“[I]magine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in. It fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well. It must have been made to have me in it!’” –Douglas Adams

Here at Oberlin, it is no secret that we lean left politically. It is also no surprise that with one of the best science facilities for a liberal arts institution, evolution is taken as the final word. Yet for those of us outside the realm of biology and classes that were created thanks to the work of Mendeleev and Darwin, do we, as Obies, really understand what the hubbub was about this summer with intelligent design?

On Aug. 2 of this year, President Bush was quoted saying in a response to a question about teaching intelligent design in the classroom alongside the theory of evolution that, “Both sides ought to be properly taught...so people can understand what the debate is about.” He went on to say, “Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought....You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.”

Bush answered the question of whether or not intelligent design should be taught in the classroom, but not whether it should be taught as science. Of course people should be “exposed to different ideas,” but the question of in what context remains. Is intelligent design part of science, and at Oberlin we should ask, why is it getting so much coverage?

Perhaps it is the language that is confusing the situation. Rhetorically, theory can simply mean an opinion. But according to Oberlin Biology Professor Roger Laushman, in science it is defined as “a collection of coherent hypotheses used as principles of explanation for a set of phenomena, e.g. the theory of relativity, or the theory of evolution.” So instead of something that really means a hypothesis in science, theories must be ideas that have a consistent backing to them, and not something that is perhaps only an opinion. Science is first and foremost a set of logical and empirical methods, which provide for the systematic observation of empirical phenomena in order to understand them.

Also, science is not just a simple process of a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis and forming a theory. It is also about consensus within a group of peer scientists and tested theory with plenty of experiments to back it up. Intelligent design is simply “the science of design detection — how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose,” according to the Intelligent Design Network. But it fails to explain or show that such an intelligent being exists. So in this way, intelligent design fails as science, but succeeds rather well as philosophy.

Slow and methodical, what is exciting to scientists is not always so amazing to the general public, without sound bites, good guys and bad guys and stories with clear endings. Journalism is affected by social influences. The audience matters most of all. Will they read the story, will they find it interesting? Will it make an impact?

According to the book Science in Public, “journalists make news by personalizing, simplifying and symbolizing.” If one person comes onto the scene saying that intelligent design is a viable theory that should be taught alongside that of the theory of evolution, the idea becomes personable. If the majority of scientists disagree, then you have a story.

Mavericks are much more exciting than a group of people who all agree on the same idea. The excitement and the conflict are more important in the news story than what is real science and what is only an opinion. In the world of science journalism, the writer is confronted with both presenting the importance of science and with giving a legible story to the reader.

This is not an impossible feat. Unfortunately, it has come to seem so with the rift that has occurred between scientists and those who present science to the public. It is up to the scientists to communicate with others and not to ignore the public. Only then can science advance for the betterment of humanity.