As a Christian, I believe that the universe and its living creatures are the products of intelligent design. This belief is not merely derived from theology but is also supported by rational considerations. There is enormous intelligence embedded in the laws of nature. The greatest scientists over the past few centuries have worked to decode the intelligence mysteriously imprinted in the workings of nature. Scientific laws, as spelled out by Keppler, Newton, Einstein and others, reveal nature as exquisitely orderly. So who encoded this intelligence in nature?
Since the universe had a beginning, how did it get here? There is no natural explanation, since the universe includes all of nature. It is more than absurd to posit that the universe caused itself. The most reasonable explanation is that our rational universe is the product of some super-rational or omniscient intelligence. An intelligent designer is not the only explanation, but it certainly is the best explanation.
How the creator went about His business of making the universe and its life forms is another question, and this is a question for science to answer to the degree that it can be answered. Darwin's theory of evolution posits that chance, mutation and natural selection largely account for the transitions between one life form and another. Man, as an animal, is also the product of evolution, having descended from the same evolutionary "tree" that produced gorillas and chimpanzees.
Did God order things this way? Certainly if you read the Bible you would never predict Darwin's theory of evolution. But neither from the Scriptural accounts could one predict that the earth goes around the sun. The Bible is not and does not purport to be a science textbook. It takes no position, for example, on the heliocentric theory. Unfortunately, in past centuries, many Christians interpreted a few casual references to the sun "rising" to mean that the earth must be stationary and the sun must revolve around the earth. These interpretations were hasty, to say the least: the Bible is describing sunrise from a human or experiential perspective. Still, these narrow-minded Christians opposed Copernicus and Galileo until they were forced to admit that they were wrong. It wasn't the Bible that was mistaken; it was the foolish certainty of its interpreters that was exposed and discredited.
Today some Christians may be heading down the same path with their embrace of "intelligent design" or ID. This movement is based on the idea that Darwinian evolution is not only flawed but basically fraudulent. ID should not, however, be confused with bible-thumping six-day creationism. It does not regard the earth as 6,000 years old. Its leading advocates are legal scholar Phillip Johnson, biochemist Michael Behe, mathematician David Berlinski, and science journalist Jonathan Wells. Berlinski has a new book out The Devil's Advocate that makes the remarkable claim that "Darwin's theory of evolution has little to contribute to the content of the sciences." Ben Stein's movie "Expelled" provides horror stories to show that the case for ID as well as critiques of evolution from an ID perspective are routinely excluded or censored in the halls of academe.
ID advocates have sought to convince courts to require that their work be taught alongside Darwinian evolution, yet such efforts have been resoundingly defeated. Why has the ID legal strategy proven to be such a failure, even at the hands of conservative judges? Imagine that a group of advocates challenged Einstein's theories of general and special relativity. Let's say that this group, made up of a law professor, a couple of physicists, several journalists, as well as some divinity school graduates, flatly denies Einstein's proposition that e=mc2.
How would a judge, who is not a physicist, resolve the group's demand for inclusion in the physics classroom? He would summon a wide cross-section of leading physicists. They would inform him that despite unresolved debates about relativity--for example, its unexplained relationship to quantum theory--Einstein's theories are supported by a wide body of data. They enjoy near-unanimous support in the physics community worldwide. There is no alternative scientific theory that comes close to explaining the facts at hand. In such a situation any judge would promptly show the dissenters the door and deny their demand for equal time in the classroom. This is precisely the predicament of the ID movement.
The problem with evolution is not that it is unscientific but that it is routinely taught in textbooks and in the classroom in an atheist way. Textbooks frequently go beyond the scientific evidence to make metaphysical claims about how evolution renders the idea of a Creator superfluous. If I wanted to promote my book What's So Great About Christianity I'd direct you there to find examples. (But I don't, so I won't.)
Most Christians don't care whether the eye evolved by natural selection or whether Darwin's theories can account for macroevolution or only microevolution. What they care about is that evolution is being used to deny God as the creator. For those who are concerned about this atheism masquerading as science, there is a better way. Instead of trying to get unscientific ID theories included in the classroom, a better strategy would be to get the unscientific atheist propaganda out. In future blogs I'll show such a strategy can be successfully implemented.
Reader Comments ( Page 5 of 63)
61. "Ben Stein's movie "Expelled" provides horror stories to show that the case for ID as well as critiques of evolution from an ID perspective are routinely excluded or censored in the halls of academe."
Apparently DD is getting tired of citing "intellectuals" and thinks we'd me more apt to listen to man best known for his deadpan catchphrases "Bueller" and "Wow".
Mokele-Mobembe at 2:49PM on Mar 31st 2008
62. Yeah, GHB, and it's one of those polyester suits from the 70's that were worn by those televangelists, sometimes with rhinestones or other regalia.
You know, they have found fossilized remains of bacteria on a meteor (found in australia)
The problem with primordial life is there are no traces to test, at least not yet.
Linda at 2:52PM on Mar 31st 2008
63. Ben,
Good point. The "intelligent designer" could be space aliens. I wonder how Christians would react if ID was taught in schools, but that the designer might be alien and not spirtual.
K at 2:56PM on Mar 31st 2008
64. "some sort of creator that created everything" =
euphemism for 'god', of which there is no proof, nor evidence, etc.
You can insert any silly thing in that phrase, and it would make as much scientific sense as the original.
Linda at 2:58PM on Mar 31st 2008
65. Although intellectual honesty would seem to require us to at least listen to the arguments of critics of evolutioary theory, when their arguments are clearly "stealth" efforts to support the religious right's apparent need to indoctrinate our children in their chosen belief system, it may be understandable that one can find examples of exclusion by scientists.
Harvey at 9:59PM on Mar 31st 2008
66. (Man, that would really prove if they had an agenda to teach religious doctrine in schools or not once and for all, eh? I bet they would argue that the space aliens had to have a creator since "something can't come from nothing," which is the same argument that gets thrown in their faces by atheists asking the same of the Christian god.)
K at 2:58PM on Mar 31st 2008
67. GHB.. you typed "Pure science proceeds from no ulterior motive. By this I mean that the scientist isn't trying to prove what they already think they know is true. He's trying to discover what is true, by observation and experimentation."
I must disagree... there is this thing called a hypothesis ... and then there is also this thing called funding... and also our own subjective bents on what we expect to find.
Shannie at 3:00PM on Mar 31st 2008
68. We had Science. They responded with Creation Science. We had Nintendo. They responded with Wisdom Tree. We had Rock. They responded with Creed. Stop ruining everything decent in this world! They're like the attention-deprived skinny white kid trying to score hipness points by wearing baggy pants, saying "bling-bling" and doing dance moves he saw in a rap video. It's sad. Haven't we learned anything from the example of Robert Van Winkle?
Mokele-Mobembe at 3:03PM on Mar 31st 2008
69. Monsignor Georges Henri Joseph Éduard Lemaître. That's all I am going to say.
Yabba Dabba Doo at 3:03PM on Mar 31st 2008
70. The thing I love about the ID nuts is how they ASSUME that IF science can admit the possibility of a designer or design principle, that said designer just absolutely must be THEIR PARTICULAR CHRISTIAN VERSION OF GOD. No doubt complete with Jesus and the Holy Spirit that used to be the Holy Ghost but changed his name to protect the innocent, and the Choirs Of Angels, and maybe the Saints and Martyrs thrown in for extra credit.
As if.
I mean, your god is one of many thousands. It's in vogue at the moment, but eventually it'll go the way of Apollo and Zeus. (Hey, what if the real god's Zeus? Won't you feel foolish when you're banished to Nifflheim?)
It's not going to be an anthropomorphic god. Get used to it. No way. Why should it be? It didn't evolve here. We did. And it won't have a sex. It won't be anything like you've ever thought of as god. It will be something new and different, and probably very hard to understand with our tiny minds, if it's there at all. A big "if."
It won't be a huge old man sitting on a Lay-Ze-Boy cloud in the sky.
And said designer or design principle will definitely not be a being that created any type of Hell or Satan. Sad, little men did that a long time ago, and the gullible and weak-minded still believe it.
Looking at present religious and mystical systems, I give none of them even a slim chance of being right except perhaps for certain types of buddhism, and the vedanta tradition. Those might have a kernal of the truth in them. But christianity? Christian dogma describing the designer of the universe accurately? Give me a break! Nothing so deeply flawed logically could ever be right in the end. It's no better than the endless series of turtles...
Godless Heathen Brian at 3:06PM on Mar 31st 2008
71. GHB,
Nifflheim I think is from Norse mythology, not Greek.
Mokele-Mobembe at 3:08PM on Mar 31st 2008
72. Zeus is greek and nifflheim is norse. If you're going to act and talk like you're superior than all the 'weak minded people' you speak of, then you might as well know what the hell you're talking about.
Yabba Dabba Doo at 3:15PM on Mar 31st 2008
73. What I have a problem with is that soooo many people assume that evolution is scientific fact. It is presented that way. But the laws of science state that any scientific theory is just that - a theory, or hypothesis - until it can be reproduced in a laboratory setting. Evolution hasn't been reproduced. Therefore, it is as much a theory as ID and should be presented as such.
hlaredzz at 5:40PM on Mar 31st 2008
74. @mac 12:29PM
Seriously, when you say those are the easy ones, did you mean for you or for Dinesh?
1) Bats being counted among birds.
When we say "fowl" we are talking about a particular tree of life. But there's nothing to stop another person, or another culture, having a word that means flying creatures, is there? Do you know what the Hebrew word that they translated as fowl is? Maybe it means "things with wings". That's not an error of thought, its the world view of a language.
2)Stars falling from heaven
Presumably you're highlighting this because you think the author thought that the stars were just small points of light that could fall down onto the ground?
Here's another bit of revelation
'And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed in the sun, and the moon under her feet.'
Now I think that even inbred middle-eastern hillbilly shepherds knew that the sun was pretty hot, and someone who wore it was likely to get pretty bad sunburn.
The author is a symbolist though. He writes things not because he thinks they're possible, but because he knows they're impossible and he is trying to sum up (among other things) the feeling of his universe coming crashing down around him him in the presence of salvation.
'He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.'
John the Divine was a poet and a mystic and to dismiss him for not being literalistic is to close your ears to what he is trying to say. Not so open minded after all.
Noon at 3:24PM on Mar 31st 2008
75. Oooo. Yabba is a nasty SOB. Perhaps you should go and have intercourse with yourself?
Linda at 3:21PM on Mar 31st 2008