According to Richard Milner and Vittorio Maestro, writers for Natural History, the idea that an organism’s complexity is evidence for the existence of a cosmic designer was considered centuries before Charles Darwin was born. Its best-known champion was the English theologian William Paley, architect of the famous watchmaker analogy back in 1802. His notion goes something like this: if we found a pocket watch in a field, we would immediately infer that it was produced not by natural processes acting blindly but by a designing human intellect. Likewise, he reasoned, the natural world contains abundant evidence of a supernatural creator. This argument from design prevailed as an explanation of the natural world until the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859. The weight of the evidence that Darwin had gathered convinced scientists that evolution by natural selection better explained life’s complexity and diversity. However in certain scientific communities, opposition to the concept of evolution has persisted. This point-of-view has recently been revived by a number of academics with scientific credentials. These anti-evolutionists differ from creationists in that they agree that the Earth is much more than 6,000 years old, but they reject the idea that evolution accounts for the array of species we see today, and they seek to have their concept—known as Intelligent Design—included in the science curriculum of schools.
Simply put, Intelligent Design (or ID) is the belief that the universe reflects characteristics resulting from an intelligent cause or agent, not a process such as natural selection. Though most ID advocates state that their focus is on detecting evidence of “design in nature,” (without regard to who or what the designer could be) nearly all state that they believe the designer to be God. But advocates of ID maintain that their theory is scientific and state they can provide proof for the existence of God. They believe that design is evident in nature and in all living systems. And finally, they believe that Intelligent Design should be taught in the schools because it is a worthwhile alternative to Darwin’s theories.
According to Sir Frederick Hoyle in his 1981 book Evolution from Space, the odds against DNA assembling by chance are 1,040,000 to one. While no one is arguing the mathematical odds, anti-ID advocates believe that despite these odds, DNA did not assemble completely by chance. DNA assembled via a combination of chance and the laws of physics. Einstein believed that without the laws of physics, life on earth could not have evolved in the relatively short span of six billion years (as opposed to the creationists view of 6,000). Nuclear force was needed to bind protons and neutrons in the nuclei of atoms; electromagnetism was needed to keep atoms and molecules together; and gravity was needed to keep the ingredients for life grounded to the surface of the earth.
Furthermore, according to Richard Dawkins in his book, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design, explaining the origin of the DNA by invoking a supernatural designer is “to explain nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the designer. You have to say something like �God was always there,’ and according to Dawkins, “if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say �DNA was always there,’ or �Life was always there,’ and be done with it.”
But that still leaves us with Paley’s pocket watch conundrum. A scientist often cited by defenders of ID is Michael Behe. Behe is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University, and he believes that “biochemistry reveals a cellular world of such staggering complexity that it couldn’t possibly be explained by gradual evolution.” He goes on to state “that the only plausible explanation is to assume that it (the universe) was created by an intelligent designer, i.e., God.”
Karen Bartelt, a Professor of Chemistry at Eureka College (no pun intended) responds to Behe with this: “If we assume that Behe is correct, and that humans can discern design, then I submit that they can also discern poor design.” She essentially believes that Behe is full of hogwash. In fact, most biologists have determined that the advocates of Intelligent Design display a deliberate misrepresentation of evolutionary science. Yet their proposals are getting heard in many political and educational circles and they are currently the subject of a debate with the Ohio Board of Education.
Like the scientist H. Allen Orr, I believe that “in the end, it’s hard to view Intelligent Design as a coherent movement in any but a political sense.” But I can’t help but wonder why and how the word DESIGN got thrown into this argument? Design has become a word with a myriad of meanings. There is graphic design, fashion design, interior design, product design, package design, industrial design and now, in an effort to explain the origins of the universe, Intelligent Design (inital caps intended). The CEO of Procter & Gamble, A.G. Lafley (thankfully) extols the virtues of design in the mass marketplace. The Target Corporation touts design as a way to differentiate products to consumers. Harvard Business School has developed case studies showcasing how design can impact a company’s bottom line (i.e. Apple). And now we have scientists proving God’s existence via his (her?) Intelligent Design. The designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe famously said that “God is in the details.” Perhaps he should have said “God is in the Design?”
To myself,
the process known as evolution and natural
selection does not contradict the concept of a
God...Just as physics reveal the laws of the
universe, evolution/natural selection is
how the universe is played out.
Did God set fourth the universe?
Perhaps, but I also think our ideas
of God is greatly immature; people often
refer to it, as Him..or She..but why
would God have a gender? What if God is
actually a collective of beings acting as one?
To me, we shouldn't teach ID in schools because
it has religious overtones -- it violates the
law of seperating state and religion -- people
may have different religious convictions which
do not include a God.
On Oct.19.2005 at 01:38 PM