I have not seen Ben Stein’s new documentary Exposed, a purported expose of the stifling of scientific inquiry in the area of intelligent design and evolutionary theory. I do not know if the movie is skewed or deceptive or specious in its arguments. I am not a scientist. I probably would not know if the scientific material in the movie was accurate or not.

However, as far as I understand, the movie is not primarily a scientific argument; it is rather an attempt to tell the stories of certain academics who feel that they have been discriminated against, denied promotion and tenure, and yes, persecuted because of the subject matter that they have chosen to study or to write about, namely the area of research known as “intelligent design.” In this article in Scientific American Michael Schermer, author of Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design, argues that Mr. Stein’s film is indeed inaccurate propaganda. Perhaps so, although I reserve judgement, knowing what I know already about academic politics and the misuse of power in academic settings.

Be that as it may, Mr. Shermer goes on to make a fallacious argument of his own that goes to the heart of the debate between proponents of intelligent design and Darwinian evolutionists:

When will people learn that Darwinian naturalism has nothing whatsoever to do with religious supernaturalism? By the very definitions of the words it is not possible for supernatural processes to be understood by a method designed strictly for analyzing natural causes. Unless God reaches into our world through natural and detectable means, he remains wholly outside the realm of science.

The last part of Mr. Schermer’s paragraph states exactly what I think the students of intelligent design are saying: that “God (or someone) reaches into our world through natural and detectable means,” that we can observe the effects of design by some intelligence in the phenomena of the universe. Schermer uses a restrictive definition of “science” to conclude that scientists who are interested in studying the possibilities of intelligent design cannot really be scientists. According to Schermer’s definition, science equals naturalism, natural causes within a closed system, and if my scientific observations point to a supernatural cause or explanation for any process or subject of study, then I am no longer doing science. Schermer spends half of his article saying that intelligent design proponents and theorists are not really discriminated against in academia, and then he ends by saying that of course, they are and should be walled outside the realm of science because what they’re studying isn’t really science.

It’s as if you said there was a poltergeist in your house, and I said that there couldn’t be a poltergeist because I don’t believe in poltergeists. (I don’t.) And then you invite me over to study for myself the effects of the presence of the supposed poltergeist, but I refuse to look because poltergeists don’t exist and if I came over to study your ghostly phenomena you would have to admit to me, in advance, that it was not a poltergeist at all or else I won’t even look. And I won’t look at any evidence that indicates that you might actually have a ghost in your house because it’s not scientific to study ghosts. And anyone else who studies your poltergeist-like incidents isn’t doing science either, no matter how much use he makes of the scientific method.

Isn’t this attitude rather ostrich-like? What if the universe really is a designed universe, created by an Intelligent Designer who lives outside our closed system of natural causes? Science certainly cannot define and study such a Supernatural Designer, but scientists can and always have felt qualified and able to study the (created) universe itself to find out how things work and how they became what they are today. Perhaps Darwinian evolution and natural selection are sufficient and complete scientific explanations for the world as we observe it. Or maybe some scientists are onto something when they posit that Darwinism doesn’t explain the facts we observe in the natural world and that some events and observations require a supernatural explanation, or a natural cause that we have not yet discovered. (Super-intelligent aliens from another planet, maybe? That explanation for the appearance of design in the universe has the advantage for the atheist of not requiring him to admit to the existence of God, but then there’s the age-old question of who created the super-intelligent aliens.)

O.K., so scientists can’t explain supernatural, outside of the closed system of natural law, events, but can scientists not say that the explanations we have don’t explain things very well and that the observations that they make may indicate that a supernatural explanation is in order? If not, then the scientist risks being blind and deaf and in denial. What if the Truth really is supernatural? If it looks like a poltergeist, walks like a poltergeist, and no other natural explanation exists, then maybe, just maybe it’s a poltergeist, whether I want to believe it or not.

I’ve said nothing here that proves the arguments of intelligent design proponents, nor have I refuted the Darwinists. As I said in the beginning, I’m not scientifically qualified to do so. I’ve only said that IF the evidence indicates that a naturalistic closed system cannot contain or explain the observations that a scientist makes, perhaps he ought to maintain a healthy skepticism and admit to the possibility of the supernatural.

Hat tip to Josh Sowin at Fire and Knowledge for the link to Mr. Schermer’s article.