Why Are Darwinists So Afraid of Intelligent Design?

Human Events ^ | Jan 17, 2006 | Barney Brenner

[Tailgunner Joe]

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.

[r9etb]

ID isn't a 'Christian' or 'Evolution' argument, it is an openness to questions. One of those questions is Why?, why are we here, how are we here?

That's not entirely correct, at least in the current debate. There are those on both sides of the debate who treat ID as a purely religious topic.

[peyton randolph]

it does leave open the conclusion that the designer is the biblical God

Hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster, full of grace...the designer is with us.

[moog]

Darwinists accept the fact that evolution and the bible can not be straightforwardly resolved. So do Creationists.
IDers insist on making the two fully compatible -- whatever nonsense it takes.

I think you make some great points and connections. Yes, I am an ID'er and I do make connections. I've never had any problems with evolution whatsoever. I simply put it as man's way of understanding of one of God's processes. Can I prove it? NO. ID depends on some science being true, but it chiefly depends on the existence of God (sorry that "higher power" is none other though some insist it isn't God). That was not "proven" to me, but I came about it through faith. I don't attempt to "prove" my position because no one else can understand how I reached it because it is a faith-based position. Thereby, I can respect one's belief that is different from my own and ask that they do the same.

[moog]

put bluntly: everywhere you look among the living and the dead, there they are.

Dang zombies anyway:)

[mnehring]

So ID is NewAge Mysticism?

Nice label. I'm sure particle physicists like David Albert, Stephen Hawking, Amit Goswami and John Haglin would love to know they are 'New Age Mystics' because they are coming to accept that there is a 'spiritual' side to existence through their research in the deepest essence of existence.

Why should there be a gap between science and religion? Just the fact that there is religion should be a scientific question.
How could the finite ever even envision the infinite through a purely scientific explanation?

[moog]

So the Taiwanese glow-in-the-dark pigs are the product of nonsense, and not science?

They're running short on light bulbs.

[GSlob]

Nope. It is a proper word derivation: bible(n.); to bible (v.); bibler(n.) - one who bibles; bibly(adv.); bibling and so on. Ditto for quran, torah, book of mormon, zoroastian texts and so on.

[lonestar67]

Evolution is falsifiable.

[GSlob]

zoroastian=zoroastrian

[Hodar]

The advocates of "Intelligent Design" are ignorant, dshonest, or both.

How so, I can quote observable, demonstable and qualitative examples. If ID were dishonest, then the laws of choas would be true. The Universe would be a homogenius mass of Hydrogen, Helium and the such. We see the opposite, we see gas clouds collapsing due to gravity to form stars. We see stars use Nuclear Fission to create heavier atoms, until they reach Iron. Now, anyone can tell you that Fe is a more complex atom than H or He.

Dinosours had primitive hearts, digestive systems, brains, ect. Modern reptiles exhibit not only more complex hearts, they can tolerate greater changes in temperature than what we have learned that Dinosaurs could.

From evolution, we see that single cell organisms evolve to create colonies; further evolution shows that these colonies eventually 'specialize'; thus becoming more complex.

These examples fly in the face of the 2nd law of Thermodynamics. Specifically, this law states that everything in any given environment tends to go from an ordered state, to a state of homogenius pressure, temperature and a state of balanced forces. I submit that a solar system is a more ordered state than a gas cloud.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Fourteen million species on Earth today...that must have been one hell of an Ark Noah built.

[EagleUSA]

If we were designed by God, he needs to go back to the drawing board ASAP.
-----
There is no question that the theory of intelligent design is flawed -- the liberal Dems are living proof of that. End of discussion :-)

[moog]

Actually I was wondering why transitional species are all
fossilized that there are few examples ,microbes being one,
of present day transitional species.

Microbes are indeed an interesting study that we can use today.

[Radix]

"Evolution doesn't address the origin of life, no matter how many times it's accused of that."

That is probably why Darwin wrote his thesis and called it "The origin of species."

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin.html

[only1percent]

"Intelligent Design" isn't science, it's religion. I have no objection to teaching it as religion, assuming that it actually is a tenet of anyone's religion, instead of merely a pretense of creationists to distort biology classes.

Those who advocate it as anything other than religion won't be, and shouldn't be, taken seriously until they start screening their and their family's medical care to make sure that their doctors and the biologists who developed their prescriptions are all advocates of intelligent design, being as it that evolution -- not provably inspired by anything divine -- is the beating heart of all life sciences.

[LibertarianInExile]

"Why Are Darwinists So Afraid of Intelligent Design?"

Why do people insist that there are 'Darwinists,' or that they are afraid of anything? I don't know anyone who calls themselves a 'Darwinist.' Now, I'll admit I'm a little afraid of the Flying Spaghetti Monster who created the universe. After all, Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is the only religion tactitly endorsed by both the NFL AND Major League Baseball.

ARRRGH!
Those of us nestled in his Noodly Appendage know better than to push that lame ID stuff, when FSMism is far, far more accurate and far, far more scientific. We have books, just ask us. And endorsements! Boy, do we have endorsements! And a stripper factory and beer volcano! Does YOUR theory even have a beer volcano INVOLVED? What kind of theory of origin doesn't have a beer volcano?!?!?!? HERESY!

[r9etb]

Evolution is about the origin of species, a completely different concept than the origin of life.

Nope. When you go back to square one, you've got to deal with the non-living/living problem, haven't you? The logic of pure, materialistic evolution absolutely must all the way back to raw, non-living components, somehow assembling themselves into living matter. Were it not to assume this, then there would be no dismissal of ID as "non-science."

Of course, the real "proof," if you will, is in the fact that people have been and continue trying very hard to replicate the origins of life, "in a test tube," as it were. Why would they do that, if they didn't already think that's how it happened in the first place?

An honest "we don't know" would be refreshing, as would an honest "we think it happened this way." But the "doesn't address the beginning of life" argument is a cop-out.

[apackof2]

If we were designed by God, he needs to go back to the drawing board ASAP.

I am sorry you have such low self esteem

[moog]

That's not entirely correct, at least in the current debate. There are those on both sides of the debate who treat ID as a purely religious topic.

Good point.