Intelligent Design?

Intelligent Design?
By Jack Kinsella

Note: Originally Written in 2005 but still very relevant in the evolution debate.

President Bush is under fire from the humanist scientific community for proposing that schools teach the theory of ‘intelligent design’ alongside Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Speaking with reporters in Texas recently, he answered a question about the teaching of “intelligent design” as an alternative to evolution by saying it was something school districts should decide. However, he said he thought both should be taught in science classes “so people can understand what the debate is about.”

Bush’s statement raised the ire of editorialists around the country. Wrote the Middleton, NY Times Herald-Record;

“Debate? There is no serious debate in the scientific community on the validity of evolution. It is an important scientifically verified concept of the way life has developed on our planet. Generations of scientists have added to the vast store of empirical knowledge of how we got where we are since Darwin first posited his theory.”

Can that be true? That there is no serious debate in the scientific community on the validity of evolution? Then why is it in the news in the first place?

According to the editorialist, “Intelligent design is really just creationism dressed up with a new name and a new approach to trying to get it taught in public schools. That approach, in essence, is to pretend that there is a serious scientific debate on the merits of evolution versus intelligent design.”

Let’s revisit that last paragraph again. First, ‘intelligent design’ is not ‘creationism’. ‘Creationism’ is the belief that the Sovereign God as He is identified in the Book of Genesis created the universe, the earth, man, trees, animals, water, light, air, and every thing else in creation that was created, and that He did it in six literal days, resting on the seventh. THAT is creationism.

‘Intelligent Design’ is the belief that the universe, in its complexity and attention to detail, could not have come about by a series of random coincidences and therefore, is the product of an unidentified Intelligence.

The debate (yes, Middleton, there IS a debate) has grown more intense as science has begun to unlock the secrets of the genome and realized that genes are really micro supercomputers.

‘Intelligent design’ does not identify the Designer, ignores the Bible, imposes no moral or religious accountability, and allows for any and all religious worldviews. It is NOT creationism, or anything approaching creationism.

There is room in the Intelligent Design theory for the Designer to be anyone from a Creator God to space aliens from the Planet Zenon.

Writes our editorialist, “Many scientists believe that, while Darwin’s theory of natural selection explains much about the development of life, it does not necessarily provide all the answers on the origin of life. Like nonscientists, they have their own theories, but these are philosophical or religious beliefs that differ from one another and, critically, from a scientific viewpoint, cannot be empirically proven.”

Sez you. Critically, from a scientific viewpoint, natural selection cannot be empirically proven. Indeed, for evolution to be correct, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, the provable observation that all things eventually decay and break down with age, would have to be thrown out the window.

Let’s look at it this way. A living things live, die, decay and revert back to dust. This can be empirically proved — there is no debate. The theory of evolution argues that, add a few million years, the process reverses itself.

Since nothing can be empirically observed over a few million years, and since the passage of a few million years cannot be recreated in a laboratory, there is absolutely no empirical evidence for evolution.

Both the evolutionist and the proponents of Intelligent Design are left with the same scientific conundrum. Evolution takes on faith that its theory is correct, based entirely on what we observe today and theorize backwards to its origin.

Intelligent Design does exactly the same thing.

The evolutionist theorizes that all that exists came into existence as the byproduct of random chance that cannot be examined, recreated or observed under laboratory conditions. Intelligent Design proponents look at the same evidences and say random chance cannot explain it.

But, unlike evolution, Intelligent Design CAN be empirically proved. It CAN be recreated in a laboratory. It is not only possible, it is fact. Geneticists can manipulate genes to ‘create’ a different creature, in effect, ‘designing’ something altogether new.

The same evolutionists who decry intelligent design also decry efforts to impose ethical standards on scientific breakthroughs on cloning. And if cloning isn’t empirical evidence of intelligent design, then what would be?

Sniffs the editorialist, “But the validity of evolution is regarded as a subject for scientific debate pretty much only by believers in creationism, which is to say, intelligent design. Science attempts to explain what can be observed, not the more elusive questions, such as why any of it matters. One belongs in school, the other at home or in places of worship.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Assessment

Intelligent design is not based on religion. It is based on scientific observations based on empirical evidence, not religious texts.

The theory proposes that some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause as opposed to an undirected process such as natural selection. Although controversial, design theory is supported by a growing number of scientists in scientific journals, conference proceedings, and books.

While intelligent design may have religious implications (just like Darwin’s theory), it does not start from religious premises. Its best-known exponent was English theologian William Paley, creator of the famous watchmaker analogy.

If we find a pocket watch in a field, Paley wrote in 1802, we immediately infer that it was produced not by natural processes acting blindly but by a designing human intellect.

Scientists use the term “black box” for a system whose inner workings are unknown. To Charles Darwin and his contemporaries, the living cell was a black box because its fundamental mechanisms were completely obscure.

We now know that, far from being formed from a kind of simple, uniform protoplasm (as many nineteenth-century scientists believed), every living cell contains many ultra sophisticated molecular machines.

Darwin himself set the standard when he acknowledged, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”

The complexity of the human genome, by Darwin’s own standards, totally collapses the possibility of random chance.

There is a project called ‘SETI’ or, the ‘Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence’ that spends millions each year scanning the universe for radio signals that would suggest they were transmitted by some extra-terrestrial intelligence.

Outer space is filled with random radio waves, all of which are random and without coherence. SETI is looking for coherent signals. Since there is nothing in the laws of physics that requires radio signals to take one form or another, a coherent series of signals would indicate intelligence.

Intelligence leaves behind a characteristic trademark or ‘signature’. That signature is found where a complexity is contingent and therefore not necessary.

For example, a piece of wood is a piece of wood. That is all that is necessary for it to be a piece of wood. Add a metal bar and a few springs and our piece of wood becomes a mousetrap. Specific complexity designed to a purpose not necessary to existence of its component parts. Do you follow?

Scientifically, something’s complexity is related to how easy it is to repeat it by chance. Evolution ignores the evidence of intelligence in the design of the universe, because it imposes its theory after the fact.

Consider a guy who shoots arrows into a wall at random, and then paints targets around them, painting the bullseye around each arrow. That is how random chance theory works.

They start with the fact that there are men and there are monkeys. They seem to be related. From there, evolution paints bullseyes around random chance theory that seemingly explains the origins of both.

To make it work, monkeys had to at one time evolved from fish. Somehow, all this evolution occurred without leaving a single example a transitional lifeform somewhere along the line between fish and monkeys.

Now, consider a guy who takes existing targets and then, aiming carefully, shoots arrows into the bullseye. Each bullseye is hit by design. That is how Intelligent Design works.

Since the signature of intelligence is scientifically observable in everything from our genetic code to the fact that apple trees grow apples and we just so happen to eat apples, the theory of Intelligent Design is empirically demonstrable, and therefore scientific.

Personally, I am a strict Creationist, which, by definition, means I agree with the ID theory, to the limited degree I believe God designed the universe and that God is an intelligent Being.

But Intelligent Design is NOT Creationism. It is not religious. It does not impose worship of any deity. It doesn’t even impose a deity at all. There is room in the Intelligent Design theory, as I noted, for space aliens from the Planet Zenon.

Evolution is a religion. It is the religion of secular humanism, which worships man as god. That secular humanism is a religion is a matter of settled law.

In the case Torcaso v. Watkins, the U.S. Supreme Court stated, Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others.

Intelligent design is decried by the humanist as a religious belief rather than science, because it is a threat to his faith. It takes more faith to accept random theory as fact that it does to come to Jesus, (since humanism doesn’t include a call from the Holy Spirit).

For ID theory to be acceptable, the humanist must first abandon his faith in man as the supreme being, since, by definition, if the universe was designed by an intelligence, it is superior to man.

And if there IS an Intelligent Designer, it at least opens the scientific possibility that there is Divine accountability. Nothing slams the door shut tighter on a secular humanist’s mind than accountability to some Supreme Authority.

Even a secular humanist knows in his heart, that if there is an accounting to be given for the deeds of this life, he will fall short of the mark, even if he doesn’t know where that mark is. We are created that way.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) Consciousness of sin is as built-in to our genetic makeup as the color of our eyes.

Even the humanist will admit to having a conscience. What else is that but consciousness of sin? And if there is consciousness of sin, then sin must exist. And if sin exists, then accountability again comes into play.

If man is accountable to a Higher Authority, then the basic tenet of the humanist faith is shattered. Suddenly, abortion, homosexuality, promiscuity and so forth must be viewed in a new light. ID theory is not religious, but its validity means the destruction of secular humanism.

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.” (Romans 1:22-25)

The propaganda campaign against ID Theory is already kicking into high gear, with the ACLU sharpening their pencils, and the secular media digging out experts to make the case the ID Theory is some Creationist conspiracy to impose religion over science.

But the religion actually being imposed here is evolution, not Christianity. The rest is propaganda.

Original Article