Bob Giza and "Intelligent Design Theory"

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Bob Giza is the teacher every parent prays her kid will have in high school. A torrent of energy and inspiration. A dynamo of community activism. An educator given awards by his peers for his teaching skills in and out of the classroom. But here is the thing about Mr. Giza, 58, head of science at Chaminade College School, an all-boys Roman Catholic high school in suburban North York: The students taught biology by him more than likely learned that intelligent design offers a more complete explanation than unalloyed Darwinian evolution for the origins and development of planetary life.

"Take the eyeball," he said a couple of days ago, his fit, lanky frame sprawled in a chair. "How did the eyeball develop? How do you make an eyeball from no eyeball? Three-quarters of an eyeball is no good. There are things the experts can't answer."

He says it's not the micros of evolution that concern him, it's the macros -- how the eyeball came to be; how life got going. The eyeball, he explained, is an example of what intelligent-design proponents call "irreducible complexity." Meaning it has God's fingerprints on it, God's hands reaching into the wet clay of life. It didn't develop through Darwinian random genetic mutation.

In the United States, teaching intelligent design in the schools has politicians, educators, parents and the media immersed in a cauldron of controversy and conflict. But in a Toronto publicly funded high school, Bob Giza teaches intelligent design alongside evolution sans fuss, politicians' polemics or outraged parents.

I posted the following comment online after reading the article in the Globe and Mail.

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First, I want to commend the Globe and Mail for recognizing CCS and Mr. Giza. As an alumnus of the school (I graduated the year after Steve Vona, and took Gr. 11 biology with him), it gives me great pride to know that my alma mater is part of this important debate. For people who have been questioning Bob's expertise and teaching capabilities, I'll only say this: tell me how many highschool teachers can cogently and coherently explain the Krebs Acid Cycle to Gr. 12 students, and more importantly, without boring them to death.

That being said, I think the important thing that Mr. Giza is doing is encouraging his students to think about these issues on a deeper philosophical level and not just going through science education mechanically. Whether or not intelligent design is a cogent theory is irrelevant -- that will or will not be borne out by the continuing work of science. It's important that educators of young minds impress upon them early on that there are different ways to conceptualize the world.

All this invective flies in the face of the so-called "marketplace of ideas" that our society holds dear. The fact is, there is no conclusive proof to support either complete atheism or intelligent design in conceptualizing evolution, and probably never will be. Both camps are just convinced of one thing: their conception "just is", but there are simply too many limitations on human episteme for anyone to say that they have the monopoly on "truth."

Finally, anyone who says they can separate their scientific and religious beliefs is probably being disingenuous, or hasn't truly examined the implications of their beliefs. Mr. Giza is only doing what most rational human beings try to do: he's trying to find a way to reconcile the different belief systems that he is committed to. It's an exercise that everyone should take on, if only to realize the complexity of the various modes of human thought.

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