Theory of 'intelligent design' isn't ready for natural selection

The Seattle Times ^ | 6/3/2002 | Mindy Cameron

[jennyp]

To Seattle area residents the struggle over how evolution is taught in public high schools may seem a topic from the distant past or a distant place.

Don't bet on it. One nearby episode in the controversy has ended, but a far-reaching, Seattle-based agenda to overthrow Darwin is gaining momentum.

Roger DeHart, a high-school science teacher who was the center of an intense curriculum dispute a few years ago in Skagit County, is leaving the state. He plans to teach next year in a private Christian school in California.

The fuss over DeHart's use of "intelligent design" theory in his classes at Burlington-Edison High School was merely a tiny blip in a grand scheme by promoters of the theory.

The theory is essentially this: Life is so complex that it can only be the result of design by an intelligent being.

Who is this unnamed being? Well, God, I presume. Wouldn't you?

As unlikely as it may seem, Seattle is ground zero for the intelligent-design agenda, thanks to the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and its Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC).

Headed by one-time Seattle City councilman and former Reagan administration official Bruce Chapman, the Discovery Institute is best known locally for its savvy insights on topics ranging from regionalism, transportation, defense policy and the economy.

In the late '90s, the institute jumped into the nation's culture wars with the CRSC. It may be little known to local folks, but it has caught the attention of conservative religious organizations around the country.

It's bound to get more attention in the future. Just last month, a documentary, Icons of Evolution, premiered at Seattle Pacific University. The video is based on a book of the same name by CRSC fellow Jonathan Wells. It tells the story of DeHart, along with the standard critique of Darwinian evolution that fuels the argument for intelligent design.

The video is part of the anti-Darwin agenda. Cruise the Internet on this topic and you'll find something called the Wedge Strategy, which credits the CRSC with a five-year plan for methodically promoting intelligent design and a 20-year goal of seeing "design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life."

Last week, Chapman tried to put a little distance between his institute and the "wedge" document. He said it was a fund-raising tool used four years ago. "I don't disagree with it," he told me, "but it's not our program." (I'll let the folks who gave money based on the proposed strategy ponder what that means.)

Program or not, it is clear that the CRSC is intent on bringing down what one Center fellow calls "scientific imperialism." Surely Stephen Jay Gould already is spinning in his grave. Gould, one of America's most widely respected scientists and a prolific essayist, died just two weeks ago. Among his many fine books is one I kept by my bedside for many weeks after it was published in 1999, "Rock of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life."

In "Rock of Ages," Gould presents an elegant case for the necessary co-existence of science and religion. Rather than conflicting, as secular humanists insist, or blending, as intelligent-design proponents would have it, science and religion exist in distinct domains, what Gould called magisteria (domains of teaching authority).

The domain of science is the empirical universe; the domain of religion is the moral, ethical and spiritual meaning of life.

Gould was called America's most prominent evolutionist, yet he too, was a critic of Darwin's theory, and the object of some controversy within the scientific community. There's a lesson in that: In the domain of science there is plenty of room for disagreement and alternative theories without bringing God into the debate.

I have no quarrel with those who believe in intelligent design. It has appeal as a way to grasp the unknowable why of our existence. But it is only a belief. When advocates push intelligent design as a legitimate scientific alternative to Darwinian explanations of evolution, it is time to push back.

That's what they continue to do in Skagit County. Last week, the Burlington-Edison School Board rejected on a 4-1 vote a proposal to "encourage" the teaching of intelligent design. Bravo.

Despite proponents' claims of scientific validity, intelligent design is little more than religion-based creationism wrapped in critiques of Darwin and all dressed up in politically correct language. All for the ultimate goal — placing a Christian God in science classrooms of America's public high schools.

[Alberta's Child]

IR says complex eyes could not have evolved that way.

No, IR says that complex eyes could not have evolved that way in such a short period of time (relatively speaking, of course). If we assume that there IS a direct relationship between a human eye and an eagle's eye, why isn't there any evidence of it?

[Dimensio]

One of my favorite predictions has got to be: "One will never find birds with mammary glands" which was used, with some comic effect, on these threads earlier this year.

[very inappropriate reference to more-or-less "child-unfriendly" website deleted]

[Alberta's Child]

Gould believed that most species tend to stay stable for long periods of time, and then evolve in a relatively quick (in geologic terms-- still tens of thousands of years) period in response to environmental changes.

In other words, Gould was a traditional Darwinist who came up with Punk-Eek to explain why the fossil record contained no evidence of traditional Darwinism.

"The thing that evolutionists seem to have overlooked about the 'missing link' is that it is missing." -- G.K. Chesterton

[VRWC_minion]

I would feel much safer if these folks tracked pedophiles from one school to another as well as they tracked creationists.

[f.Christian]

How is evolution championing conservative causes?

[gdani]

...why not save a step, throw out the God hypothesis, and declare that the creation of life/the universe is unknowable?

I'm comfortable with that. Perhaps you are too

However, it appears that the overwhelming majority of people are not.

[Sabertooth]

Your post is evidence for the observation that Creationists tend to make bad scientists, and Evolutionists tend to make bad theologians.

Your assumption that the space-time continuum is all there is, is unscientific.

Your assertion that morality can be derived from experience, intuition, and a consensus of society is as mystical as any appeal to a higher power.

You wander off from science all the time, even as you deny doing so. One can't derive morality or theology from science, as science is necessarily agnostic.

When you you make the attempt, you make science your religion, just as the Creationists have asserted. You fuel their fire.

OTH, the problem Creationists have is they don't recognize is that the desire of some to make science a religion doesn't disprove Evolution.

[Dimensio]

How is creationism championing conservative causes?

[Alberta's Child]

Interesting predictions, but what I find most fascinating about them is that they specifically do NOT apply to human beings.

[Gumlegs]

Dames ... dames with gams.

[Lurking Libertarian]

In other words, Gould was a traditional Darwinist who came up with Punk-Eek to explain why the fossil record contained no evidence of traditional Darwinism. "The thing that evolutionists seem to have overlooked about the 'missing link' is that it is missing." -- G.K. Chesterton

Not missing, although certainly scarcer than Darwin expected. The other part of punk-eek is that evolutionary changes usually happen in one geographic area, and then spread out from there, so you don't find transitional fossils unless you look in the right place.

For example, in most areas of the world, you find very modern-looking human fossils appearing suddenly in the fossil record, with no precursors; but if you dig in East Africa, you find a long line of transitionals, from ramapithecus, to australopithecus, to homo habilis, to homo erectus to homo sapiens. Similarly, reptile-to-bird transitionals were rare till they started to dig in China.

[VRWC_minion]

Ecclesiastes 1


Everything Is Meaningless

¹ The words of the Teacher, ^[1] son of David, king in Jerusalem:

² "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

³ What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?
⁴ Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
⁵ The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
⁶ The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
⁷ All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
⁸ All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
⁹ What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
¹⁰ Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
¹¹ There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.



Wisdom Is Meaningless
¹² I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. ¹³ I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! ¹⁴ I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

¹⁵ What is twisted cannot be straightened;
what is lacking cannot be counted.

¹⁶ I thought to myself, "Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge." ¹⁷ Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.

¹⁸ For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.

[Alberta's Child]

That wasn't exactly a difficult prediction to make, since Darwin was dealing with a closed system with a defined beginning (at least in theory, even if we don't know exactly when the universe began) and no defined end. If I were to go back through history and say that the human population of any given "system" was lower the further back you go, you'd find few instances in which that was not the case.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"I want a straight answer, J. Semper Paratus: Are you accusing me of immorality? Please be specific as to what aspects of my [...] sexual [...] practices you find immoral." I don't know what he's thinking about, but I'd never accuse. Hope maybe. But never accuse ;-)

[f.Christian]

Creation can explain--order the dynamics of reality...

evolution only twists--reverses it---'anarchists evolutionary capitalism' a la jennyp!

[jennyp]

LOL! Cute.

[Dimensio]

How does that make you feel?

>

[ConsistentLibertarian]

The theory of intelligent design does make predictions about human beings. It predicts they won't have a spinal column structurally similar to and better suited for quadripeds

[jennyp]

The mere suggestion that there may be a God, even alluding to His existence and involvement with intelligent design theory, sets a transcendent foundational framework for civilized moral human behavior that declares a right and a wrong way of living and interacting with others.

In the end, that's what it's all about. And you will know them by what they do.

Aquinasfan, please tell me about my immoral behavior. What specific uncivilized, immoral acts do I enjoy doing and try to justify by accepting evolutionary theory?

[Junior]

No, IR says that complex eyes could not have evolved that way in such a short period of time (relatively speaking, of course). If we assume that there IS a direct relationship between a human eye and an eagle's eye, why isn't there any evidence of it?

How short a time are we talking about? Life has been on this planet for more than 3 billion years. That is an amazingly long period of time. Eyes were already fairly well developed by the Cambrian explosion half a billion years ago, which is also an amazingly long span of time.

And no one said there is a direct relationship between human and eagle eyes (human eyes are poorly put together, having a rather large blind spot smack dab in the middle). There is a relationship in that both humans and eagles once shared a common ancestor hundreds of millions of years ago before reptiles gave rise to both mammal-like reptiles (the ancestors of humans) and dinosaurs (the ancestors of birds).