Posted on 12/31/2005 12:41:23 PM PST by streetpreacher
| Darwin's Pyrrhic victory Posted: December 28, 2005
By Patrick J. Buchanan © 2005 Creators Syndicate Inc.
"Intelligent Design Derailed," exulted the headline. "By now, the Christian conservatives who once dominated the school board in Dover, Pa., ought to rue their recklessness in forcing biology classes to hear about 'intelligent design' as an alternative to the theory of evolution," declared the New York Times, which added its own caning to the Christians who dared challenge the revealed truths of Darwinian scripture. Noting that U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III is a Bush appointee, the Washington Post called his decision "a scathing opinion that criticized local school board members for lying under oath and for their 'breathtaking inanity' in trying to inject religion into science classes." But is it really game, set, match, Darwin? Have these fellows forgotten that John Scopes, the teacher in that 1925 "Monkey Trial," lost in court, and was convicted of violating Tennessee law against the teaching of evolution and fined $100? Yet Darwin went on to conquer public education, and American Civil Liberties Union atheists went on to purge Christianity and the Bible from our public schools.
The Dover defeat notwithstanding, the pendulum is clearly swinging back. Darwinism is on the defensive. For, as Tom Bethell, author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science," reminds us, there is no better way to make kids curious about "intelligent design" than to have some Neanderthal forbid its being mentioned in biology class. In ideological politics, winning by losing is textbook stuff. The Goldwater defeat of 1964, which a triumphant left said would bury the right forever, turned out to be liberalism's last hurrah. Like Marxism and Freudianism, Darwinism appears destined for the graveyard of discredited ideas, no matter the breathtaking inanity of the trial judge. In his opinion, Judge Jones the Third declared:
But if intelligent design is creationism or fundamentalism in drag, how does Judge Jones explain how that greatest of ancient thinkers, Aristotle, who died 300 years before Christ, concluded that the physical universe points directly to an unmoved First Mover? As Aristotle wrote in his "Physics": "Since everything that is in motion must be moved by something, let us suppose there is a thing in motion which was moved by something else in motion, and that by something else, and so on. But this series cannot go on to infinity, so there must be some First Mover." A man of science and reason, Aristotle used his observations of the physical universe to reach conclusions about how it came about. Where is the evidence he channeled the Torah and creation story of Genesis before positing his theory about a prime mover? Darwinism is in trouble today for the reason creationism was in trouble 80 years ago. It makes claims that are beyond the capacity of science to prove. Darwinism claims, for example, that matter evolved from non-matter – i.e., something from nothing – that life evolved from non-life; that, through natural selection, rudimentary forms evolved into more complex forms; and that men are descended from animals or apes. Now, all of this is unproven theory. And as the Darwinists have never been able to create matter out of non-matter or life out of non-life, or extract from the fossil record the "missing links" between species, what they are asking is that we accept it all on faith. And the response they are getting in the classroom and public forum is: "Prove it," and, "Where is your evidence?" And while Darwinism suggests our physical universe and its operations happened by chance and accident, intelligent design seems to comport more with what men can observe and reason to.
If, for example, we are all atop the Grand Canyon being told by a tour guide that nature, in the form of a surging river over eons of time, carved out the canyon, we might all nod in agreement. But if we ask how "Kilroy was here!" got painted on the opposite wall of the canyon, and the tour guide says the river did it, we would all howl. A retreating glacier may have created the mountain, but the glacier didn't build the cabin on top of it. Reason tells us the cabin came about through intelligent design. Darwinism is headed for the compost pile of discarded ideas because it cannot back up its claims. It must be taken on faith. It contains dogmas men may believe, but cannot stand the burden of proof, the acid of attack or the demands of science. Where science says, "No miracles allowed," Darwinism asks us to believe in miracles.
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The physical evidence is indirect and resides in the ubiquitous presence of organized matter that behaves according to predictable laws. From it science is free to undertake inquiry with the assumption it will find order throughout the universe. Without it science would have nothing to observe in the first place.
The more science progresses, the more organized it finds matter to be. Order is what intelligent design is all about. Science no more needs to prove the existence of God than it needs to prove the usefulness and necessity of language. It is simply one of the givens under which good science can take place.
BTW, Happy New Year, narby.
Actually, if you take the biblical version of creation literally, Christ was on the scene at the time and was the Creator!
What's a "Darwinist?" I would like to hear your definition.
Not bad for PB: 1 and 2 are false, 3 and 4 are true. Batting .500
"Animals or apes" although he could use an editor
"What's that got to do with evolution?
Oh you mean that original hot bowl of primordial soup that life crawled out of eons ago. Is that what you mean when you say evolution?
"Besides the fact that some Christian denominations argue against it?"
Christ Himself said there would be those who called themselves followers of His, but He would tell them to get behind Him, He never knew them. So calling oneself a follower of Christ is quite easily to check out the Savior Himself set the example and established the path. He further warn of those who would be denominating with His name attached.
Why don't you read the decision before you jump to false conclusions about what it does or doesn't say?
In any case, a) Genesis existed long before either Aristotle or Christ, try to get your chronology straight, and b) the modern "ID" movement is indeed a trojan horse for modern fundamentalism (read the trial transcripts for abundant evidence), and that doesn't change no matter how far back someone/anyone might have speculated about some supernatural being waving his magic wand and making the world.
Sorry Pat, but only lying creationists make such ignorant claims as that! Darwinism claims that through the process of natural selection, interbreeding populations gradually change as they adapt to changes in their environment.
"Animals or apes" although he could use an editor<<<<<<<<
There, contained in three words, is a complete description of the poster's total ignorance of the subject matter.
That stands to reason since ID agrees with Christian teaching. How about Aristotle? Is he a Christian, too? More to the point, what is distinctly "Christian" about the idea that organized matter may be best understood from the standpoint of intelligent design?
If there are people who are attempting to establish strictly Christian public schools, then they are misguided and should be opposed even by law, because the law prohibits favoring the establishment of any particular religion. Public schools are for everyone, including atheists, whose ideas are often valuable and whose contributions to science have been significant.
They are soooo desirous to stick to Darwin and nothing else...because we share genes with bacteria.
How does one get from "prime mover" to "creating life"?
I mean, in what way does prime-mover-ism differ from deism - the claim that God started it and has just let things run their course?
When you believe in the great pie in the sky, you can just make everything else up as you go...
The statement you quoted was in direct response to this excerpt from the judge's opinion, as quoted in the column:
"The overwhelming evidence is that [intelligent design] is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism and not a scientific theory ... It is an extension of the fundamentalists' view that one must either accept the literal interpretation of Genesis or else believe in the godless system of evolution."
So where's the "false conclusion" about what the judge said?
Do you (and Pat) believe that the old testament didn't exist before Christianity?
Judaism is also based upon ID; the teachings state that as the existence of a house implies a builder and the existence of a farm a farmer, the existence of life requires a creator.
I understand what you are trying to say, although it is incumbent upon Christians to take Christ at His Word when He says, "From the beginning God made them male and female." But narby was saying all the ID proponents he's come across have been Christian. Not that all Christians are ID proponents. Do you really believe the only people in the world who would infer intelligent design from the presence of organized matter must be Christians?
Aristotle was wrong about his prime mover.
How do you know?
Yep, the only Christian who knows the right way to think as a Christian is the one I happen to be talking to.
You do realize that the standard way to become a Christian is to declare yourself one, then make some dogmatic statements about what everyone else should be believing, regardless if it is truly Biblical, or even based on the teaching of Jesus.
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