For some reason the whole intelligent design (ID) issue is starting to rear its ugly head again. A new movie, which I will not even give the dignity of mentioning by name, is being released this weekend that attacks science and claims that ID has been bullied out of the classrooms. I fear that this will give new vigor to the pro-ID community and reopen a debate that has been sitting idle for at least a few years now.
Now before I begin I feel that I should make my bias clear: I believe in God, I believe in science, I believe in evolution, and I believe that science and God are completely compatible. Furthermore, I believe that if someone is unable to see that, they fundamentally don’t understand that science explains the how and God explains the why of our existence.
I am not interested in debating if evolution is real. As it stands it is. Evolution is the best theory we have to explain how the biological world worlds. Further I am not interested in debating if gravity, atomic theory, magnetism, star formation, or a million other scientific ideas are real. They are real because they are the best theory we have to explain the world around us; they are real because time after time data verifies these theories; they are real because no one has come up with a better theory to explain how these things work; they are valid because they will be disregard once a better theory comes along that works better. These theories are real because facts back them up.
The other problem is that people often mix up “The Bible” with spirituality and God; The Bible may be the word of God, but never forget that it is written down by man. Because it is written down and interpreted by man, it is inherently prone to error. Science has the advantage in this field because it recognizes this fact and adapts to accept new, more correct, statements of how the world works.
Originally we had proof that there were five planets, then we had proof that there were seven, then nine, then back to eight again! We do not have proof that God created man in his image outside of The Bible, we are simply asked to accept this on faith. This is not inherently bad because we have not seen proof to the contrary, but we must accept that we may be wrong if we discover that God is some other shape.
ID supporters tend to focus on how they are ignored by modern science. In this statement they are absolutely correct; what they tend to forget is that the very ideas they are promoting fundamentally do not work with science and scientific theory. Scientific theory requires testable results, repeatability, and theories that work from the birth of time to the end of time. ID’s “theory” has one fatal flaw: it requires a “higher being” that mixes science and spirituality that has no place for testability. Explain this higher being and ID has a shot at being actual science.
But this, of course, will not happen any time soon. There is a segment of the population that will reject facts in favor of religion. This is not in-and-of-itself a bad thing. Religion is one way of explaining the world, science is another. It becomes a bad thing when the religious section of the population attempts to tell the scientific world what is science. Likewise it becomes a problem when science attempts to tell religion what is religious.
What we need is an understanding between the extremes of both populations. As I said, I fully believe in God, and I accept that I have no facts to back up that theory – God stays in the spiritual portion of my brain. Furthermore I fully believe in evolution and have facts that back this up but have no greater meaning as to why a few carbon molecules got together one day and started making copies of themselves – the scientific portion stays in the “testable results” portion of my brain. My mind makes these theories harmonious by accepting that, again, God explains the why and science explains the how.
In the end ID may be the absolute true way things happened. We may have actually been blinked into existence. Problem is we have no science to back this up. Because of this ID must stay out of science classrooms. As it stands there should be no debate about if ID is relevant because ID has no ground to stand on.
Curtis wrote
“Because of this ID must stay out of science classrooms. As it stands there should be no debate about if ID is relevant because ID has no ground to stand on.”
Where does Automobiles come from? How did humankind travel to the moon? If ID is not science and has no ground to stand on then this is a very important question. Have we been fooled by thinking that cars and the space ship that took the astronauts to the moon have been designed when that is not the case.
Randy
I am no expert, but I would say that automobiles come from factories, ande went to the moon on a rocket.
We know these things, and these things require a constructor, namely people. I think that you are tyring to make an argument that a biological being is the exact same as a complex machine, but you have been less than articulate in doing so.
Make your argument clearer and I will respond with less snide comments.
RandyT, I believe the issue is not whether or not anything in the history of time has been created, but whether or not EVERYTHING in the history of time was created. Unless you meant that a divine, unknown, unknowable, all-powerful force created automobiles and spaceships, in which case someone might wanna let Old Man Ford know that.
Curtis
You wrote that ID has no ground to stand on. That would mean that nothing was designed.
ID is simply looking at things that are designed and comparing that with biology and noting the similarities between the two. If nothing was designed then I can see your argument.
Randy
randyt,
You have to see that your logic is fundamentally flawed.
It is entirely possible for certain things to be designed while others occur through natural processes.
Take for example the weather – I can explain how solar rays heat up water molecules that eventually condense into large water masses known as clouds and are moved about the world by thermal-transfers commonly known as wind.
This is all created, but none of it was necessarily designed. Again, science explains the how of things. ID takes things one step further and requires a why. It is this why that excludes it from the scientific process.
*see also Cheshire Cat’s comments.
You lost me in your last comment.
Why does Intelligent Design require that we know the “why”?
Are you saying that if we did not know the history of cars the “why” than it is not scientific to say that cars are designed? For without the “why” we must conclude that cars come about by natural means such as the weather.
I can look at art done by an artist and not know the “why” but do know that it was designed. I may be curious about the “why” when I look at the art but it is not necessary to know that it is designed by a human being.
I just finished reading a book on Intelligent Design called The Design Matrix A Consilience of Clues by Mike Gene. All I can say is Wow. And those that criticize Intelligent Design what a bunch of hypocrites and fools. To say that it is OK to believe in very specific things such as God, the Bible and Evolution. But, it is unscientific to believe in very vague things such as an Intelligent Designer and that the designer used “Evolution” to create everything. Unbelievable.
Randy