Intelligent Design (ID) continues to dominate the public discussions on science, evolution, and religion.

Multiple claims have been made that an ID bill is to be introduced to the Utah Senate when it convenes in a few days. Those need clarification.

The bill to be introduced (available at senatesite.com/blog/2005/12/bill-text-curriculum-and-policy-on.html) makes no mention of ID, clearly to avoid entanglements with the recent trial in Dover, Penn. It does, however, contain some phrases that may prove problematic if the bill ever faces legal challenge. We'll consider those later.

In the meantime, I think it will be profitable for us all to remember some major points in the long history of discussions of science and religion. In particular, it seems wise to recognize the depth of emotion among the discussants. Mostly, so far as I can remember history, the intense emotion was on the part of those who felt that their religion was under attack. And it is of special significance that what those parties felt were fundamental attacks on their religion seem to us today so trite that they are nothing more than causes for humor.

For instance, it was once thought that nature reflect only the highest of efficiency and economy, since deity must be efficient and economical.

Then it was discovered that the billowing clouds of dust emerging in season from certain pine trees were actually the reproductive cells of the pines and that only one pollen grain in billions would ever be involved in reproduction. This was taken as a challenge to the personality, indeed the existence, of deity.

Further, it was argued, this knowledge would destroy all systems of human morality. Paraphrasing one minister of the day, "Who could possibly instruct young people in such a wasteful system without creating moral scandal?" He said it in all seriousness, but in these days I have yet to find a person who sees any connection between human morals and pine dust. Is there any reader who does?

If not, what has made the difference? I think most persons today will conclude it was a misplaced argument: folks getting twisted up over religious connections that really did not exist.

I've earlier mentioned A.D. White's two-volume work, "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom." White was discriminating: the "warfare" was not with science and Christianity, nor with religion in general. It was with theology, the layered-on commentary that had grown up over the centuries among both professional clergy and lay public. And "ultimate economy" was part of that.

Do we have similar flash-points of science/religion today? As a child, I was always given the argument about scientists: "Yeah, but they can't create life!" That's still true, and related issues form one of the points of the proposed new Utah bill. But let's use that for illustration, since at least one lab team is making real progress toward that accomplishment and I think the odds favor their success. How will we respond?

The scientist, if he's being a responsible scientist, will say something like, "We have constructed, from chemicals on the laboratory shelf, an entity that manifests the critical properties of life: it is based on a nucleic acid/protein system; it metabolizes, reproduces, etc."

And that's it.

The atheist may say, "This proves that there is no divine force needed to create life -- ergo, there is no divine force or God." The theist will say, "Did you create life -- or only a system within which life may manifest itself?"

And the scientist will respond, "I do not know; there is no way to resolve such issues as the two of you raise. Those are philosophical/religious matters, not science."

So before we as a society begin over-heated controversy in the next few days, let us be very careful about what is, and what is not, fundamental to both science and religion. It may not be at all what we think.