Why intelligent design will change everything

WorldNetDaily ^ | March 25, 2006 | Lynn Barton

[SampleMan]

Last year, the intelligent design movement burst onto the national scene, causing all manner of outrage from the guardians of science and right thinking. All the major media covered this upstart idea challenging Darwinian evolution's theory of the origin of life. Everybody has been piling on, even conservative pundits like George Will and Charles Krauthammer. The cultural elites were appalled when the yahoos on the Kansas Board of Education voted to "teach the controversy" to high-school students. In Dover, Pa., a judge outlawed the mere mention of I.D. theory in school science classes. Like a fierce game of whack-a-mole, wherever I.D.'s politically incorrect head pops up, its opponents rush to smack it back down.

I am enjoying all this tremendously. What makes it so much fun to watch is that so far not one of the critics understands it. Without exception, they simply dismiss I.D. theory as nothing more than stealth religion – creationism by another name. They say that all I.D. does is insert God to explain what science has not yet figured out. While they all lose their collective minds about it, warning darkly that the fundamentalists are coming, support for I.D. theory will continue to grow because it is good science. I want to explain why, so that when you hear the intelligentsia loudly denouncing it, you, too, can have a good laugh. Even better, you will understand why intelligent design theory is going to become a major force for good in the battle to rescue our collapsing culture – because the way we think about origins affects the way we think about nearly everything. (More on that later.)

Meanwhile, the debate rages on, all the while opponents keep insisting there is no debate.

Despite its pretensions to objectivity, science has always been political. That's why scientific revolutions have often met initially with resistance and ridicule, because the old order stands to lose if the new becomes accepted. But the great thing about science is that eventually the weight of evidence breaks through. Think Galileo (opposed not only by the church but by fellow academics), or Lister (ridiculed for disinfecting surgical rooms to prevent infection), or the Wright Brothers (man will never fly). So all this hand wringing about intelligent design is a good sign that the revolution is under way. The old order is being challenged, and they are freaking out.

I.D. not religion

First, what I.D. theory is not: It is not creationism. Full disclosure here: I am a creationist. As a Christian, I believe God is the author of life. But I.D. theory is a science-driven enterprise. It is not a deduction from Scripture but an inference from observation. It says that the intricate design found in living things and in the universe itself is best explained by an intelligent cause. Darwinism, on the other hand, says that undirected natural processes led life to arise spontaneously; then evolution by natural selection (survival of the fittest) resulted in living things that appear to be designed, but really aren't. The question boils down to this: When considered objectively, where does the evidence actually lead?

Drawing heavily on Nancy Pearcey's great apologetic book "Total Truth," I'm going to focus on two of the most powerful arguments for intelligent design. Her book contains many more. I wish every Christian (and every thinking person) would read her masterful defense of Christianity as total truth about all of reality. But just reading this column will make you far more knowledgeable about I.D. than nearly all of its opponents.

It's true that by far the dominant theory of origins is the evolutionary one. It goes something like this: It all began billions of years ago in some sort of chemical soup (a "warm little pond," as Darwin put it) which, when zapped with an energy source, led to the chance formation of amino acids. These acids somehow self-organized into proteins and then morphed into the first living cell. All living things descended from that first cell, evolving from simple into increasingly complex organisms, all the way up to man.

Just one problem

In Darwin's time this was easier to imagine, because it was thought that cells were mere blobs of protoplasm. It fit in nicely with his idea that life could have first appeared as a simple cell. There's just one problem. We now know that there is no such thing as a "simple" cell. Recent advances in microbiology have demonstrated that the cell is literally a miniature factory town, with its own chemical library containing blueprints that are copied and transported to molecular assembly lines that manufacture everything the cell needs. Nancy Pearcey compares it to "… a large and complex model train layout, with tracks crisscrossing everywhere, its switches and signals perfectly timed so that no trains collide and the cargo reaches its destination precisely when needed."

Just one cell is vastly more complex than anything ever created by human engineering. And your body contains 300 trillion of them, each one "knowing" exactly what it is supposed to do within itself and in relation to all the other cells.

Microbiologist Michael Behe has coined the term "irreducible complexity" to describe this. That is, the cell consists of coordinated, interlocking parts that must all be in place simultaneously, or it won't function at all. You can't improve the cell through one random mutation at a time because if you change any one aspect, the whole thing will crash. For evolutionary change to occur, every single piece of its Rube Goldberg-like factory would have to mutate at exactly the same time, and each single mutation would have to be beneficial, or the cell would just die.

Darwin himself understood what today's evolutionists refuse to admit:

"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."

That is exactly what Behe has done. As Pearcey puts it:

"An aggregate structure, like a pile of sand, can be built up gradually by simply adding a piece at a time. ... By contrast, an organized structure, like the inside of a computer, is built up according to a pre-existing blueprint."

Since living systems are organized wholes, they had to have been put together in the first place by a pre-existing design.

Darwinists cannot explain irreducible complexity. They keep saying that it poses no problem for evolution, as if repetition would make it so. They insist that just because we don't yet understand how evolution can work in light of this doesn't mean that we won't figure it out eventually. But they will never figure it out, because irreducible complexity makes evolutionary change at the cellular level logically impossible.

(Note: Natural selection clearly occurs within species as an adaptive mechanism. I.D. theory does not deny or even address this, nor does it address the question of whether natural selection could lead to the development of entirely new species. I.D. theory is concerned with the origin of life only.)

Not by chance

Even more powerful evidence comes from the genetic code. DNA is a kind of language consisting of four chemical "letters" that combine into an astonishing variety of sequences to spell out a message. It contains a mind-boggling amount of information. Where did it come from?

Darwinists say that DNA resulted from chance mutations operated on by natural selection. Really? As theologian Norm Geisler quipped:

"If you came into the kitchen and saw the alphabet cereal spilled out on the table, and it spelled out your name and address, would you think the cat knocked the cereal box over?"

In fact, chance events tend to scramble information, like typos in a page of text. Even if some kind of more complex molecule somehow did appear in the supposed chemical soup, the same random processes that produced it would continue to insert "typos," soon scrambling any coherent message that might have occurred. Again, it's not that we don't yet understand how chance could create complex information; it's that in principle this cannot happen.

Nor by physical law

If chance cannot do it, perhaps some yet-undiscovered physical law can. That's what scientists excited about complexity theory are hoping. They are studying self-organizing structures like snowflakes and crystals, searching for clues to how similar natural processes might also give rise to the complex information found in DNA. But they won't find any.

That prediction stems not from ignorance or hubris, but from the nature of physical laws, which by definition are regular and repeatable. Those properties enable the brilliant engineering students at MIT to enjoy shoving a piano off seven story high Baker House roof every year. They know that gravity makes things fall, every time.

But the information found in DNA is quite different. When you decode one section it tells you nothing about what comes next. The letters are free to combine into an unimaginably vast quantity of information. By contrast, the physical laws being explored in complexity theory are simple instructions, able to create complex patterns but not much information – certainly not enough to account for the fact that each cell in your body contains more information than the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.

This is not at all like saying man will never fly because God didn't give him wings. It's not that I.D. theorists can't imagine how a physical law could create information. It's because in principle, law-like processes cannot generate complex information. Some things really are impossible.

Information, information, information

It turns out that life is not primarily about matter, but information. Commenting on the failed attempts to create life in the lab, astrophysicist Paul Davies writes:

"Trying to make life by mixing chemicals in a test tube is like soldering switches and wires in an attempt to produce Windows 98. It won't work because it addresses the problem at the wrong conceptual level."

Common sense tells us that information does not occur without an intelligence to organize it, any more than the hardware of a computer can create its own software. Even scientists know this. Otherwise, how could SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) researchers ever hope to distinguish between radio signals generated by some natural process and those sent from the hoped-for aliens? Again, we see that the most plausible explanation for the information in DNA is an Intelligent Designer put it there.

But for Christians, we knew that, didn't we? "In the beginning was the Word (Logos)." Behind everything is the Logic, the Wisdom, the Intelligence of God.

Darwin's irony: cultural devolution

Currently, only a minority of scientists holds to intelligent design theory, but the number is growing. To date, over 400 scientists have signed a document entitled "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism." Many of these scientists are not Christian, and some are outright hostile to it, which is further evidence that I.D. is not religion. A scientific revolution is just beginning, but almost nobody recognizes it, least of all its opponents.

And not a moment too soon, since evolutionary theory did not stay in the scientific realm but oozed into all the sciences, the liberal arts and out into culture, with horribly destructive results. The biblical view of man as a spiritual being created in God's image has been replaced by the view that man is nothing more than a highly evolved animal struggling to survive in a meaningless universe. Scratch any social ill and you will find Darwinism underneath.

One of the worst consequences has been the devaluation of human life. It is no exaggeration to say that Darwinism has led to the killing of untold millions of human beings. To highlight just a few examples: eugenics (philosophical Darwinism) inspired Margaret Sanger to found Planned Parenthood and the pro-abortion movement. Eugenics helped Hitler convince an entire country to follow him in his attempt to wipe out the "inferior" Jews, not to mention the toll in blood it took to stop him. These days Peter Singer, a Princeton professor of bioethics, advocates that parents be allowed to dispatch their imperfect infants up to 30 days after birth. The misguided "right to die" movement is rapidly becoming the "right to kill" movement, as last year we watched severely disabled (but not dying) Terri Schiavo starve to death by court order, while a large portion of the country approved of it. Meanwhile, more than a million babies continue to be aborted every year. None of these horrors could have occurred in a culture that understood each human life to be a unique creation of God, stamped with his image.

Darwinism is also behind the sexual revolution (just doing what comes naturally), radical feminism, family breakdown and normalization of homosexuality (gender roles are social constructs we can discard as we "evolve" as a society). Darwinism removed the foundation for a transcendent moral Truth that stands outside of our personal preference. Now we make it up as we go, "re-imagining" everything. Even many Christians consider their faith to be purely personal. It's "true for me, but maybe not for you." No wonder assertions that Jesus is the only way to God meet with such outrage. And why so-called progressives are deeply offended when Christians try to bring into the public square what they view as nothing more than our particular rabbit's foot. Rejection of God is the root cause of our cultural degradation, but Darwinism has been its indispensable support, giving intellectual cover for all the evil we want to do.

Reversing the damage

But intelligent design is on the move, and this is a great gift to everyone, especially Christians. It's only a matter of time before it becomes accepted as a legitimate competing theory of origins, and as it does it will unleash enormous changes for good, not only in science but all of culture – because if people understand that there is (or at least could be) a Designer, then we can once more ask, what is the purpose of that design? What are things for?

For example, conservatives and Christians are having a difficult time making the case against homosexual marriage. Thousands of years of exclusively heterosexual marriage mean nothing to those with a Darwinist worldview. Why, they are far more evolved than those benighted cultures in the misty past. To them, tradition is oppressive; destroying it is progress. Why shouldn't people be able to "love" whomever they want? How will it hurt your marriage?

The truth is that homosexual marriage is wrong because it violates God's design and purpose for us, with inevitably negative consequences. But for an exercise in frustration, just try to discuss design with someone steeped in the evolutionary mindset. Point out the functional biological differences between male and female, and they will dodge, deny or change the subject. Press the issue, and they will become angry at your attempt to "impose" your personal values. What they will never do is engage the substance of your argument. They can't. Their worldview will not allow them to admit the obvious.

Multiple research studies documenting the need that children have for a mom and a dad are probably the best defense we've got, but in a nation full of divorced or never married single parents, and with a media quick to promote "gay" families, it's a tough slog. So far, a majority of the public opposes homosexual marriage, but it's mostly instinctive and traditional. People say things like, "I wasn't raised that way." But younger generations, raised on books like "Heather Has Two Mommies" and subjected to Darwinist dogma throughout their schooling, have no tradition left to hold them. And any common-sense instinct they might have to resist faces an incessant cultural onslaught that brands such thoughts as hateful prejudice.

For the older generations, watching defenders of marriage viciously attacked in the press is very confusing. Having never reasoned out something so basic as marriage, they, too, will begin to doubt themselves. Unless something dramatic changes, public opposition will eventually crumble, and we will see the destruction of marriage as one more nail in the cultural coffin we are building for ourselves.

[SampleMan]

In particular, why is a giraffe's fifteen feet longer than seems necessary?

If it were any shorter, it wouldn't reach all the way to its head. Really now, give me a tougher one.

I've been told its longer because longer necks give dominance in male mating. I've also been told its because it provides access to higher browsing. Both would appear to be logical reasons that natural selection would lead to longer necked giraffes, and we must all agree that the long neck hasn't proven too much of a hinderance, as the animals are doing just fine. My only point is that the reason for the long neck could be only one of them, and the other is just a side benefit. I'll get really crazy here and say it could have been a mutation that could be coped with.

What is it that YOU think I'm guilty of? I can't keep all the accusations straight any more.

[Elsie]

 

 

Finally, I must admit.....

Evolution is TRUE!!!

NIV John 3:3-7
 3.  In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. "
 4.  "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"
 5.  Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.
 6.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
 7.  You should not be surprised at my saying, `You must be born again.'

[Stultis]

But, as a matter of fact, Nazism was hardly a novelty; Nazism was an anachronism. That's what was so remarkable about Nazism.

I don't agree. I see Nazism, and Fascism generally, as a thoroughly modern movement, as basically a reaction (as was socialism) to the successes of, and perceived threats posed by, liberalism coming out of the 19th Century.

Of course I mean "liberalism" here in the sense it was used back in the 19th Century, and in the 20th prior to the 1950s. I.e. "classical" liberalism; that is the modern conception of the proper organization of the state and of society including principles such as individualism, individual rights, limited government, the rule of law, free markets, and so on. Fascism was, quite explicitly and consciously btw, an attempt to undo the huge evolutionary changes that liberalism had effected in the modern world.

Of course the goals were all regressive and "anachronistic"; an attempt to return to the past, or at least an imagined past. But the movement itself could only exist as a reaction to liberalism.

[Ken H]

Let me get this straight. I posted an article that said that Hitler used eugenics to bolster the premise of the master race, so you thought a brilliant counter point would be to say that Hitler was a Christian?

Once again, I am forced to correct you. I posted the "Hitler professes Christianity" post in response to this slimy piece of drivel in post #72, which you falsely accused me of attributing to you:

The religion of Darwin, Nietzsche, and Haeckel became the religion of Hitler and his Nazi gang. The result was 11 million dead in their attempt to produce the Aryan super race and a victorious Germany. World War II was the most violent form of evolutionism ever seen.

As for it being a "brilliant" counterpoint-- well, I wouldn't make that claim, but if someone else does, who am I to say them nay?

[andysandmikesmom]

So, what would you call Darwin?...a Naturalist?...what do you think should be the correct title for Darwin and why?...

And what recent evidence do you propose shows that one should not support evolution?...

I have seen a lot of garbage, and odd musings, and error filled posts which claim to have recent evidence that does away with evolution, but upon further inspection, by many knowledgeable posters on this very forum, those claims have been debunked...perhaps you have some new evidence, which debunks evolution...I am not scientifically up to the challenge, but I know that there are many on FR, who would be well able to discuss this...

[Thatcherite]

...if something is declared to be extinct, doesnt that mean that the population of that species is thought to be extinct, but doesnt that also concede that its possible that a few surviving members of that species may still exist somewhere?...or am I greatly mistaken....bear with me, I am still learning...

I think you give me too much credit, I'm just a year or two ahead of you on the self-taught curve. :)

When a species is thought to be extinct the theoretical possibility always exists that surviving members might be somewhere. But it would be highly surprising to find that an 80 million year old fossil species hadn't evolved in the meantime. Not impossible, but unexpected. That didn't occur in this case; as we would expect the modern coelacanth species differ significantly from their fossil forebears. A taxonomic family thought to be extinct turns out to have a few surviving species, remnant twigs of a family that in the distant past was diverse and common. Try doing a google search for “coelacanth creation" and be amazed at the volume of ignorance pumped out on this subject.

[Conservative Texan Mom]

The ongoing debate over Intelligent Design makes an interesting topic for a thesis.

I AM WRITING IN CAPITALS TO GET AS MUCH ATTENTION AS POSSIBLE SO THAT I WILL HAVE MORE RESPONSES TO THE QUESTIONS THAT FOLLOW MY OBSERVATION. BOTH EVO"S AND CREATIONIST ARE EQUALLY ENCOURAGED TO REPLY.

My observation to date. Scientist object to ID because they say it's hypothesis are "untestable" as defined by the scientific community.
They view it as resorting to "someone else did it". Which is an unacceptable answer in their ideology.

Dissenting scientist have come up with testable hypothesis, to which scientist then return to their laboratories to test until they can disprove. Once they have they declare that the evidence for ID is false.

Dissenting scientist then claim that due to statistical probabilities it is not false.

Then the mathematicians began calculating until they can say, "You did the math wrong." However, the mathematicians are not able to arrive at the same answer, but that's okay because all of them did arrive at an answer that suggested the evidence to disprove was possible.

Once again, dissenting mathematicians come up with different answers that show the likelihood of the organized occurrence is statistically possible. But, since their math is "wrong" according to the other mathematicians, it doesn't count.

So, once again scientist say that ID can not come up with one testable hypothesis that they can't disprove, and dissenting scientist claim that they have, and it has not been disproved.

So it simple terms it boils down to:
Who is the Designer. A question that supposedly can have no testable hypothesis.

Where did it all come from? A question that can be "tested" until it gets to a place where it is "untestable".

Leaving both ideologies in the same boat, and us left to battle it out by our wits. To which I have made this observation.

The main principle's of Conservative Texan Mom's theory of the evolution of wits


1.Conservative NeoDarwinist show a tremendous range of variation of wits
2.Conservative Creationist, old, young, and middle-aged, show a similar range of variation of wits.
3.All wits are engaged in a struggle for existence

Now here are some questions to ponder.

When scientist continue tests until they have favorable conditions to produce positive results. I know, all the conditions are found in nature. There is still a scientist working within the laboratory to create the conditions. Is this taken into account, and could it be called the ID factor, since an intelligent source is creating the conditions? Even if these conditions can be found in nature, who is to say that scientist are not merely reproducing a smaller version of a previously performed experiment, and verifying it's results?


When scientist come up with a result that "disproves" a theory, do they take into account the statistical likelihood of all things coming together they way they do as a result of purpose, or chance. Or, is this not considered because they have their "possibility under the right conditions" evidence and therefore have disproved the theory.

Why is it that when a hypothesis is not provable it is discounted as invalid. Perhaps we lack the means with which to prove. One hundred years ago, if someone suggested that we might have instructions within our cells that determine how we are made, would they have been ridiculed because it was not "testable" since we lacked the means in which to do so?

Further more, AND THIS IS NOT MY BELIEF, it is merely a hypothesis that I am wondering whether or not has the possibility for testing. If space aliens did do it, and we developed the technology to go there and learn the science by which they did it, what would we call this? And is it theoretically testable?

Is science's main objection regarding ID that if it is considered to have as much merit as "it just happened" then it will have to be taken into equal consideration when evaluating other aspects of evolution that evolution has trouble explaining, even though evolution would deny such trouble exists?

In such an event that they are regarded as equals, how will Occam's razor be applied?

And to top it off

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts - i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy - are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It's like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset."
C.S. Lewis

[Junior_G]

When the evolutionists pile on that's when the thread deteriorates. They get down right NASTY.

These debates got nastier when the creationists started pushing to have ID taught in public schools as science.

[andysandmikesmom]

Thanks...yes, being self taught, can be a challenge, but quite an enjoyable one at that...I thank you for the explanation, it makes perfect sense...Now I understand it better, this matter of extinction...

Thanks for that link...I will check it as soon as possible..ah, so many links, so little time...

[Virginia-American]

You're missing the point. The RLN starts in the brain stem, goes down into the chest, loops around the aorta, and comes back up to the throat. The superior laryngeal nerve goes from the brainstem to the throat directly. Why is this?

From one of the links in the post I linked to:

The left recurrent laryngeal nerve has a long course which extends down into the chest and loops under the arch of the aorta to return to the larynx.

The right recurrent laryngeal nerve is shorter and loops around the subclavian artery.

Thus, the left nerve is more susceptible to disease than the right.

This strikes me as very bizarre engineering. Why can't it just go in a more or less straight shot?

[AntiGuv]

We don't actually disagree, so far as I can tell. I don't dispute in the slightest that Nazism was reactionary and its shape & form thereby contingent on classical liberalism. What I mean is that the concepts and objectives of Nazism - in particular those that might be described as "eugenics" - were not novelties. The arrangement and expression was 'novel' only to the extent that it was influenced by the comparative stage of technology.

[ahayes]

"My laryngeal nerve is tied in knots" Placemarker

[Thatcherite]

While he made observations and reached some conclusions, that doesn't make him a scientist.

But that isn't all he did. For example he formed a hypothesis about atoll formation and conducted tests during the Beagle's voyage to confirm or deny his hypothesis. More famously he made numerous testable predictions about what might result from further investigation of the living world and the fossil record. Uncannily those predictions have come true. Successful predictions are the essence of scientific endeavour. If he wasn't doing science then he was the luckiest guesser who ever lived.

[SampleMan]

Hey don't forget, you owe me a testable prediction from ID or an admission it isn't scientific

I'm not sure its scientific, because I'm not a biologist, so I can't vouch for the issues of cell mechanics. Thought I gave you a test that sounded reasonable though. You obviously don't think it sufficient. I'm shocked. OK, not really, but I was dissappointed that you didn't explain why. Right Wing Professor had a good post disagreeing with ID.

If I don't confess, is it the thumbscrews? I hate thumbscrews. OK, I am not now, nor have I ever been a proponent of ID. Although I do admit to reading and even posting articles on DNA and ID. I mistakenly took this to be a discussion forum.

Posted the article hoping to get some intelligent comments. Doesn't seem to have worked too well (from either side). Half the posters are preparing witch trials, the other half are convinced that I'm committing perjury. I think the problem is that I'm not denouncing it. Is that the problem? But if I'm not smart enough to confirm it, why would I be smart enough to denounce it?

I think my next post will be on "How to Kill Puppies With a Stapler", because I'm looking forward to a slightly less hostile reaction.

[andysandmikesmom]

Again, thanks for what you know, and sharing it...

[Thatcherite]

"Killing puppies with a stapler" placemarker. 8^))

[SampleMan]

Don't know. What's your answer? I would only guess its because there was a mutation and the result was something that didn't harm the animal.

Please forgive me for not reading and remembering your linked posts, but I've gotten about 300 posts today.

Sounds interesting though. Give me the post # and I'll go back and read it when I can.

[ahayes]

Attempting to break down a eukaryotic cell to its components is not a reasonable test because the eukaryotic cells of the present are highly derived and don't resemble the original cell at all. Prokaryotes are simpler, but even they have many properties that were not present in the first cell.

[Thatcherite]

Don't know. What's your answer? I would only guess its because there was a mutation and the result was something that didn't harm the animal.

My guess is that this results from evolution's lack of look-ahead. The design looks dumb now, but it was reached via a set of intermediates that made sense (indeed may have been the only intermediates that would work). Kind of like the inverted retina in vertebrates. It doesn't make sense as a finished design, but it makes perfect sense when you look back through the evolutionary pathway.

[SampleMan]

I've now evolved beyond you.