Why Are Darwinists So Afraid of Intelligent Design?

Darwinists must be an endangered species. How else to explain their 80-year need for court protection to ensure their survival?

In 1925, an ACLU-driven defense team in the Scopes-Monkey Trial wanted a court to declare that laws forbidding the teaching of evolution were unconstitutional. In recent weeks, in a courtroom in Dover, Pa., the same organization applauded a judge’s ruling that the teaching of ideas contrary to evolution, in this case Intelligent Design, were unconstitutional.

The same ACLU that once advocated for free and open discussion in schools is working to see it stifled today.

Its website boasts, “Intelligent Design is a religious view, not a scientific theory, according to U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III in his historic decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover. The decision is a victory not only for the ACLU, who led the legal challenge, but for all who believe it is inappropriate, and unconstitutional, to advance a particular religious belief at the expense of our children's education.”

Science involves observing nature and producing hypotheses which explain the data -- and of discrediting theories which don’t fit new observations. Having judges decide what constitutes science is as nonsensical as scientists issuing judicial decisions.

And the irreligious left, perpetually misusing the First Amendment, can’t identify which religion is being established. Is it that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses or of Catholicism? Perhaps Mormonism or Orthodox Judaism? Among many others, these disparate faiths all claim as canon the book of Genesis, where the religious version of creation is found.

But ironically, while no particular religion is being promoted by the teaching of Intelligent Design, there’s a belief system, which has established “churches” in several states, that is being favored by ACLU-- and court-imposed censorship: atheism, whose worldview promotes moral relativism and secular humanism.

The left maintains that Intelligent Design is merely creationism -- a literal reading of the Bible’s account of creation -- camouflaged in scientific language. But even a casual perusal of ID demonstrates there is no dependence on Genesis for any of its arguments, nor does it teach any biblical doctrine. It merely demands an examination of the evidence -- or lack thereof -- that uncountable species arose from primordial soup, or that they evolved over time from one to another.

To support Darwin’s theory, the earth should be teeming with myriad transitional specimens, but they are noteworthy, despite incessant extrapolation, only by their absence.

Other modern observations are daunting for Darwinists: digital information -- universally a mark of design -- in the genetic code and irreducibly complex structures such as miniature molecular machines within the cell which Darwin could hardly begin to imagine. Using the eye as an example, he coined the phrase, “organs of extreme perfection and complication” and recognized his theory’s inability to explain them. New discoveries only exacerbate these shortcomings.

And despite frequent references to “organic chemicals” present on the formative earth, neither Darwin nor modern scientists can demonstrate how to get from these compounds to just a single-cell living organism, or even a virus -- let alone the complex life forms. The search for that initial “spark” of life, or an explanation of why it is no longer in evidence, has been forever elusive.

Ironically, the scientific community, which anxiously tries to find evidence of other intelligent life in the universe, blatantly turns its back on the one intelligence we have the most indication of: a creator; a master chemist for whom the DNA code -- a puzzle which even our terrestrial species is just starting to grasp -- is a simple blueprint.

Even though ID relies not at all on the Bible, it does leave open the conclusion that the designer is the biblical God and this implication of God is what the Darwinists seem to fear.

So there may yet be hope for these folks since the Psalmist says, “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.” Let’s hope they eventually wise up.

"This has been swatted down so many times that I'm surprised that even the most stalwart creationists still try to advance it."

What the atheist and humanist Darwinists don't understand is that the Truth can't be "swatted down"; it can't be burried under a lie, it simply resurrects itself.

On the other hand you have the Darwinists, who have engaged in elaborate hoaxes to "prove" their beloved theory, so Darwinism too has been swatted down repeatedly. But because Darwinism can't be proven and must lie to establish itself, it swats itself down. So I give the Devil his due, he puts up a relentless fight. But his fight is not eternal, and it's not representative of the truth, so it will die by its own hand; it's just a matter of when.

Even in Darwin's own day, his fellow scientists, (many of them world renowned to this day), greatly opposed his silly theory.

Sir John Herschel, famous mathematician, astronomer and Fellow of the Royal Society, disliked Darwin’s theory so much that he called it ‘the law of higgledy-piggletly'.

The physicist James Clerk Maxwell strenuously opposed Darwinism.

Renowned science philosopher William Whewell, author of the classic "The History of Inductive Sciences", wouldn’t even let Darwin’s book into the Cambridge library.

Adam Sedgwick the geologist who taught Darwin the elements of field geology, and Andrew Murray the entomologist, stood firmly against Darwin’s theory. Sedgwick even wrote to Darwin after he read his book, telling him, ‘I have read your book with more pain than pleasure. Parts of it I admired greatly, parts I laughed at till my sides were almost sore; other parts I read with absolute sorrow, because I think them utterly false and grievously mischievous.’

Richard Owen, (who coined the word 'dinosaur'), was the Superintendent of the Natural History Department of the British Museum. Owen opposed Darwin’s work so much that in 1863, Darwin wrote to fellow evolutionist Huxley saying how upset he was with Owen’s criticism: ‘I am burning with indignation … I could not get to sleep until past three last night for indigestion.’ Later on, Darwin again expressed his feelings about Owen to his friend Hooker: ‘I believe I hate him more than you do.’

Louis Pasteur (who pioneered immunization, developed the Law of Biogenesis — life comes only from life, the fundamental law of biology — and has often been called the greatest scientist of the 19th century), and Louis Agassiz, the founder of modern glacial geology, were both strenuously opposed to Darwin’s theory.

Karl Marx eagerly embraced Darwin's theory to help foster Communism, which in order to flourish must first suppress the Christian faith. I believe it was in the 1950's that the Federal Government was persuaded to place textbooks containing Darwin's theory into American public schools. Darwinism has been nothing but an anti-Christian agenda since Darwin first puked it out.

[Don't pretend I haven't. I have earned the right to generalize about my findings]

You don't have the right to do that when the topic of discussion is precisely opposed to your generality.

Really? How so?

[Incorrect. What the IDers are left with after their few falsifiable claims have been thrown out (because they *have* been falsified) is indeed unfalsifiable.]

Pshaw. You cannot have missed the logical contradiction in your claim.

There's no contradiction, for the reasons I already described.

It's either possible to formulate falsifiable hypotheses for ID, or it's not. You say it's possible. The rest of your statement is, therefore, bluster.

You are yet again missing the point. It is possible to formulate falsifiable hypotheses for "ID" (using the phrase "ID" in the broad sense), when those hypotheses are very specific and narrowly defined. (That's not just for "ID" -- hypotheses in general must be narrow and specific in order to be properly testable and falsifiable).

*HOWEVER*, "ID" in the way it's usually meant by "ID proponents" is neither specific nor narrow. It's the nonspecific, broad postulate that "design" was "somehow" involved in making life and/or other aspects of the Universe. Some IDers also claim that it's possible to make an "ID filter" which can objectively "detect design". Neither belief is specific or narrow enough to be testable or falsifiable.

As I have *previously* pointed out to you *more than once* now:

Instead, as we are quite clear to anyone with working reading comprehension (admittedly, this leaves out a lot of "IDers"), is that the "Intelligent Design postulate" (as held by the Intelligent Design movement) which hypothesizes that there was "design" in the formation of life as we know it is, in its current state, utterly unscientific and untestable. It consists of nothing more than the postulate (it doesn't even rise to the level of "hypothesis", much less "theory") that: some (unspecified) form of (unspecified) intelligence added some (unspecified) amount of (unspecified) "design" into life on Earth at some (unspecified) time(s).

The only testable "ID" hypotheses I've seen involve "HUMAN intelligent design", as in the case of your genetically-engineered pig example, because this involves *known* quantities (human abilities, human techniques, human goals, a recent timeframe) which can make the hypothesis specific enough to be testable. But that's not what the "ID" folks want to try to prove. They want to establish the existence of NONHUMAN design. So just pointing out that *human* design can be tested for does *not* do a damned thing to help your case, because *you* want to try to "test" for design by UNKNOWN agents working in UNKNOWN ways with UNKNOWN abilities using UNKNOWN techniques on UNKNOWN parts of UKNOWN organisms at UNKNOWN times for UNKNOWN purposes. How, praytell, do you propose to test for or falsify *that*?

This position is, indeed, unfalsifiable. It's too freaking flabby. It's indistinguishable from "and then a miracle occurred". It's as useless a "hypothesis" as, "unicorns were involved, somehow." In fact, "unicorns magically waved their long eyelashes and 'poofed' design into life on Earth" fits *very* comfortably into the ID (non)hypothesis, beacuse IT'S SO FREAKING NONSPECIFIC.

If we find "X" in living things or in the DNA, by gosh, that matches "ID" because the "designer" might have wanted it that way. If we find "*NOT* X" in living things or DNA, by gosh, *THAT* matches "ID" too, because the "designer" may have decided to do things *that* way too!

I repeat -- untestable and unfalsifiable.

And then you go on and say it a different way:

There's no contradiction here. "ID" is a mish-mash of claims that have been proven false, *and* claims which are unfalsifiable.

Hmmm. Since falsifiability is allegedly the standard by which "science" is found, I fail to see how you can persist in your comments.

Easy -- because my comments are accurate. The core postulate of "ID" is totally untestable and unfalsifiable. Meanwhile, "IDers" have at times made claims *not* part of their core postulate which have been easily falsified, because they were wrong. For example, Behe's argument about "irreducible complexity". It's fatally flawed. And the fact that his argument was testable doesn't mean that the "ID postulate" is testable either, because Behe's comment wasn't even *about* "ID" itself. Even if he had succesfully identified something that couldn't be explained by evolution (and he didn't), that *still* wouldn't be actual evidence *for* ID.

Okay, let's cut to the chase here: If you disagree with my assessment of "ID" (and I am hardly alone, the vast majority of scientists agree), there's an easy way you can prove us wrong: State "the ID hypothesis", and describe *exactly* what procedure you would use to validate it and/or falsify it. Remember, proper scientific validation requires that your hypothesis makes *specific* testable predictions, which logically follow directly from the postulated hypothesis, distinguish it from the predictions of alternate theories, and the more types of predictions, the better.

Here's another little challenge for you: If you think that "ID" (NONhuman ID) has advanced to the point where it deserves to be treated as a valid field of science (instead of just a possibility), you're going to have to list for us the research findings which have already validated "ID". Where are your *results*?

I'm sorry to have to inform you that having a "maybe this happened" notion is *not* enough to qualify something as science, and not enough to make it worth teaching in science classrooms. Ultimately, you have to have *results* establishing the validity of you notion first. The IDers don't.

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