Why intelligent design proponents are wrong.

NY Daily News ^ | 11/18/05 | Charles Krauthammer

[StatenIsland]

Why intelligent design proponents are wrong.

Because every few years this country, in its infinite tolerance, insists on hearing yet another appeal of the Scopes monkey trial, I feel obliged to point out what would otherwise be superfluous - that the two greatest scientists in the history of our species were Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, and they were both religious. Newton's religiosity was traditional. He was a staunch believer in Christianity and member of the Church of England. Einstein's was a more diffuse belief in a deity who set the rules for everything that occurs in the universe.

Neither saw science as an enemy of religion. On the contrary. "He believed he was doing God's work," wrote James Gleick in his recent biography of Newton. Einstein saw his entire vocation - understanding the workings of the universe - as an attempt to understand the mind of God.

Not a crude and willful God who pushes and pulls and does things according to whim. Newton was trying to supplant the view that first believed the sun's motion around the Earth was the work of Apollo and his chariot, and later believed it was a complicated system of cycles and epicycles, one tacked on upon the other every time some wobble in the orbit of a planet was found. Newton's God was not at all so crude. The laws of his universe were so simple, so elegant, so economical, and therefore so beautiful that they could only be divine.

Which brings us to Dover (Pa.), Pat Robertson, the Kansas State Board of Education and a fight over evolution that is so anachronistic and retrograde as to be a national embarrassment.

Dover distinguished itself this Election Day by throwing out all eight members of its school board who tried to impose "intelligent design" - today's tarted-up version of creationism - on the biology curriculum. Robertson then called down the wrath of God upon the good people of Dover for voting "God out of your city." Meanwhile in Kansas, the school board did a reverse Dover, mandating the teaching of skepticism about evolution and forcing intelligent design into the statewide biology curriculum.

Let's be clear. "Intelligent design" may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge - in this case, evolution - they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species, but that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science - that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution - or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force" that holds the atom together?

In order to justify the farce that intelligent design is science, Kansas had to corrupt the very definition of science, dropping the phrase "natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us," thus unmistakably implying - by fiat of definition, no less - that the supernatural is an integral part of science. This is an insult both to religion and to science.

The school board thinks it is indicting evolution by branding it an "unguided process" with no "discernable direction or goal." This is as ridiculous as indicting Newtonian mechanics for positing an "unguided process" by which the Earth is pulled around the sun every year without discernible purpose. What is chemistry if not an "unguided process" of molecular interactions without "purpose"? Or are we to teach children that God is behind every hydrogen atom in electrolysis?

He may be, of course. But that discussion is the province of religion, not science. The relentless attempt to confuse the two by teaching warmed-over creationism as science can only bring ridicule to religion, gratuitously discrediting a great human endeavor and our deepest source of wisdom precisely about those questions - arguably, the most important questions in life - that lie beyond the material.

How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too.

Originally published on November 18, 2005

[Noachian]

But a whole generation or more of children will have grown up scientifically ignorant because they wont understand what science is or how it works.

You're underestimating people, and the technological world we now live in.

There are too many sources for information today. We don't live in a world of small isolated villages any longer.

Anyone with a computer can find the pros and cons to any theory that may come up. What is taught in a classroom can easily be verified, or refuted.

More important is the ability of parents to control their child's education. If parents want their children to have more than one choice on a subject who are we to deny them?

Choice vs Orthodoxy makes for a competitive spirit in the classroom, and at the end of the day that's what we should want for our children.

[mlc9852]

Seems pretty clear to me humans were created AFTER plants and animals.

[Just mythoughts]

Well I understand the word Faith is about things unseen such as the Face of the Heavenly Father while in this flesh body. This earth is visible as is the human flesh body, fossils, etc. When I read Genesis it describes visual, physical, and natural lists of creation, yet planted within is the unseen positive and negative that preexisted and allowed to exist through this flesh age.

This article presents two completely different systems of belief, one based upon knowledge called science/evolution and the other based upon acknowledgment of the Creator that not only created/formed the flesh that was to house the soul, but the soul as well. Note Genesis says that the Adam was not alive until the "breath of life" which means soul was placed into him. Genesis does not tell us when that soul was created.

[MEGoody]

Why would anyone be concerned about challenges to the theory of evolution? Aren't theories supposed to be challenged and tested?

[hurly]

Then you agree that the bible is not inerrant and is flat out wrong in places?

[st.eqed]

I can understand the hostility of your rhetoric because if Genesis is a literal account for creation your world view and possibly your philosophy on afterlife will be in jeopardy.

[Just mythoughts]

"In that same inerrant Bible you quote, He also said some here today will not pass away before I return. Do we have 2000 year old Christian Jews still alive on Earth and waiting for His return? Im not saying that God made an error but whoever wrote it down and translated it over the years didnt get it all right."

Matthew 24:32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:

This is a prophetic statement and did not happen while Christ was in flesh.

33. So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

34 Verily I say unto you, THIS generation shall not pass, till alll these things be fulfilled.

The generation in which you refer to would not be around until the parable of the "FIG" tree came about.

[mlc9852]

Nope. I believe the Bible is the true, inspired Word of God.

[Dave S]

The generation in which you refer to would not be around until the parable of the "FIG" tree came about.

So convenient that you can accept that a parable but then read Genesis as pure science and not metaphor.

[Physicist]

Do you think there are really "transitional" fossils that demonstrate humans evolved from something else?

Can you honestly and carefully look at these skulls and maintain that we didn't evolve from something else?

 

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Figure 1.4.4. Fossil hominid skulls. Some of the figures have been modified for ease of comparison (only left-right mirroring or removal of a jawbone). (Images © 2000 Smithsonian Institution.)

(A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
(B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
(C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
(D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
(E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
(F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
(G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
(H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
(I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y
(J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
(K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
(L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
(M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
(N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

(Thanks, Coyoteman.)

[Dave S]

Why would anyone be concerned about challenges to the theory of evolution? Aren't theories supposed to be challenged and tested?

By collecting and analyzing scientific data, not by creating alternative theories to fit the literal wording of the Bible. The Bible is not scientific data. Its spiritual.

[mlc9852]

This has been posted how many times now? I've lost count. Unfortunately, most of them are tiny pieces found and "reconstructed" for the desired outcome. Nice try, though.

[aruanan]

"Intelligent design" may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge - in this case, evolution - they are to be filled by God.

Usually Charles is pretty good. I wonder at the degree either of ignorance or intolerance that motivated him to write the above, it being a pretty extreme distortion of both the issue as well as ID.

[unlearner]

"In that same inerrant Bible you quote, He also said some here today will not pass away before I return. Do we have 2000 year old Christian Jews still alive on Earth and waiting for His return?"

I'll answer that. First, Christ said some standing there would not taste of death until seeing the kingdom of God come with power. The next part of the narrative tells of Peter, John and James witnessing the transfiguration of Christ.

Second, other passages hint at what you are describing, namely that some disciples would not die. John in particular is named. John is also the only one of the twelve apostles whose death was not substantiated. Once he was thrown into a boiling cauldron of oil but miraculously escaped alive. It has been speculated that John is one of the two witnesses who will arrive in the last days of the world.

Third, while John's situation is speculative, there are at least two other biblical characters who did not die. Elijah is one who is specifically named as a prophet who will return before the day of the Lord. (Interestingly, Elijah is one of two prophets who appeared at the transfiguration.) My understanding is that modern Jews leave an empty place at the table during Passover to signify their anticipation of Elijah's return.

It is a circular argument (often used on this forum) to claim the miraculous is outside of the realm of science, and then claim miracles are unscientific. If the miraculous exists, how we define science has no bearing on this reality. Science is not the same as reality, and is merely concerned with how we intellectually represent what is real. In this way, science is built entirely on the foundation of philosophy and natural faith.

[MEGoody]

By collecting and analyzing scientific data, not by creating alternative theories to fit the literal wording of the Bible.

Can you state the theory of intelligent design?

[Physicist]

Unfortunately, most of them are tiny pieces found and "reconstructed" for the desired outcome. Nice try, though.

To save your world-view, it is necessary for you to reject all conflicting evidence as being fraudulent.

This is exactly how some people come to believe that O.J. Simpson is innocent.

There is nothing that could, even in principle, be shown that would make one whit of difference to you. I have hopes, though, that not everybody reading this thread will be as...unimpressionable, let's say.

But still, I can't resist asking: what if those skulls really are accurate, and somehow you accepted them? Would you have to change your opinion about the evolution of man?

[Just mythoughts]

"So convenient that you can accept that a parable but then read Genesis as pure science and not metaphor."


Christ said LEARN the parable not accept the parable, and Genesis is where one LEARNS the parable.

[mlc9852]

What would change your opinion that we descended from something other than humans?

[TravisBickle]

I have to admit that I'm not too well versed on the finer points of evolution or intelligent design. However, there doesn't seem to be a conflict in my mind about the two. Evolution describes WHAT happens and intelligent design describes WHY it happens.

[unlearner]

"So convenient that you can accept that a parable [about a fig tree] but then read Genesis as pure science and not metaphor."

The fig tree parable was both symbolic and literally true. Jesus on at least one occasion cursed a fig tree which then withered up. The Genesis account is both symbolic and literally true, as are many other accounts in the Bible.

No doubt, the Bible uses figures of speech such as simile or hyperbole, but these are recognized by the context.