How Far We've Come

It was 100 years ago this month that the world changed forever. Actually, it didn't change, but our understanding of it did. It was 1905, and the German physics journal Annalen der Physik was about to publish its volume 17. This would become perhaps the most famous physics publication in history, containing three essays from the patent clerk, Albert Einstein, including one that spelled out his special theory of relativity. He later added an additional essay, a footnote basically, that described the equation, E=mc².

The astonishing implications of this weren't clear at the time, though a former student described how Einstein, in 1907, said that his realization that all mass was essentially untapped energy would probably be the most important consequence of his theory. It couldn't even be tested until 25 years later, but Einstein was proven right. In fact, his theory has been proven correct time and time again, though we still can grasp only some of the implications it has for the universe as a whole.

Einstein's theory came about like so many do. He saw a problem in our perception of the world as outlined by Newton. Nothing that was Newton's fault -- he just didn't have to deal with the concept of the speed of light being a universal constant. Einstein lived in a world with two basic concepts of physics -- Newtonian mechanics and Maxwell's equations -- that were incompatible. There had to be a way to reconcile them. After a despondent conversation with his friend Michele Besso, in which Einstein admitted defeat, he had a sudden moment of brilliance on the streetcar trip home. He realized that time can flow at different rates throughout the universe, depending on how fast you move.

It solved the problem neatly, even though the basic concept (and many concepts it spawned) seemed irrational. Over the following decades, Einstein's theory has been tested, confirmed and refined through the scientific process. This process demands continual testing of our theories so that we can discover all their implications and, if the theory fails, throw it out completely.

Now let's turn to our time. Right now, a group of parents are in a Pennsylvania courtroom, fighting to protect their children from the forces of fear and irrationality. Their school district has decided to require that students be told about intelligent design, the idea that life on Earth could only have originated or developed without the assistance of some unidentified intelligent force. Proponents of this belief say that there are some things the theory of evolution doesn't explain, and so this must mean that that there is an "intelligent designer" at work there.

It's a debate that scientists don't enjoy having (but they do in some cases), not because they fear being proven wrong, but because intelligent design does not represent science. It is an attempt to point out perceived holes in the theory and proclaim, "Ha! That's where God is!" It does not offer a scientifically testable alternative. Proponents cringe from that, in fact.

There are certain aspects of intelligent design that a lot of people find attractive. The general public and ID proponents have an inaccurate understanding of the word "theory" in the scientific sense. They throw the word around in phrases like, "It's only a theory." But evolution is "only" a theory in the sense that gravity is "only" a theory. In science, a theory is an explanation of observed phenomena that can be tested and stands up to rigorous testing. That's what evolution has done. It has been experimentally proven both in the real world and the lab.

Now let's look at ID. It offers no explanation, only saying, "Well, if you can't explain some aspect of what we see, it must mean God's doing it!" That, frankly, is stupid. There's no other way to describe it. You don't even have to mention the fact that a lot of what the ID proponents use as "evidence" of things that can't be explained are actually explained quite nicely by evolution. They take advantage of a gullible public and pandering school boards to squeeze religion into science classes. It dumbs down our children by undermining the bedrock of the scientific method, the same method that has raised us up from medieval squalor and allows us to glimpse the basic structure of reality.

It is disheartening to compare the story of Einstein with what's going on in that Pennsylvania courtroom. One hundred years after his eureka moment, we're still fighting the battle between superstitious belief and reason. Anyone who has some understanding of Einstein's theories and the discoveries that have come after can stare up at the night sky and feel the wonder of knowing what lights those stars. You can have some grasp of the majesty of our world when you know something about what it consists of and how it developed. All of this has been given to us by science. But some want to extinguish as much of that light as possible, overturning the pillars of science and reason in the process. It's disgusting, and it must be stopped.