape the unpleasantness of the moment. She fainted. But Huxley was confident that science, superior to religious belief, could offer something more tangibly enduring than theology. Fainting would not be necessary.
To those of us who lived through much of the 20th century, witnesses to the atrocities committed in the name of science, Huxley's optimism seems considerably wide of the mark. But that doesn't mean that "intelligent design," a reworking of "creation science," should be taught as part of a science course. Intelligent design and the theory of evolution belong to separate spheres of theoretical thought: one is substantiated by faith, the other by scientific evidence.
Scientists hold many different interpretations of the significance of Darwinism. The evidence at its best explains how and why certain species change, survive or become extinct. There are holes in the theory, as intellectually honest scientists -- including Darwin himself -- have always readily conceded. Intelligent design, on the other hand, depends not on evidence but belief. Religious values, like fashion, depend on belief in "the designer."
What this debate shows is how intellectuals, so called, are quick to ridicule religious folk, much in the way that Bishop Wilberforce made fun of Huxley. If religion was once regarded as the key to history, as Lord Acton observed, "in today's intellectual circles . . . it's more like the skunk at the table," as Os Guinness recalls in the Wilson Quarterly. He advocates a public discussion of religion in American life today as a way to get a firmer grasp of the way that religious belief, whether the Darwinians like it or not, has shaped who we are, where we came from and where we're going. The debate over "intelligent design" vs. Darwinism, as demonstrated by the furor over the president's innocent remarks, is not likely to evolve into such a discussion. More's the pity.