The Bible, which has not been updated in over 2000 years, is most decidedly not a science book. Charles Darwin’s controversial 1859 bestseller, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, which is widely accepted by modern scientists as the prevailing theory with regard to the origins of life, is not an holy book. And intelligent design, which is not based upon any religious text, is really more about mathematical probability — that life/nature are far too complex to have come about randomly/accidentally — than it is about creationism or any particular theism.
Charles Darwin did an excellent job of documenting a scientifically verifiable and therefore plausible accounting of the biological and genetic connections between living things and the scientists who have followed in his footsteps have expanded upon and modified Mr. Darwin’s original theories as new discoveries have been made over the years. However, the theory of evolution is still incomplete — it has been a work in progress for almost 150 years — in that it does not actually explain that much about the origins of life on Earth.
Creationism is based upon the literal reading of the Book of Genesis, in which the Biblical God created the heaven and the earth, the day and the night, the land and the seas, the plants and the trees, the sun, moon and stars, the fishes and the animals and of course, man — “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:27, KJV) — in six days, about 6000 years ago.
Intelligent design is supposed to help to bridge the gaps between what we already know and understand from scientific observation and experimentation, what we have not yet learned and those empirical concepts and spiritual ideas which we accept on faith in the meantime until new research and discoveries come to light. Intelligent design is simply an effort to apply critical thinking and practical experience to the question of whether the apparent design of nature is a genuine design of an intelligent agent or the product of an undirected process. Unlike creationism, intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of the design and does not involve defending the Bible or any other religious scriptures.
Because the origin of life is still a gigantic question mark and much of what we understand of it requires various leaps of faith in natural and/or supernatural forces, the teaching of both evolution and intelligent design in schools is a way to allow for a scientific basis for the leaps of faith we make to ease our uncertainties without sacrificing proper scientific instruction or promoting or dismissing any particular religious belief.
These distinctions should be fairly easy to understand if one is intellectually honest and open-minded about the many questions that science has yet to answer completely, but distinguishing between them appears to be quite difficult for the people who are so set in their ways that they think of alternative viewpoints as sacrilegious to either their scientific doctrine or religious dogma.
What I find most ironic about the evolution/intelligent design/creationism issue is the zeal with which some evolutionists will attempt to quash any debate about the controversies surrounding the incompleteness of the work Mr. Darwin began over a century ago (Mr. Darwin passed on in 1882 but his theory of evolution is still evolving). Those who agree with the idea of teaching the controversy and contemplating the possibility of intelligent design are automatically — and unfairly — branded as religious zealots hoping to sneak Biblical instruction into public school science curricula, supposedly leading us down the slippery slope into a future in which our childrens’ science textbooks are taken away and burned so that they can be replaced with Bibles.
These evolution zealots have created a straw man (ostensibly to push him down their slippery slope) and are trying to make intelligent design stand for religious fanaticism so they can debate against that easy target, thus avoiding the challenge of having to explain deficiencies in the theory of evolution or having to acknowledge that a lot of educated people who are not religious fanatics believe that some sort of intelligent design is evident in nature. And they likely also wish to avoid discussing the fact that Mr. Darwin himself believed in a Creator, “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.”
Meanwhile, the real religious zealots are not actually relevant to the controversy — even if some of them might be laboring under the delusion that they are — because they completely reject the theory of evolution in favor of the literal Biblical explanation of creation and, by the same measure, reject the idea of intelligent design as well. Sure, they’re fanatics, but at least they are honest about their closed-minded assertions with regard to evolution and intelligent design.
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Original Articles Copyright 2005 by Margaret Romao Toigo
The only problem that I have with intelligent design is its implications that a higher form does indeed exist, which though held by many people to be fact based on faith, is not necessarily factual at all.
As long as intelligent design concepts were also combined with “accidental design” concepts, I think that the more views one has from which to interpret something, the better ones chances are of coming to an individual decision on how one feels/believes.
Intelligent design is a perfectly good belief system for people who believe in God and want, from that point of view, to extrapolate a perspective on origins. But there’s, ironically, nothing all that intelligent about it as a theory. It is not logical or evidence based, rather a matter of faith. That’s all well and good–people are entitled to believe what they want. However, as soon as anyone tries to put such an idea up for widespread teaching in a science syllabus then I have problems. And of course I associate that with religious fanaticism, because that’s what it is.
As for people trotting out the same old nonsense against evolution, Darwin etc, I suggest they get with the plot. Of course Darwin didn’t have all the answers. That is hardly controversial. Evolutionary theory has come a long way since then, and is supported by more evidence in every area of knowledge than just about any other idea in human consciousness. To suggest otherwise is just ignorance I’m afraid. Sorry Jay, but I’m afraid you’re benefiting from the outcomes of evolutionary theory every day.
As for me, I am a person with a scientific viewpoint and also some sort of spirituality, and I see no problem with that. That makes sense to me without the need for an idea like intelligent design to make it reconcilable. But to each their own. I just disagree with the idea that ‘evolutionary zealots’ fail to engage with intelligent design as a concept. There are few such people, and the issue is engaged with widely, but Ockham’s Razor has two edges. To a religious person, the simplest explanation is ‘God did it’, but to a scientific person that’s the most unlikely explanation. It was ever thus, and ever will be. Why should science concern itself with the idea any further?
All the best,
Clive.
Most of Darwinism is based on fraud, and wild guesses, and is just as faith based as any religion. Much of Darwinism has been proven completely false. Here are my thoughts on it.
http://stoptheaclu.blogspot.com/2005/05/aclu-monkey-business.html
Diluting Evolution
The Bible, which has not been updated in over 2000 years, is most decidedly not a science book. Charles Darwin’s…
The close-mindedness of some of those who oppose Intelligent Design really is appalling. It’s ironic how much they will remind you of the sort of witch-burning medieval religious fanatics that they want to associate with ID. I think we can all agree that organisms evolve. The sticking point seems to be that some insist that we believe that life and its evolution are spontaneous accidents — a concept I regard as prima facie absurd. It’s as if militant nihilism were a religion that is being imposed by force.
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I’m sorry, but you are quite incorrect in some of your assertions. Please study intelligent design and some
of the main peeps behind it and you will see that 1. there is a religious belief behind it and 2. the
“math” and “logic” you espouse it says is mainly considered by the whole scientific community to be quite
laughsome. The intelligent design “theory” is very limited to a few groups/individuals who are pushing it.
Everyone I know who believes in evolution is SO willing to say there are unresolved areas in evolution. The
quashing you see is only when someone makes an ignorant comment against evolution rather than truly focusing
on what the unresolved areas are or when they say something so ridiculous like “evolution doesn’t answer
EVERYTHING so it’s a bunch of BS.” It stuns me that theists with the level of faith required to follow a
religion, the number of holes and contradictions found in the Bible, and the lack of science behind religion,
have the chutzpah to say evolution isn’t 100% so you shouldn’t follow it.