Three Why's: Religion and Science in School¹

¹My thanks to Joe Bishop for his helpful editorial advice and to the anonymous reviewer of the original draft whose comments were very helpful in clarifying my thoughts.

Abstract

In this article, I argue the proposition that educators ought to be including a serious consideration of intelligent design as a counterexample to the scientific explanations of human origins. The article first distinguishes between three different ways people ask “why”: the Scientific Why, the Ultimate Why, and the Teleological Why. Although science answers the first Why with a high degree of confidence, it does not answer the second or third Why at all. An exclusive focus on questions with empirical answers reduces the education experience, eliminating much of value from it, especially a sense of wonder at unanswerable questions.

Notes

¹My thanks to Joe Bishop for his helpful editorial advice and to the anonymous reviewer of the original draft whose comments were very helpful in clarifying my thoughts.