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 6 of 63)
76. 71. GHB,
Nifflheim I think is from Norse mythology, not Greek.
Mokele-Mobembe at 3:08PM on Mar 31st 2008
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Crap. I love Norse mythos, and was thinking of Odin instead of Zeus. Crap. Crap.
I should have gone with the norse... Cahnged ot to roman at the last second, for the familiarity factor.
Crap.
Godless Heathen Brian at 3:23PM on Mar 31st 2008
77. I like the way GHB thinks. You've always managed to put into letters/words what I can only see in my head - it's like we are part of the same BIG CONSCIENCE!
But I want it mentioned that I want to be on the logic side of the BIG CONSCIENCE and not on the fantasy side of the BIG CONSCIENCE.
TJ at 3:28PM on Mar 31st 2008
78. So, what's yabba's point about Lemaître?
Linda at 3:28PM on Mar 31st 2008
79. 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
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I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own--a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.
- Albert Einstein
Albert seems to agree with me.
How's the gravel business, Fred? Have you and Barney "come out" yet? Don't ask, don't tell...
Godless Heathen Brian at 3:30PM on Mar 31st 2008
80. ...And Jupiter is the Roman ripoff of Zeus. Tyr could beat up Ares with just one hand - that's all he got left 'cause Fenrir bit it (subtle Jerry Reed reference here).
We had kickass Schwarzennegger movies. They responded with The 6th Day and End Of Days.
Mokele-Mobembe at 3:31PM on Mar 31st 2008
81. But I want it mentioned that I want to be on the logic side of the BIG CONSCIENCE and not on the fantasy side of the BIG CONSCIENCE.
TJ at 3:28PM on Mar 31st
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Thanks. Me too. :-) That's the goal.
Godless Heathen Brian at 3:32PM on Mar 31st 2008
82. Mokey,
I guess in a world of sin, the only moral thing to do is ruin everyone's fun.
GHB,
Methinks Yabba is just a coward who didn't want to use the name he/she normally posts under.
K at 3:34PM on Mar 31st 2008
83. Yeah, Jupiter is roman, Zeus greek, Odin norse. I got it, I got it...
Does one get points for once having known it and subsequently having forgotten? 'Cause I catch myself doing that a lot... No? Oh well, then, I'm a dolt, what more is to be said?
Godless Heathen Brian at 3:36PM on Mar 31st 2008
84. Yabba should stop dabbing his do and wipe like the rest of us.
'Cause there's an odor...
Godless Heathen Brian at 3:39PM on Mar 31st 2008
85. I am a born-again Christian.And i find evolution interesting.Though i do not believe in it.And because evolution is science,let us not dislodge it from the classroom.If it leads people away from God,hey,following God is after all a choice.And that is what this argument boils down to.
I.D. should be taught,but without the agenda of forcing down belief into everyone's throat.Evolution should be taught.Without telling someone how to believe.
aniekan thomas at 3:40PM on Mar 31st 2008
86. "Does one get points for once having known it and subsequently having forgotten? 'Cause I catch myself doing that a lot... No? Oh well, then, I'm a dolt, what more is to be said?"
It makes you a "backslider" and a "ding-dong"! Do you miss Rtia? Me neither.
Mokele-Mobembe at 3:41PM on Mar 31st 2008
87. D'Souza says, "As a Christian, I believe that the universe and its living creatures are the products of intelligent design."
And as a Christian, you pretty much have to, don't you?
D'Souza says, "This belief is not merely derived from theology but is also supported by rational considerations."
Indeed there are, 'Arguments for God' aplenty!, in Christian Philosophy!
D'Souza says, "There is enormous intelligence embedded in the laws of nature."
This is (I'd say deliberately) confusing. I'm not saying that I'm confused here, I'm saying that D'Souza is being confusing because he has already granted himself the Intelligent Design(er?) Theory by his first sentence and now he's just expanding that to imply that the 'laws of nature' are prescriptive, not descriptive.
Scientist derived these 'laws' by induction and by assuming that these same 'laws' that they described will hold up universally.
Newton, for example didn't take into account time dilation for objects moving at astronomical speeds, therefore Newton did NOT discover a God prescribed natural law, he induced and described Newton's Laws of 'whatever' and NOT God's Laws of 'whatever' as revealed by Newton.
not-pboyfloyd at 3:43PM on Mar 31st 2008
88. Mokele.... what is Wisdom Tree? I have never heard of this before... hmmm. christian knock-offs are usually not as good... what happened to creativity?.. i don't listen to christian music really for the same reasons... most of it anyway. Those 70s rockers and musicians are hard to beat.
Shannie at 3:45PM on Mar 31st 2008
89. DD: You claim that evolution is "routinely" taught in an atheistic way, but fail to cite a single example of same. Surely, if this sort of thing happened "routinely" you could do better.
In addition, I have these MAJOR problems with ID: First, surely you realize that across the eons of earth's existence, there have been all sorts of major changes - continental drifts, tectonic shifts and the like. If the "designer" was so intelligent, why all these alterations? Did the "designer" get it wrong on the first try? the second? Why were whole species of living things allowed to become extinct?
Second, all your "rational considerations" in support of ID are based on a fundamental tautology; e.g. a complex organism or system must have been the result of an intelligent designer. How do we know this? Because it is complex. Simply put, there is no way of proving the existence of the "designer" independent of the complex phenomenon one cites as an example of his/her handiwork.Therein resides the tautology or circular reasoning.
Marty Adams at 3:48PM on Mar 31st 2008
90. Shannie,
Wisdom Tree was a company that made Christian games in the Nintendo era. My favorite is Bible Adventures, which was a ripoff of SMB2 with clumsier controls, inexplicable level design, and ungodly music tracks. Yes I have played it. Interestingly SMB2 itself was a ripoff of a game called Doki Doki Panic (ドキドキパニック).
Mokele-Mobembe at 3:52PM on Mar 31st 2008