Posted on 08/16/2003 12:12:19 PM PDT by Vindiciae Contra TyrannoSCOTUS
Move over, Darwin. Intelligent Design has arrived, and it's time to welcome the new kid to town.
"In the future, everyone will be entitled to 15 minutes of fame." artist Andy Warhol.
Darwinism - the notion that all species of plants and animals evolved from earlier forms, and that a blind process, natural selection, determines which forms survive - has had a grip on intellectual culture for 150 years.
Now advocates of a relatively new way of thinking about the origins of life say it's long past the time for the dead Charles Darwin (and adherents of his dying theory) to realize their 15 minutes are up and welcome a new kid to town. It's called Intelligent Design (ID) - the idea that the intricacies of life are too complex to have merely happened randomly. To coin a bromide - "ID is a theory whose time has finally come."
Indeed, you can tell ID has "arrived" because, in the last couple of years, the theory has made a major splash as state and local school boards have debated whether to allow students to learn about ID and other alternatives to Darwin's theory of evolution.
You can also tell because some top academics are publishing articles in top scientific journals about it.
But perhaps the best sign that ID has "made the big time" - pro-ID videos are being shown on television. Even public television.
Since May, "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" has aired on more than a dozen major PBS affiliates. Publicly funded TV stations in Miami, Baltimore, Cleveland, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, have shown thousands of viewers the Focus on the Family/Illustra Media video, which makes a positive case for Intelligent Design theory.
It's a milestone, according to Dr. Mark Hartwig, worldview analyst at Focus on the Family. It's almost a miracle that the film, which explores the discovery of some of the amazingly intricate complexities that are present in the cell, even made it to public TV.
"Evolution has basically been the official religion of PBS," Hartwig said. "To see them allowing 'heretics' in the 'pulpit' is a remarkable thing."
For Dr. Stephen Meyer, director and senior fellow of the Center for Science and Culture at Seattle's Discovery Institute, the TV airings are signs of a larger trend - the growing acceptance of Intelligent Design as a scientific theory at the same time serious cracks in the edifice of Darwinism are beginning to show up.
"We've been really delighted by this development, because PBS reflects the consensus in the scientific world," Meyer said. "For many, many years, it has aired mainly programs that promote a Darwinian evolutionary point of view."
Added Hartwig: "What I'm hoping is that this is a sign that the people are beginning to take what I call a 'truly liberal attitude' towards ID, and that is: 'If there's a substantive case to be made here (against evolutionism), let's air it.' " Blowing Darwin 'Out of the Water'
The case against Darwinism - and for ID - is substantive and substantial. Hartwig and Meyer say academic philosophers and scientists are beginning to publish books with major academic publishers and articles in major scientific journals questioning some of the presuppositions of Darwinism.
"The debate about Darwinism - and the debate about Intelligent Design - is being validated at a very high level of academic discourse, and it's getting very difficult to ignore," Meyer said. "Most biologists have defended Darwinism as a 'well-supported theory,' and many of the scientists who are a part of the Intelligent Design movement are challenging that idea, and in fact many who aren't a part of the movement are critiquing various elements of Darwinian theory."
Hartwig and Meyer are reluctant to publicize the names of pro-ID scientists and the academic journals publishing their research, for fear that Darwinists may exert pressure to try to squelch the studies.
There is absolutely no doubt, however, that ID is making inroads in local and state school districts where, Hartwig maintains, it is blowing Darwinism "out of the water."
Credit belongs not only to the openness of school board members, but to the compelling messages contained in "Unlocking the Mystery of Life," and a companion video called "Icons of Evolution."
Jim Fitzgerald, president of Coldwater Media, which produced "Icons" in association with Focus on the Family, said thanks to the passage of the No Child Left Behind education reform law, every state will have an opportunity to reevaluate its science standards over the next four or five years.
"These battles are going to be ongoing for a number of years," Fitzgerald said.
Already, ID is gaining hold.
• In Ohio, a decision was made last December by a nearly unanimous vote of the Ohio Board of Education to require students to critically analyze key aspects of criticism of Darwinian theory.
"Additionally, though the state board did not mandate the teaching of Intelligent Design, many of the board members made it clear they understood that there was a local option for individual teachers to discuss with their students alternative theories to Darwinism," Meyer said.
• In the Cobb County (Ga.) school district, which encompasses greater Atlanta, the school board passed a "Teach the Controversy" proposal recognizing that there are scientists on both sides of the evolution issue, and students need to know the arguments from both the perspective that favors Darwinism and the critique of it, as well.
"Icons of Evolution," by the way, was broadcast on local commercial TV stations in Ohio before the state school board voted.
"We have also had a number of people approach their local cable companies asking them to show the video," Fitzgerald said. "One (unidentified) gentleman in Georgia got the video into 350,000 homes. And he bought radio advertising time to let people know when it was going to be shown." The Real ID
What's the science behind ID's momentum? According to Meyer, "New discoveries in fields like palentology and molecular and cell biology are putting Darwinism under such intense pressure, it will not survive."
"In fact, we've learned a lot about biology since the Civil War - that's really how long it's been since the theory came into being," Meyer said. "I don't think much of biology fits with Darwinian theory. We're learning that life is much more complex than people imagined when Darwinian theory was first being formulated. That has created challenges to the Darwinian explanation of where we came from."
Perhaps the best way to understand the complexity argument is to consider DNA, the building block of human life, which ID adherents say could not have simply "developed" randomly.
"Bill Gates, the computer guru behind Microsoft, has compared DNA to a computer program," Meyer said, "only much more complex than anything we've ever created. We ask people to reflect about that. Bill Gates hires computer programmers to design his software. If there is, effectively, software in the cell, that is powerfully suggestive evidence that there must have been a 'programmer' - an intelligent designer of life itself."
In the end, the job is simply to boldly go where no non-Darwinist theory has ever gone before. The idea that their case is finding listeners and people willing to consider the truth about origins - whether from television, academic discussions or in public school classrooms - simply delights ID adherents.
"Darwinism still has sway in some quarters, but that won't always be the case," Hartwig said, "It's basically a new day. It may still be morning, but it's definitely a new day."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
1. The two videos "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" and "Icons of Evolution" are available from Focus on the Family as part of a video set, "The Evolution Set."
2. For information on Intelligent Design, please see the Discovery Institute Web site.
3. The video "Icons of Evolution" is available for placement on local cable TV systems, or local broadcast stations," free of charges - if you meet certain modest restrictions. Jim Fitzgerald, president of Coldwater Media, producer of "Icons of Evolution," said he anyone interested only needs to call (719) 488-8670 to obtain advance permission and let him know of their plans.
I've heard it said, however, that some Indonesians claim orangutans are really men pretending to be apes, and fled to the forest to avoid taxes.
I am talking about a half assed genetic system that if inteligently designed, was inteligently designed by a drunken 12 year old.
Do you seriously propose that the genetics of every living thing was changed from perfect to crappy at the fall of man?
So9
I had offered you the opportunity to explain how life was created from inanimate matter and you respond with
Thank you for providing an example of the generally declining intelligence of the public.
So yes your insult was childish and no I did not provide any myth or fantasy to challege "Scientific Method". But seeing as abiogesis and evolution are not based on scientific method, it would be difficult to challenge them in that manner anyway.
That said, how did life come about? Oh and please be scientific.
Regards,
Boiler Plate
It's the only one we know of that works. Could you design a better one? If we evolved, it's because that's the only way, therefore the best way, unless you prefer non-existence.
In what manner was the world, at one time, "perfect"? How, for instance, was it simultaneously "perfect" from the perspective of both antelopes and lions, bacteria that cause tooth decay and animals with teeth, anthrax and ungulates, etc?
Could I? No.
Could Biochemists? Yes, almost certainly, and in ten years we will know twice what we know now.
If we evolved, it's because that's the only way, therefore the best way, unless you prefer non-existence.
Nonsense. it only means it was a workable system that evolved early and preempted the development of any other.
So9
A more common term for statements like Mach's Principle is an "Ansatz" (German for "beginning"). It's a starting point for discussion. It's similar to an axiom, except that it may or may not be provably true or false, while axioms by nature are not.
Newton made the Ansatz that light was made up of "corpuscles", as a basis for constructing a model of how it moves. He had no way of knowing whether or not it was actually true, and didn't particularly care. It wasn't a hypothesis he set out to test; rather, he said, "assuming that light is composed of corpuscles, what can I say about its behavior?" This enabled him to advance his model pretty far without getting bogged down by questions he was unable to answer.
12-year-old placemarker.
Ah! Got it. Thank you.
Rmmcdaniell: I have had similar thoughts about f.Christian for some time now.
F.Christian, if you really are what you claim to be, please view this as advice rather than an attack:
Your writing style is nearly incoherent because you jump abruptly from one idea to another, and expect your readers to understand complex ideas based on a single word. I normally skip over your posts without reading them, because I don't have the time or inclination to analyze your posts to figure out what you are trying to say.
If I am ignoring your posts, then chances are good that many others do the same. I'm sure that is not what you want.
Here is some practical advice: After you have written your reply but before you hit the post button, read your post slowly. Replace any mathematical symbols (+, -, =, ==, /) in your post with words that convey the same meaning. Try to write in complete sentences whenever possible. The extra time you spend to make your post readable shows respect for your fellow freepers.
Gee, if I could answer that ...
Substituting myth for science doesn't give me comfort. Unlike many, I don't have to subscribe to primitive myths about our origins in order to make it through the day.
Keep up the good work - every new post of yours proves my assertion further.
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