Don’t dismiss design
.
August 20, 2010 • Jessica Norton, Scribbler staff
Filed under Opinions
The theory of intelligent design is about diversity, not divinity. It sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? By its very nature, to offer the theory of intelligent design as an option for the origin of life raises profoundly religious questions. The necessity of a designer implies something like the Christian God. So, naturally, state legislatures ban the theory from curricula because it crosses the line separating church from state.
Or so it appears.
If intelligent design is kept from classrooms simply because it raises questions of religion, then Darwin’s theory of evolution has no place either. Both theories force us to question our origins and make decisions about what we believe – did we arise from purely naturalistic processes, or were we created by a higher power? One of these theories makes God superfluous, the other makes God an absolute necessity. Clearly, excluding a theory purely because it has religious implications is impossible.
Second, the theory of intelligent design is not science based on Sunday School stories. While there is an origin of life theory that attempts to validate the biblical account of creation, intelligent design is different. So called “creation science” clearly crosses the line between church and state, and legislatures have every right to ban it from classrooms. But the theory of intelligent design is based upon observable evidence and phenomena – all it does is suggest that perhaps so many biological organisms and structures appear designed because they actually were.
The theory of intelligent design is controversial, even among scientists. Teaching the theory alongside more traditional Darwinian curricula fosters critical thought and creates an understanding of the debate that ensues when new ideas are brought before the scientific community. In short, intelligent design illustrates diversity in scientific theory and models how new ideas gain acceptance.
Forbidding teachers to teach intelligent design simply shortchanges students. It’s about diversity, not divinity, after all.
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The issue at hand is not that religious questions are raised, it is a matter of what is science and what is not. There is a reason why Evolution by Natural Selection is taught in schools, it is because there are vast quantities of Genetic, Embryological, Paleontological, AND Biogeographical (simply to name a few) evidence in support of evolution. Intelligent design lacks any of this evidence. I am not saying this as an angry little atheist either, I am saying this as someone who reads and reads and reads on this issue, BOTH sides of it, and I am here to tell you that there is a reason Intelligent design is not taught at school. Scientific Theories make testable predictions. Evolution teaches us that all life shares common ancestry, and that we have more in common with our closest relatives. Sure enough, Genetics affirms this, with our closest relatives (Chimpanzees and Bonobos) sharing 98.5% of the same genes we do, and that we also have genes in common with EVERY living thing on earth. Intelligent Design predicts that no living organisms share common ancestry, and that life DOES NOT change over time. These predictions are not made, as Genetics shows us we share common ancestry, and countless experiments, from simple RNA viruses to E. coli to Mice, show us that their genes change over time, and that the genes that are most beneficial to survival are passed down the generations (That is called Evolution by Natural Selection). The beautiful reason why Evoltution has passed all of Science’s tests, is because countless things could disprove it, say if we found fossil Bunnies in the Cambrian period (a clear violation of the theory), but none of these violations have ever been found, NONE. It is the MOUNTAIN of Data in favor, and none opposed, that makes Evolution accepted by the vast majority of the Scientific community.
There is a reason that The Supreme Court of the United States found Intelligent Design Unconstitutional to be taught in schools. Because it does not follow the Scientific Method, because it lacks evidence, because it’s argument is (and I am not exaggerating), “This is Complex. I can’t figure out how it came to be. God did it.”. That is just a lazy excuse not to go and DISCOVER WHY things happen! Whether you think Yahweh did it, or Zeus, or Quetzalcoatl, there is no evidence, and that form of logic fails to acknowledge that if complex things must be made by more complex things, and your God/Gods are Very complex, then something had to create the Gods! It just makes and endless cycle! Evolution builds complexity over time, without the requirement of an infinitely improbable Superhuman with such petty mortal emotions as Jealousy.
If you want diversity, then along with ID in biology, we should teach the 2012 apocalypse physics, how to make love potions in Chemistry, and World History from the perspective of a Holocaust denier, all of which are taken VERY seriously by many people, despite their complete and utter lack of evidence.
Well, I’m afraid this argument kinda doesn’t work.
Intelligent design IS creation science, just repackaged. Evolution is a hypothesis that has been proven again and again and again and, despite all their best efforts, Intelligent Deigners have still not been able to raise a single serious objection that evolutionists haven’t been able to answer (bacterial flegellum, anyone? Seriouly, is that the best they can do?)
I’m all for teaching controversies, but GENUINE ones. In the science community, there is no controversy here. Evolution is true. Deal with it. If you want to teach the Christian understanding of creation, by all means go ahead: in Sunday school. That’s where it belongs. It has no place in the science classroom, any more than the theory of a flat earth or a heliocentric universe.
The simple fact is that intelligent design is not science. It’s interesting, and raises some very interesting questions, but it is not science since it cannot be proved with the scientific method. Schools teach fact, and intelligent design is not a fact. Facts must be proved with the scientific method. I’m fine with people learning these things on there own time, outside of school. But in school only the facts should be taught.
The reason Intelligent Design isn’t a fit subject for the science classroom is because it isn’t science. Scientific theories have to furnish predictions that can be tested against reality, showing the theory to be an accurate or not.
For example, evolutionary theory predicts deep similarities between different kinds of living things, based on shared ancestry. This predicted similarity can be found all over the tree of life, both in similar phenotypes (bodies) and in the genetics of life itself.
The genetic code, by which triplets of the four DNA bases A,T,C and G are translated into one of twenty-odd amino acids during protein synthesis is, as near as anyone can determine, an arbitrary one: another scheme of translation would probably have worked just as well. The prediction of evolutionary theory would be that all living things share the same coding scheme, because it is passed on unchanged from ancestors to offspring: and indeed, from bacteria to baboons, we find the exact same coding scheme in use throughout the tree of life.
Show me a prediction that Intelligent Design theory makes that can actually be tested, and I’ll be the first to admit that ID should be taught in the science classroom. Until then, it belongs only in the sociology department, assuming your sociology department offers a course in the history of disingenuously promulgated nutty ideas.
Further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District
I find it quite ramarkable. How can intelligent design be considered to be taught in science when the scientific community does not even accept the theory? I am all up for debate and discussion but between scientists at universities. The minds of the next generation is simply too pure to be taken for granted to be even exposed to the flawed theory that is intelligent design.
I would point out too that the USA courts have not kept intelligent design out of schools because of the seperation between state and religion. It has been kept out because the scientific community, the real scientific community has time and time again showed the problems that is intelligent design.
Finally, if you want to become scientists you must be able to explain why you think a designer was needed. You can not include some type of higher power and expect real scientists to sit by and let that one go. Who created this higher power? What is that higher power? There is no evidence to support that a higher power even exists… unless of course you believe in the supernatural…
Thomas W Porter.
I agree that discussing ID can be useful to fostering critical thinking. However, it offers no testable predictions nor hypotheses so is not a scientific idea. Philosophy and Religious Studies are ideal for discussing ID but in the Science classroom should be reserved for actual science.It’s proponents may claim that it IS science but until they can show a testable prediction- or actually do some science in relation to their “theory” it remains a philisophical stance at best and an assertion at worst..
“…the theory of intelligent design is not science…” I must agree, and that is why it should not be taught in science class. It is about divinity, Intelligent Design requires a Designer and I have never heard a version in which the Designer is not divine. Intelligent Design is Creationism under another name with a few more facts considered. Keep it out of public school.
What many people fail to see is that intelligent design is in fact based on science, and not the Bible. There is a large controversy with in the scientific community about Intelligent Design. Many people simply don’t know that Intelligent Design is based on gathered scientific fact. Some would even go as far as to say that Intelligent design is based more on fact than the Theory of Evolution. Not only is there strong negative evidence for Evolution, but there is strong positive evidence for a Creator in cosmology and physics.
I would agree that Evolution makes sense, given that Natural Selection is a proven and observable scientific fact. But the Theory of Evolution remains only that: a theory. The fact is, Evolutions does not pass science’s tests. Darwin knew as he wrote The Origin of Species that the fossil record did not support his ideas. Darwin describes evolution as a series of slow slight changes over long periods of time in which a type of animal eventually branch out to become two entirely different species, and then they would divide, and eventually there are a number of different species coming from the same ancestor. This, in fact, is not supported by the evidence we have today. There is a period of archeological history called the Cambrian Explosion. It is a period of time when most major phyla of animals appeared, as shown in the records of actual fossils recovered. Even though it did take place over many million years, that is a relatively short period of time, in regards to the biological timeline. To put it into perspective, if a 24-hour clock represented the history of the world, then the Cambrian Explosion took place in a period of two minutes. That’s two minutes out of 1,440 minutes. The Theory of Evolution does not add up with the hard facts and fossils of the Cambrian Explosion. Although the major phyla from the Explosion have branched off into separate species, the base idea of Darwin’s theory that all animals had a single ancestor. The fossil records of the Cambrian Explosion disprove this, since animals did not make “a series of slow slight changes over long periods of time.” This evidence has been enough to convince 600+ many PhD scientists and professors that the Theory of Evolution doesn’t account for the sudden appearances of different phyla in the Cambrian time period. A list of these scientists can be seen and downloaded at http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/ For more on the Cambrian Explosion, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUC9drrEAVU&feature=related
Also, there is the evidence of biological machines. There are countless organisms that require many intricate parts of protein fitting in the exact place for the cell to even move. You need all parts for the thing to work. By Darwin’s theory, only single changes take place over long periods of time. For some cell’s motors, at least forty changes needed to have happened at once for the cell to even move. If it happened only one mutation at a time, then the cell would fail and be unable to reproduce. Here is a classic example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs5wGFbkb40
While the Cambrian Explosion disproves Darwin, it says nothing about a creator. That is why the Intelligent Design argument also deals with cosmology and physics. There is a reasoned piece of logic called the Kalam Cosmological Argument. It consists of three parts. One: Whatever begins to exist has a cause. Something cannot come into being uncaused out of absolutely nothing. This is simply observable. Nothing has ever begun with out a cause. Two: The universe began to exist. From early Greek materialism, up to the early 19th century idealism, the most widely accepted idea was that the universe is static and eternal. This was disproved by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. His equations say that the universe is either in a state of constant contraction or expansion. He actually thought that he had made a mistake in his equations, since the idea was ridiculous at the time. Georges Lemaître made a model based off of Einstein’s ideas and concluded that the universe was expanding. Edwin Hubble proved this when he studied light from other galaxies. He saw that other galaxies outside our own Milky Way were moving away from us at a speed proportional to its distance, meaning that the farther away they are, the faster they are traveling. If the universe is expanding, then what if you went back in time? The universe would start to shrink until it reached what scientists call singularity. This idea is commonly called the Big Bang. The incredible implication of Hubble’s discovery is that the Universe began to exist, validating part two of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. That now brings us to the third and final: The universe has a cause. The first states that anything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe has been proven to have a beginning. Therefore, the universe has a cause. This unmistakably points to something that isn’t limited to space and time that created the universe out of nothing, since space and time are only existent in this universe. Something had to transcend that to be able to start the Big Bang. The Big Bang is widely accepted among scientists today, due to the undeniable evidence. For more on the Kalam Cosmological Argument, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pP8ENlWfRk&feature=related
There is another principle called fine-tuning. Since the beginning of time, all the matter in the universe has been governed by a set of rules that are precisely balanced. Among these are gravitational force, electromagnetic force, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, speed of light, Plank’s constant, proton mass, electron mass, cosmological constant, mass density of the universe, Carlson energy resonance, and many more, the list including forty such parameters. If any of these things were missing, then life would not be possible. If there was no such thing as gravity, then no mass would be able to come together to form planets. If there was no such thing as strong nuclear force, then atoms would be unable to form. With no electromagnetic force, you would have no bonding. Now lets say that you have all of these necessary laws in place. They are remarkably fine-tuned. Imagine that there is a ruler that is stretched across the entire width of the universe. Now imagine that the ruler is divided into one-inch increments. Imagine that the precise force of gravity is one inch. If it were moved up one inch relative to the entire size of the universe, intelligent life would not be possible since organisms wouldn’t be able to be larger than the size of ants. If one inch less, mass wouldn’t be able to form planets big enough for life. Another example is the Cosmological Constant. The Cosmological Constant is how fast the universe is expanding. If space expands too quickly, then material objects would not be able to form. Physicists have determined that the Cosmological Constant is fine-tuned to one part in one hundred million billion billion billion billion billion. Just consider those two parameters. Together, the odds of getting both of those forces correct for life is beyond astronomical (one in one hundred million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion). It’s like one atom in the entire universe. Then consider the forty such parameters needed for life. The odds get unrealistically tiny that the universe was a creation of chance. This level of fine-tuning is evident even in the atomic level. If the strong nuclear force, that holds protons and neutrons together were decreased by only one part in ten thousand billion billion billion billion, the only atom able to form would be hydrogen, because it only has one proton. Now, many atheist scientists come up with an excuse to explain this. They theorize that there are multiple universes, each with every different possible combination of forces and strength of forces, and ours happens to be the one that supports life. The problem is that there is absolutely no data, experimental or otherwise, that points to this. For more on the fined tuned principle, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iwzzR0lUKw&feature=related
The common reason why Intelligent Design is often ignored as having no proof is that most people are simply ignorant of the evidence. They confuse the implications with the evidence. Intelligent Design, done right, is absolutely based in fact. It shows how science, with out a doubt, points to a creator. The theory of intelligent design is not a faith-based idea. People of faith simply use the purely scientific findings to show proof of a God. People want to dismiss it as something that has no basis in science. This is absolutely false. Intelligent Design merely points to something that many people are just scared to admit. It may support theistic beliefs, but that is not what it is based off of. It is based on standard ways of scientific reasoning.
I am Christian. If anyone has any questions they have for me, including Intelligent Design, or my religion, or just faith in general, feel free to ask me at xeones.the.great@gmail.com I also suggest for people who have an open mind to read Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel or The Reason for God by Timothy Keller.
Nathan Moore
Edited by: Jonathan Saenger and Matthew Tanner
It’s nice to see students responding to this article with such reasonable and logical comments. Intelligent design is just creationist propaganda dressed as science. Expose it for what it is at every opportunity.
Before I begin, I must let any readers know that I am writing this in response to Nathan Moore’s comment.
I write the following because when Scientists could be out and about Solving Energy Dependency, Curing Disease, and taking us to New, Unexplored worlds, they are held back, and forced to repeatedly explain the evidence for Evolution. It is a complete shame that such minds should be wasted, but as a positive result, the world now has more evidence for Evolution than we know what to do with. Now I know those of you who are ID/Creationism subscribers are probably shaking your heads, thinking I am some kind of brainwashed ignorant something or another, but I ask that you listen the what I have to offer, as I read what you did.
I start of where you did. With a word of many meanings. Theory. Seems like a decent place to start off. Now I mean not to be picky about words, but it is such a common mistake that it is worth pointing out. The Oxford English Dictionary has several definitions, but only 2 definitions are necessary here.
Theory, Sense 1: A scheme or System of ideas or statements held as an explanation or account of a group of facts or phenomena; a hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment, and is propounded or accepted as accounting for the known facts; a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed.
and now the second, which was actually removed from the Oxford Dictionary for causing countless misinterpretations;
Theory, Sense 2: A hypothesis proposed as an explanation; hence, a mere hypothesis, speculation, conjecture; an idea or set of ideas about something; an individual view or notion.
The Common use of the word Theory by Scientists to describe Evolution is in the 1st sense of the word. Evolution is a tested hypothesis, which is confirmed by science, and I will get back to it’s confirmation in a moment. The problem is that Theory in sense two is a synonym for ‘Hypothesis’, which we all know as an unproven idea, mere speculation. Now I have a bone to pick with your statement, “Darwin knew as he wrote The Origin of Species that the fossil record did not support his ideas.” Now back in 1849, 151 years ago mind you, the Evolution was without a doubt a ‘Theory’ in the 2nd sense. But the way this statement is phrased assumes that it is still 1849. It assumes that no evidence has been discovered sense. This is so untrue it makes me weep. In the last 150 so years, we have gathered more data in favor of evolution than the opposition could dream of. I am always entertained when Science crosses Religions boundaries, and the Religious must redraw their lines. It happened with a Round Earth, then Heliocentricity, now Natural Selection (as you have admitted), and for many Religious Zealots including the Evangelical Church of Britain and even the Catholic Church and the Pope himself, the full on Theory (sense 1) of Evolution. Although I don’t believe this redeems the Pope and his Church of the many many issues that I and many others have with them, this is not the place to start that debate.The fact of the matter is that Evolution has the Evidence today.
I will begin with your main issue, Speciation, one species becoming another. You say there is no evidence? It IS observable, believe it or not, in several cases, the most well known (not well known enough) is known as the ‘Ring Species Salamanders’.
The gist of these ring species is that at the Southern end of the Californian San Joaquin Valley are two closely related species of Salamanders, but two populations that do not interbreed. They are separate species. Now you might ask, “So what? How does this prove anything?”. Well I’m glad you asked, imaginary commentator! The following has been thoroughly documented over the last 20 years; you see, one population extends up to the Western half of the San Joaquin Valley, using the image on the link will be very useful in understanding
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/05/2/image_pop/l_052_05.html
, the other up the Eastern side. Population A, as we shall call it (all the scientific names are listed on the image), can interbreed with the subspecies north of it lets say, B. B can interbreed with the population to it’s north, C. C interbreeds with the Northern most subspecies, and the Northernmost then interbreeds with the next subspecies going South, down the other side of the Valley. All populations interbreed with adjacent populations. Then as we go South, the amazing happens. The chain of interbreeding ends with the original 2nd species, which cannot interbreed with the first! Two separate species, with a full complete chain of no longer missing links. All the links are there, all of them. A complete chain of transitional species, with the two species at the end unable to interbreed. This has been extremely well documented, and below I list a few examples, in this and other species. This is one species becoming the second. Formation of Species in action, this is what you’ve asked for, THIS is proof of Evolution.
The links below are studies (not Wikipedia pages) about several different Ring Species.
http://sysbio.oxfordjournals.org/content/41/3/273.abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0014-3820.2001.tb00619.x/abstract
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w0103540u5113872/
These are helpful at explaining the process as well.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/05/2/l_052_05.html
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/irwin.html
(Just to name a few, I won’t do all your research for you
)
Having presented more than enough evidence for evolution, I will now correct your misinterpretation of the Cambrian ‘Explosion’.
Explosion? As I, and many Scientists, have gone through explaining countless times, it is not the 1850′s, and the events of the Cambrian and Precambrian periods are anything but an explosion. It is 2010, and there is now, 150 years later, large quantities of evidence shedding new light on the Cambrian ‘Explosion’. “The results of an article published in Nature, in 2010, have shown that the Eukaryotic multicellularity which has been thought to evolve with the beginning of Cambrian Period might date back to 2.1 billions of years ago, which is approximately 1.55 billions of years earlier than the date indicated by dominating scientific evidences,” That was actually from the Wikipedia page that you posted, and I also took the liberty of finding it’s source
(http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100630/full/news.2010.323.html). It is this along with other fossils AND, more importantly Genetic Evidence, which tells us that all the major splits in Phyla had taken place before the Cambrian explosion, that we come to the conclusion that the term ‘Explosion’ is a misnomer. It is more of the ‘Cambrian Window into life at that time period, having the appearance of quick diversification, only because fossils so ancient are extremely rare, and until now we had little data to base early life on’. The sequence of Fossils known as the Cambrian Explosion, is more a representative of our lack of fossils from the Precambrian, than a lack of diverse life during it. The Cambrian Explosion is not an Explosive diversification of life, it is life changing at the rate it had for millions of years, as shown by Genetics and recent Fossil finds, and that the Explosion is just a 150 year old interpretation of these lucky and rare rocks, showing what little we knew, and know, about the world as it was billions of years ago.As I have shown in the paragraph(s?) above, new species DO form. There goes your 1st problem with Evolution. Your second, the Cambrian explosion, you think it violates Evolution, “The fossil records of the Cambrian Explosion disprove this, since animals did not make ‘a series of slow slight changes over long periods of time.’ “. Well now we have New Fossils, with the Grand support of Grand support of Genetics show that the Cambrian explosion was no faster than any of the other radiations of animals in Earth’s History. They had over 1 billion years to develop the complexity that it is thought to defy Darwinism. Let the number sink in. That is a lot more than your two minutes, and it seems to dampen the bang of the explosion, don’t you think?
Now to your argument about the Bacterial Flagellum. This is a common argument used by Creation/Intelligent Design advocates and it stems from the idea “What use is half an X?”. Replace X with Eye, Wing, or in this case, bacterial flagellum. Creationists tend to use the eye and wing arguments less because of a, now, very strong argument demonstrating how the human eye could evolve. Starting with simple light detecting cells, then a shallow cup around the eye to help in detecting the direction of the light, and so on and so forth, each stage increasing the organisms survivability leading to an Eye (this video is great at illustrating my point, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4742301713635559854)
The story is the same every time Creationists try it. They say, “How could there be any intermediate stages! It is so complex,” and every time, Science responds with the intermediate stages, forcing the opposition to redraw their line. The line is now drawn at the Flagellum. What possible use is half a flagellum? What they do not understand is that Evolution doesn’t work in straight lines, by that I mean, you don’t evolve half a wing before you evolve a wing. The wing started as something else. Arms (and sometimes legs) in the case of birds, bats, flying squirrels, sugar-gliders, and colugos (which include their tails in their flight apparatus). Arms, even, came from fins! Evolution does not evolve new organs out of nothing, it tends to take old organs and make them into something more useful, the same goes for the Bacterial Flagellum. It works because It didn’t need to work as a motor when it was in it’s original little pieces, it worked as something else. The following is a good demonstration of the flagellum’s evolution from less complex organs, http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html#fig7 (this website as a whole is a good resource, and it’s main page talkorigins.org), it shows the intermediate stages necessary that lead to a flagellum, all of which would have taken a course of millions of years, plenty of time in the Several Billion years of Precambrian Life.
Before we go into the Cosmos, where your essay goes next, I would like to summarize the points made above. All the evidence to support these points is above, I recommend reading it if you skipped ahead (not saying that is bad, skimming before reading can be helpful for some);
1- Theory has multiple meanings, the one intended by the Majority of Scientists for Evolution is “A hypothesis that has been confirmed or established by observation or experiment,”, not Theory in Sense 2, a synonym for unproven Hypothesis.
2- IT IS NOT 1850! There are now vast quantities of evidence, all peer reviewed and having passed the Scientific Method, confirm Evolution.
3- There are VERY WELL DOCUMENTED observational Studies of ‘Ring Species’, with living transitional forms, ‘non-missing links’, Directly Demonstrating the Formation of New Species.
4- The Cambrian was not an Explosion, the fossils known 150 years ago were not sufficient, but there are now countless amounts of evidence saying, ‘No Bang’. The Cambrian ‘Explosion’ was no faster than any of the other radiations of Life on Earth in history.
5- Organs don’t evolve from nothing, they borrow from old organs. Wings, Eyes, & Flagellum all evolved from intermediate organs, with different uses, allowing for their complexity to build while following the laws of Natural Selection, and we now know of logical intermediate stages, to allow their development.
It is for these, and countless other reasons, that Evolution is considered a demonstrable fact by Scientists and the Majority of the ‘Developed’ World. When you say, “While the Cambrian Explosion disproves Darwin, it says nothing about a creator,” you seem very hasty to get your point across. Instead of listening to the people who tell you what you want to hear, then regurgitating it without justifying it, comparing it to Science of 1850, I would recommend getting an understanding today’s Legitimate Evidence, and getting an actual understanding of Evolution. Everything that you said disproved Evolution, doesn’t, because it is not 1850. Whether you take it as a friendly peer review, or an attack, what I say to you now is true; based on your out of date arguments that would only be made by one who does not fully understand the theory of Evolution, I have come to the conclusion that you do not understand the Evolution. I believe that you get the gist of it, ‘change over time, new species, etc’, but you lack the understanding of the Evidence, which is what all of Biology is based on. As a sincere offer, Nathan, I would like to let you read a book from my extensive library of science books which explains the Evidence for Evolution. I do not expect you to be ‘converted’ or anything, but I would like you to understand what you are going around calling false. If you understood Evolution, and remained a believer in ID it would eliminate the need for me to write uselessly long essays explaining the countless misinterpretations.
Now onward to the God Hypothesis for explaining the Cosmos. To get it out of the way now, Evolution doesn’t cover physics, it never has, never will. Now this is a very hot topic recently, as many books in the last few years have been published on the topic. We now know that whatever the original cause, it’s result (although mistaken by many as the cause) was the Big Bang; Space-Time, Matter and Energy all expanding from one point, now known as a singularity, brought to us by the Einstein of our time, Stephan Hawking. The Creationist/ID argument is that God was necessary to create the Big-Bang. My argument, the argument of many Scientists including Stephan Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and many more, is that the Universe can be here today, without the necessity for Somebody to have made it. Stephan Hawking’s work, along with many other amazing physicists, have brought us Theories of our Universe, in which a Creator is not necessary, as Hawking put, “What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn’t prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary,” and ” … there would be no singularities at which the laws of science broke down and no edge of space-time at which one would have to appeal to God or some new law to set the boundary conditions for space-time . . . The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE . . . What place, then, for a creator?”.The fine tuning of the the Universe is simply not necessary. We are gathering more data day by day, coming up with more plausible and logical explanations. In fact there are many explanations we now have that are wonderfully plausible.
It starts from Stephen Hawking’s idea of Black holes creating ‘singularities’, ripping holes in space-time, which creates a new universe. The theory goes that when a new Universe is made, it inherits the constants and laws of it’s mother (by what process is unknown, but so were Genes when Natural selection was first theorized), and that small changes can take place in those constants over time. Because Black Holes are what the Universes use to reproduce, over time the only Universes that will exist are ones that are good at making black holes (or reproducing by other means, which could in theory be possible in other universes). To be good at making black holes universes will need laws that enable their development, stars are also necessary for the development of black holes, so as a result, we get universes that are good at making stars, which ours is clearly great at, and finally, as a result of stars, we get planets orbiting them, sometimes in the habitable zone. This would also lead to what appears to be fine tuning, because all the constants and laws leading to matter are completely necessary for Black Holes, and they would develop over time to look as if designed for a purpose, when really just the end product of a long series of changes lead to increased survivability. It is one of many new theories that significantly reduce the improbability of spontaneous perfection. Not to say it is true, just to demonstrate that there are theories at work trying to explain everything logically, rather than just being lazy and saying “God did it!”.
There are now countless scientists developing workable theories for the Universe, and while we don’t know everything now, We don’t pretend to know everything!, and because of that we go out and discover what we don’t know! I am confident that some day someone will look back and say, “Hey , History-Deniers! It is not 2010 anymore!”.
It is my conclusion, after long research on both sides of the issue, that Evolution has earned it’s place, accepted in science, schools, and most modern culture. From all I have learned about the different theories, the arguments used by Intelligent Design and Creationism are ones based on ignorance (not to place blame, nobody knows everything) of the evidence for evolution. The only cases ever made by ID are that evolution has gaps, they never tell you what they are, and If they do they are easily disproved. They only conjure up negative evidence against evolution, without affirmative evidence for themselves, as if it is a one versus one cage match, Winner takes all, this is not true. You don’t prove one theory by disproving another, you have to come up with real, observable, testable, and peer-reviewed evidence for the theory, which Evolution has been gaining by the tons over the last century and a half. Creationism/ID, the idea of one God creating the Universe, has been around for over 2000 years! One finds it odd that the only evidence they have over 2000 plus years is vague analogies, word tricks, and ignorant attacks on the opposition. I have never heard an argument for ID or Creationism, for which there was not a more logical argument given by Science. If that essay was your justification for your beliefs, then I am sorry to say that your beliefs are not well justified.
By Charles Bond
Reviews and editing done by Anonymous, Joey Ronca, and Zack Ritter
Nathan Moore,
How can something be scientific when it includes the supernatural because unless we have evidence that can explain what the ‘designer’ is, how it came into existence, where it may be now etc Intelligent Design will never, ever be considered scientific or even serious.
I will also ask, why are you focused on Darwin? Darwin was fantastic, but was wrong on many levels and today because of our greater understanding and technological advances we can ask different questions and get different and better results. Darwin provided the rough framework, so it’s time to come back to 2010. Your arguments about Darwin are about 150 years out of date. We have progressed forward. It is afterall about biology, not Darwin.
It is quite amusing that you use physics to argue your corner while dismissing the other possibilities. What’s the point? The same physics can point to many answers and as we progress we will find answers better and more accurate. Theoretical physics afterall has limitations.
However if a creator is around where does it get it’s energy source to survive? You and I eat food that helps provide energy. Blackholes also can not survive without radiating energy (it runs out eventually), even suns will eventually die once they use the energy available. So, if everything we understand needs some type of energy source, who feeds the creator? It is estimated that 20% of our energy intake is needed for brain-power, so the amount of energy required for this ‘creator’ certainly is off the charts, or has the ‘creator’ died from hungar?
The ‘creator’ is the foundation of Intelligent Design. If you can’t explain to the world what it is, then why should we take it seriously? That’s something very unscientific. What experiments have been done to prove that one exists?
Lastly, if Intelligent Design was sound then why persist on mentioning evolution? Surely results speak for themselves and since evolution contributes to medicine, agriculture, research, economics, computer feilds etc plus many other feilds.
Is it simply easier to attack Darwin who is 150 years out of date instead of competing against evolution because you can’t produce the same results? If you said you wer ebetter at darts we could have a comptetition. Intelligent Design has not made the same amount of contribution (if any at all) then evolution to science and the world. Why should we consider an inferior method? Why ride a horse when you can get a car (or heck even the bus?)
Something is considered scientific if scientific evidence points towards it, and the conclusions drawn from it. However, science can never prove something, it can only reject. That is why in all scientific lab conclusions, it is never written, “This results proves…” it is always, “This result supports” or “This result rejects.” The purpose of what I wrote wasn’t to prove Intelligent Design, but to make an argument (remembering that argument means to prove the validity of your point, not to persuade others, and not to prove the point itself). I’m curious how you would define “scientific.”
The arguments on evolution are not out of date. The Cambrian Explosion is a very documented time period, based on the fossils that have been dug up. If anything, the explosion has become more pronounced than it was when Darwin wrote his book. I could produce a bunch of sources that would say how short the explosion is, and you could produce a bunch saying the opposite. The problem is, humans aren’t perfect machines, so we color things with our own subjectivity, so the only way we would know for sure is if we actually look at primary sources of the fossils, and even then we might come to different conclusions, since what is short to me may seem long to you, because it is completely impossible for humans to be objective.
What other possibilities are there, besides multiple universes? Multiple Universes has absolutely no evidence behind it at all. Occam’s Razor sheers away those guesses.
As to “energy sources” to survive, you are thinking in terms of our universe. If a creator caused the Big Bang, he would be above the doings of the universe he created. He isn’t limited by space, time, matter, or energy. He would be omnipotent. (Before you say things like, “if he’s omnipotent, then why does he let disease and evil happen on Earth?” that’s not a scientific question, which is the topic of this article. It is a religious question, and if you want the answer, then email me and I can tell you, cause I don’t want to waste the Scribbler Staff’s time approving off topic comments) Since a creator would be above the laws of the universe that he created, he wouldn’t be limited by such things as energy.
Again, the references that I have are up to date, if you had actually opened them, you probably would have seen that.
All that really remains to be said is that we probably won’t ever convince each other that the other is right, since that isn’t the point of an argument, and because you are obviously set in your ways as am I.
Multiple Universes has no less Evidence than your God, and your Omnipotence idea breaks one of the fundamental laws of the Universe, Matter and Energy cannot be Created or Destroyed. Extraordinary Claims require Extraordinary Evidence, and seeing as your hypothesis breaks our known laws of physics, you would need extraordinary and irrefutable evidence to back up such a claim. Simply saying ‘God did, because he has infinite ammo” doesn’t cut it in Science.
And finally, I don’t know how many times I have had to correct ID/Creationists on the Cambrian Explosion. I am insulted that when Creationists run out of Evidence to back up a claim, they resort to passive-aggressive word tricks. “I could produce a bunch of sources that would say how short the explosion is, and you could produce a bunch saying the opposite.”, It doesn’t matter how MANY you have. 100% of people used to think that the Sun went around the Earth, and 15% of Americans think that Obama is Hitler/Anti-Christ. Numbers are meaningless. It is the legitimacy, credibility. You could find Religious Fundamentalist blogs saying that the Cambrian Explosion took 1 million years. But they lack actual evidence. On the other hand, the people basing their claims on evidence (as opposed to actively seeking Evidence to support a predeclared claim), and using the hard evidence of fossils found showing complex life before the Cambrian, and Genetics telling us that the major phyla splits occurred before the Cambrian. It is not a matter of how many Wikipedia knockoffs I can paste, it is about the content of your sources. My sources are backed by the whole of Modern Science, and are from credible studies and observations.
I was not raised to believe in Evolution, 1 God, 3 Gods, or No Gods. In my childhood, nobody raised me an Atheist. Nobody told me to be anything. And years later, looking back, I am grateful, because it stripped me of the collides-cope of faith, allowing me to learn with an open mind. I do not have a godless evolving world Ingrained into my brain to the point where I do not accept hard Evidence. I have yet to receive any, but I’d really like to know the big secret ya’ll religious folks are hiding from me that makes you so confident. Because you know, it must be a pretty big secret seeing as the Idea of 1 God creating the Universe and life that doesn’t change has been around for thousands of years, and the only arguments for that idea are ones from ignorance of the facts, word tricks, and faith. Compare that with the mountains of data in favor of Evolution that have accumulated over less than 2 centuries, most of it found recently with the help of modern technology. If you gave a lawyer 2 years to convict of Bob murder, and at the end of the 2 years all he says is, “He must have done it I have a gut feeling”, and then you find DNA Evidence, Photographs, and shoe prints saying that Mike was the Murderer, who would you put behind bars?