Posted on 04/15/2006 11:44:16 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Posted: April 15, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
I suggested here last week that the established authorities of every age act consistently. They become vigilantly militant against non-conforming dissidents who challenge their assumptions.
Thus when the dissident Galileo challenged the assumptions of the 17th century papacy, it shut him up. Now when the advocates of "intelligent design" challenge the scientific establishment's assumptions about "natural selection," it moves aggressively to shut them up. So the I.D. people have this in common with Galileo.
I received a dozen letters on this, three in mild agreement, the rest in scorn and outrage. This calls for a response.
Where, one reader demanded, did I get the information that 10 percent of scientists accept intelligent design? I got it from a National Post (newspaper) article published two years ago, which said that 90 percent of the members of the National Academy of Science "consider themselves atheists." Since if you're not an atheist, you allow for the possibility of a Mind or Intelligence behind nature, this puts 10 percent in the I.D. camp.
I could have gone further. A survey last year by Rice University, financed by the Templeton Foundation, found that about two-thirds of scientists believed in God. A poll published by Gallup in 1997 asked: Do you believe that "man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man's creation?" – essentially the I.D. position. Just under 40 percent of scientists said yes. So perhaps my 10 percent was far too low.
Two readers called my attention to a discovery last week on an Arctic island of something which may be the fossil remains of the mysteriously missing "transitional species." Or then maybe it isn't transitional. Maybe it's a hitherto undetected species on its own.
But the very exuberance with which such a discovery is announced argues the I.D. case. If Darwin was right, and the change from one species to another through natural selection occurred constantly in millions of instances over millions of years, then the fossil record should be teaming with transitional species. It isn't. That's why even one possibility, after many years of searching, becomes front-page news.
Another letter complains that I.D. cannot be advanced as even a theory unless evidence of the nature of this "Divine" element is presented. But the evidence is in nature itself. The single cell shows such extraordinary complexity that to suggest it came about by sheer accident taxes credulity. If you see a footprint in the sand, that surely evidences human activity. The demand – "Yes, but whose footprint is it?"– does not disqualify the contention that somebody was there. "Nope," says the establishment, "not until you can tell us who it was will we let you raise this question in schools."
Another reader argues that Galileo stood for freedom of inquiry, whereas I.D. advocates want to suppress inquiry. This writer apparently did not notice what caused me to write the column. It was the rejection by a government agency for a $40,000 grant to a McGill University anti-I.D. lobby to suppress the presentation and discussion of I.D. theory in the Canadian schools. Suppressing discussion is an odd way of encouraging "freedom of inquiry." Anyway, the I.D. movement doesn't want to suppress evolution. It merely wants it presented as a theory, alongside the I.D. theory.
Why, asked another reader, did I not identify the gutsy woman who stated the reason for the rejection, bringing upon herself the scorn of scientific authority. That's fair. Her name is Janet Halliwell, a chemist and executive vice president of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. She said that evolution is a theory, not a fact, and the McGill application offered no evidence to support it.
The McGill applicant was furious. Evolution, he said, needs no evidence. It's fact. Apparently Harvard University doesn't quite agree with him. The Boston Globe reports that Harvard has begun an expensive project to discover how life emerged from the chemical soup of early earth. In the 150 years since Darwin, says the Globe, "scientists cannot explain how the process began."
The most sensible letter came from a research scientist. "I think that the current paradigm of evolution by natural selection acting on random variation will change," he writes. "I think that evidence will accumulate to suggest that much of the genetic variation leading to the evolution of life on earth was not random, but was generated by biochemical processes that exhibit intelligent behavior."
Then he urges me not to disclose his identity. Saying this publicly would threaten his getting tenure, he fears. Galileo would understand.
I think I agree. I've never been able to understand why some people think that a creator could not instantly create a rock that was one billion years old.
How could a person who has grasped the significance of the DNA language deny that we are here by plan, not by accident?
Consider! The precision of the genetic language is such that the average mistake that is not caught turns out to be one error per 10 billion letters. If a mistake occurs in one of the most significant parts of the code, which is in the genes, it can cause a disease such as sickle-cell anemia. Yet even the best and most intelligent typist in the world couldn't come close to making only one mistake per 10 billion letters.
Atheist amuse God by telling him of their plans.
Certainly it can be said that evolution IS intelligent design. Adapt to a changing environment and survive -- fail to adapt, and perish. Spiritual laws, however, are unchanging; those human civilizations that fail to adapt to God's straightforward laws for thriving in our spiritual environment (laws such as the ten commandments, seven deadly sins, etc.) perish. Those civilizations that work toward adapting their behavior to those rules, thrive. Darwinism and evolution is about how our earthly bodies may or may not proceed on an earthly plane; God's laws are about how we proceed on a spiritual plane. To me, there is a wonderful symmetry at work, all part of God's design.
Evolution doesn't challenge God. It challenges men.
SLal: Nope the question still remains these could simply predesigned traits that existed in these sexual partners. "After their own kind" as the book of Genesis would say.
This example you gave Does not undermine Intelligent Design at all.
I have to go with SirLinksalot on this one. In fact, I'd go further: there's no example at all that can undermine ID. That's why it's not science.
I claim the Headline as Fallacy #1! Non-sequietuer!
You sound like someone who understands that the state of one's soul is more important than the state of matter. I wish more people did.
It's like asking someone to list all of the rational and irrational numbers between 0 and 1. :P
I get the point, but it isn't true :)
Newton's laws of Gravity are in fact, incorrect.
They only work on Earth essentially. Well, only with objects and speeds similar to Earth's environment.
If you ask a physicist if he believes in Newton's law of Gravitation he'll most likely tell you "no, because in most cases Newton's laws do not make an accurate prediction." General Relativity is where it's at.
Einstein proved Newton's Laws inaccurate using measurements of Mercury's orbit i believe.
I have a friend who claims to be an atheist, but when I begin to lead him into a conversation about God, he quickly lets me know how much he hates God.
btw, even satan believes in God.
One of the problems with evolution is the insistence -- by evolutionists -- to conflate them.
The site I've been linking to is for kids. It calls itself "Evolution 101".
If one should say that means Evolutionary Biology 101 (why didn't they say that ?) and not the Theory of Evolution, that person is playing word games.
"However, within the field of evolutionary biology, the origin of life is of special interest because it addresses the fundamental question of where we (and all living things) came from. " - From your linked website.
Your insinuation is that evolution involves the creation of life, which it does not.
The creative of life is handled by a scientific field and in no way by the theory of evolution. I'm not playing word games, I'm reading facts from your source.
It is a poison pill - an earthly distraction from the spiritual that leads to pride, false witness, and anger. A real prescription for spiritual damnation.
That should read "The creation of life is...." Sorry.
Who is trying to undermine ID. People believe what they want to believe. You can argue your belief of something unknown forever if you wish. However when some want it taught as a fact observed by science They have to produce a observed fact and evidence for it to be defined as science. I have this belief that pink fairies mate on the dark side of the moon after dark. Its not possible to undermine my pink fairy belief and I think it should be taught as science.
Actually, it confers .
And evolutionary biology does not include the Theory of Evolution? Where does it say that origins are not part of the Theory of Evolution on that page? On any of the following pages?
Your insinuation is that evolution involves the creation of life, which it does not.
And that is my point. Evolution 101 , remember?
Can you provide a quot from anywhere other than yourself for the above statement. Exactly who made this claim? Is it philosophy?
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