The idea of Evolving Design stands in sharp contrast to the para-scientific interpretations of Materialism, but it needn't be less respectful of scientific facts. By its contrast, Evolving Design profiles Materialism as a peer philosophy with no exclusive claim on scientific evidence. It's arguable that Evolving Design is actually better equipped to recognize and accommodate the interdependent, wondrous examples of evolution featured by the advocates of Intelligent Design. By any argument, an open competition for scientific fitness between philosophies could serve to clarify both the indispensable value of a speculative perspective and the need to separate speculation from scientific methodology. Science, freed of its implicit materialist slant, could return a-lightened and afresh to its original project, an inspired but disciplined methodology for analyzing direct experience.
The segregation of science from philosophy could help illuminate both what science is and what science lacks. When left alone to its work, science is supremely adapted to classification and the analysis of function, but it is unable to account for the unaccountable. Science can measure tones, intervals, and decibels, for example, but it is unable to comprehend music. So while it's important that science is isolated, it may be just as important that science is situated, placed in a context of meaning and value.
The percolating political battle over the teaching of Creationism and Intelligent Design in science class could find a resolution in these terms. Situating science, placing it in context, might best be accomplished by means of an introduction to each course of study where a discussion of the scope and horizon of the subject-matter is made explicit.
In the teaching of Evolution Theory up to now Materialism has usually pervaded (rather than introduced) the curriculum as the one implicit and presumptive philosophical orientation, just because it adds to the science only a belief that there's nothing else to add. But though Materialism may be the simplest, most economical pro-scientific philosophy, a scientific description of a magic act (to offer an admittedly superficial analogy) isn't credited for simplicity if it leaves out the unseen trick that explains the illusion. The amazingly complex interdependence of cellular metabolism is no illusion, and science can be rightly criticized for dismissing the challenge micro-complexity presents to Evolution Theory. The point is, a presumption of virtue for simplicity and economy begs the question of whether there might be something more encompassing to consider and understand.
Introducing the science of evolution with a survey of various perspectives, even including a mention of religious denials of the evidence (presented as anti-science) might satisfy the ultimate desires of many on both sides of the culture-divide without infecting the curriculum itself. And by giving large context to the minutia of scientific investigations, an introduction might encourage a more elevated and productive diversity of approaches to the analysis and synthesis of facts.
Who can say what insights placing Evolution Theory in the context of differing pro-scientific philosophies might inspire? Who can say what constrictions have been perpetuated by the presumption of just one perspective? And what possible threat could there be in a brief introductory survey of opinion prior to delving into the science, except the threat to the hegemony of a Materialist bias?
A recognition that science should be strictly circumscribed, that it's best presented in the context of various conflicting but supportive philosophies, that in situating the theory of evolution there is a third way between Religion and Materialism -- these considerations could finally provide a bridge to reconciliation among true friends of science.
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