Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2010
Thomas Nagel has recently discussed whether intelligent design theory (IDT) is scientific and should be taught in public schools alongside the theory of evolution (ET). Nagel writes:
I do not regard divine intervention as a possibility, even though I have no other candidates. Yet I recognize that this is because of an aspect of my overall worldview that does not rest on empirical grounds or any other kind of rational grounds…. [S]omeone who can offer serious scientific reasons to doubt the adequacy of [ET], and who believes in God, in the same immediate way that I believe there is no god, can quite reasonably conclude that the hypothesis of design should be taken seriously. (‘Public Education and Intelligent Design’. Philosophy and Public Affairs 36.2 (2008), pp. 187–205, p. 192.)