Editor's Page
Intelligent Design vs. Evolution � or not?
In my mind the problem with Darwinism is not as a theory of evolution, but
it�s insistence on the whole exceedingly complicated �process being random, or accidental, as implied
in the expression �Natural Selection� � an oxymoron if there ever was one, for,
as Don Cruse has often maintained in these pages, �selection� implies will and
intelligence. When I look at nature I see intelligence, even wisdom. In fact
nature � mineral, plant, animal and human � seems to be wisdom incarnate. (What
the human element does with this
wisdom is another story.) I discover the laws of nature; I don't invent them, I discover them. (I haven't personally discovered any laws of natures which others haven't discovered before me, so we could say that I and each one of us re-discovers them.) These laws, which display an awesome intelligence, existed before any human being was in a position to discover them by observation and thinking. And they include evolution. So what�s the
problem? Does that make me a proponent of Intelligent Design? Well, yes, except
I that I shudder at the political implications
involved in the
Terry Coyne, professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the
��Intelligent design is simply the third attempt of creationists to
proselytize our children at the expense of good science and clear thinking.
Having failed to ban evolution from schools, and later to get equal classroom
time for scientific creationism, they have made a few adjustments designed to
sneak Christian cosmogony past the First Amendment. And these adjustments have
given ID a popularity never enjoyed by earlier forms of creationism.
Even the president of the
Why have the new image and the new approach been more successful? For a
start, IDers have duped many people by further
removing God from the picture, or at least hiding him behind the frame. No
longer do creationists mention a deity, or even a creator, but simply a
neutral-sounding "intelligent designer," as if it were not the same
thing. This designer could in principle be Brahma, or the Taoist P'an Ku, or even a space alien; but ID
creationists, as will be evident to anybody who attends to all that they say,
mean only one entity: the biblical God. Their problem is that invoking
this deity in science classes in public schools is unconstitutional. So IDers never refer openly to God, and people unfamiliar with
the history of their creationist doctrine might believe that there is a real
scientific theory afoot. They use imposing new terms such as "irreducible
complexity," which make their arguments seem more sophisticated than those
of earlier creationists. In addition, many IDers have
more impressive academic credentials than did earlier scientific creationists,
whose talks and antics always bore a whiff of the revival meeting. Unlike
scientific creationists, many IDers work at secular
institutions rather than at Bible schools. IDers
work, speak, and write like trained academics; they do not come off as barely
repressed evangelists. Their ranks include Phillip Johnson, the most prominent
spokesperson for ID, and a retired professor of law at the University of
California, Berkeley; Michael Behe, a professor of
biochemistry at Lehigh University; William Dembski, a
mathematician-philosopher and the director of the Center
for Theology and Science at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; and Jonathan
Wells, who has a doctorate in biology from Berkeley...�
Aside from
Coyne�s rejection of ID, his concise description of Darwinist evolution theory
is very well done and worth reading at the above site.
The Bush
administration has been guilty of altering, suppressing or overriding scientific
findings on global warming - with Katrina being one of the the probable results; missile defense; pollution from industrial farming
and oil drilling; forest management and endangered species; environmental
health; lead and mercury poisoning in children; non-abstinence methods of birth
control. It has also appointed unqualified people to scientific advisory committees
and forced out qualified ones who don�t agree with them. And the fact that Bush
said he supports ID makes many critics of the administration wary � including myself. Maybe they are using it as a disguised creationism.
But that, to me, is irrelevant in respect to whether intelligent design exists
or not. We must be wary of guilt by association. If it�s true that ID is simply masked creationism and a Christian
fundamentalist attempt to denigrate evolution, I would have to reject it. On
the other hand, if it accepts the basic idea of evolution, but considers that
there is design behind it, which of course implies a creative spiritual being
or beings, then I�m all for it. So I�ll call the fundy
version �political ID�, and my version SID (spiritual ID).
The conflict
in the
Materialist
Darwinists cannot prove that there is no intelligence behind evolution any more
than the IDers can prove that there is. The facts of
evolution are indeed observed, but what they mean, the
how and why, is interpretation of these facts, not the facts themselves. Yet
materialist scientists and laymen continue to insist that theirs is the only
possible interpretation and any other is �not science�.� Perhaps we need a return to philosophical science,
where unprejudiced thinking about the facts is permitted. The how and why � and
even the �by whom� �� is
a decision for each individual to make for him/herself. The materialists say
that Natural Selection is a fact. But it is a fact they can�t prove, because in
reality it is no more than a philosophical element of Darwinism. Therefore, if
they are free to preach NS in the classroom, why can�t teachers at least bring
to their pupils' attention that ��it ain�t necessarily
so��?
