Intelligent design isn't scientific

I must object to Mr. Orme's letter claiming that "intelligent design is…science." While Mr. Orme certainly enjoys the right as an American to believe whatever he chooses to believe, I would prefer that he kept his faith out of science.

Merriam-Webster defines the scientific method as "principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses." Nowhere does the scientific method involve taking things on faith or belief in higher beings.

Intelligent design suggests that because life is so complicated our best scientists cannot yet figure out how it started, that we throw up our hands and say "something super-powerful, some higher being, something omniscient must have made this."

The ancient Greeks did not understand thunder or lightning, so they attributed it to Zeus. Nowadays, if one were to attribute thunder and lightning to a Greek god, one would be ridiculed and shown a science book covering weather. Intelligent design is the same idea: we don't get it, so let's just attribute it to a higher being and call it a day.

Either science has suddenly become faith-based or some people need to brush up on the "scientific method" before calling their beliefs scientifically valid.

Nate Wheatley

Glen Ellyn