Isaac Newton once wrote: "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being..."
If Isaac Newton were alive today, he would almost certainly be a supporter of the scientists, philosophers, educators, and everyday citizens championing a theory of the universe known as "Intelligent Design." Yet the words "Intelligent Design" stir up intense controversy in today's society.
Critics claim that I.D. is nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to resurrect Creationism and insert religion into the public classrooms. But proponents of Intelligent Design are not all Christian. In fact, there are more than a few evolutionists who subscribe to the theory known as I.D. for short.
Intelligent Design is not synonymous with biblical Creation. It is true that all Creationists are, by nature of their belief, in broad agreement with I.D. But it is equally true that not all those who embrace I.D. believe in biblical Creationism. All employees of Ford Motor Company work in the automotive industry, but not all those in the automotive industry work for Ford.
This two-part look at Intelligent Design will not attempt to tackle the debate over the Genesis account of Creation. Rather, we will compare and contrast the Intelligent Design explanation for the universe and life with the Darwinian theory of natural selection. At the end, we will see which is the more plausible. First, a critical look at Darwinian evolution.
Naturalistic Evolution - the Current Orthodoxy
What is evolution? As explained by the American National Association of Biology Teachers in an infamous 1995 position statement, evolution is "an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modifications that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments."
Despite polls which suggest enormous public doubt with naturalism, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution commands the top of the cultural hill in modern society. It is the undisputed (no other theory being allowed to dispute it) theory in state-funded academia, cultural centers, and in the media.
Michigan serves as a recent case in point, where the State Board of Education voted unanimously to prohibit the teaching of Intelligent Design in science classes. Responding to critics of evolution in defending the Board's decision, Board member John Austin declared: "Evolution is not under stress. It is not untested science."
In a May 2006 op-ed for The Washington Post, Paul Hanle, the president of the Biotechnology Institute, wrote: "By teaching intelligent design or other variants of creationism in science classes at public schools -- or by undercutting the credibility of evolution -- we are greatly diminishing our chances for future scientific breakthroughs and technological innovations, and are endangering our health, safety and economic well-being as individuals and as a nation."
The American Sociological Association recently declared: "Efforts to qualify, limit, or exclude the teaching of biological evolution in U.S. public science curricula would adversely affect national science literacy, academic achievement, and technological and scientific advancement."
It wasn't always this way. Not so long ago, evolution was the theory fighting for academic recognition and freedom. A popular 1925 court case in Dayton, Tennessee pitted the state legislature of Tennessee against the American Civil Liberties Union (which had recruited a substitute biology teacher named John Scopes to break a Creation-only statute). The ACLU corralled legendary defense attorney Clarence Darrow to champion Scopes in the courtroom. The prosecution countered with the brilliant orator and Democratic Party leader William Jennings Bryan. The case was a national spectacle, and a loss for the ACLU. But over time, thanks to the news reporting of H.L. Mencken (which any objective analyst would consider "vicious") and a popular play and movie named Inherit the Wind, the public came to regard Scopes and Darrow as the heroes of the Scopes Trial, with Bryan and his supporters the villains and ignorant extremists.
But if evolutionary scientists were fighting for academic freedom in the 1920s, they are far from embracing that today. They have made every attempt to ridicule, condemn, and suppress any theory of origin contrary to naturalistic, unsupervised evolution.
H. Allen Orr, writing for New Yorker magazine, defends the modern scientific community, pointing out that they refuse to seriously engage I.D. primarily for "strategic reasons." He points out that if "a scientific claim can be loosely defined as one that scientists take seriously enough to debate, then engaging the intelligent-design movement on scientific grounds...cedes what it most desires: recognition that its claims are legitimate scientific ones." Consequently, evolution is considered beyond the pale of critical analysis or discussion. It has become, quite simply, sacred. Is this justified?
The Problems With Naturalistic, Macroevolution
Evolution, as understood and interpreted by most of its leading advocates, is based on naturalism, a philosophy steeped in empiricism and one that inherently rejects the supernatural. Therefore, a natural explanation for the universe and life is all that can be entertained.
Says the National Center for Science Education: "Scientific explanations are based on human observations of natural processes...Science does not claim that God does not exist. However, whether or not scientists believe in God, by the very definition of science, they cannot offer God´s intervention as the explanation for whatever they seek to explain."
So, what's the problem? People look to science to explain the way the universe and all life works. They look to science for answers. Science, of course, endeavors to provide those answers, and has articulated many laws that govern our universe, enhanced our quality of life, and provided great insight into the origins of our universe. As science seeks to learn more about the origins of our universe, it considers data in its investigation. And then it considers theories which might answer these questions.
Well, if nature is all that can be considered, then any type of god is ruled out of the equation. If there is no god (and, for all practical purposes, scientists must assume that there is no god - if they are going to maintain a strict naturalistic outlook), there must then be a NATURAL explanation for the universe. This, of course, is a philosophical judgment. But one should acknowledge that macroevolutionary science then is based on a philosophical premise. Not a scientific one.
Let's make no mistake here. This is precisely what occurs. According to the National Center for Science Education, a "theory is a statement of general principles that explain many facts by means of natural processes." Note the reference to "natural processes."
So, what happens then is that science provides a naturalistic (and that means, for all intents and purposes, atheistic) explanation for the origin of the universe and all life - which then becomes the basis for so many other subjects taught in school, informs our debates over public policy, and is used to critically examine various, applicable religious beliefs.
Some readers may again ask: "So, what's the problem?" Well, first, science is offering an explanation for the origin of the universe and a critique of alternative religious explanations (biblical Creationism, Intelligent Design, pantheism, etc) based on its own naturalistic assumptions.
For example, the earth is estimated at 4.5 billion years old, but the radiometric dating method used to arrive at the number is itself based on certain assumptions and presuppositions that understandably rule out supernatural intervention. Thus, science cannot conclusively say that the earth is 4.5 billion years old - only that it appears to be 4.5 billion years old. The same for the universe, which they estimate to be 14-15 billion years old. Bottom line: Naturalistic assumptions lead ultimately to naturalistic conclusions.
The second problem is that naturalistic evolution brings us back to the logical inconsistencies and dilemmas addressed in the previous article. Not to mention a host of unanswered questions. How can an evolving universe also be decaying? How can an evolving universe be uncaused? When did the evolutionary process begin?
Evolutionists typically sidestep these cosmological questions and point to animals demonstrating differences over time in development and appearance - changes that mirror their environment. In other words, evolutionists point to adaptation.
This leads to the third problem with naturalistic macroevolution. Let us agree that there is considerable, overwhelming evidence for intra-species adaptation, known sometimes as microevolution. But this is not the point of contention. The controversial part of Darwinian evolution is not that species adapt to their surroundings, but rather that one species can evolve into an entirely different species. The fossil record just doesn't back it up.
This should be devastating to anyone who respects the scientific method. If there is little hard evidence to support the idea of one species (say a dinosaur) evolving into another species (a bird), how can we claim this occurred? The only answer evolutionists have here boils down to similarity. Apes and humans, they argue, are so similar genetically that they must share a common ancestor. Thus, evolutionists have pieced together evolutionary puzzles for intra-species evolution. To date, there has been not one verifiable and indisputable fossil discovery to support these evolutionary trees.
And finally, science has shown the existence of atoms, molecules, and cells - and has thus unveiled a wonder of complexity that we are still struggling to comprehend. This complexity defies random, unsupervised, gradual evolution. Scientist and ID advocate Michael Behe explains that an "irreducibly complex biological system" cannot evolve over time because the "removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning."
Naturalistic evolution simply cannot account for the intricacies and wonders of the universe. The great physicist Lord Kelvin (aka William Thomson) agrees: "Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us...the atheistic idea is so non-sensical that I cannot put it into words."
Too bad the mainstream scientific community doesn't agree with Lord Kelvin's observation.
Our next article will look more closely at the theory of Intelligent Design.
