Intelligent Design vs. Science

This would be a 100 page blog post if I was going to do justice to the debate between intelligent design (ID) vs. science. Mainly, though, I don’t understand why there seems to be a push to merge (vs. keep separate) church and State — of which this ID debate is but a part.

Why is evolution seemingly rejected by religious fundamentalists and even those with middle-of-the-road, solid beliefs? Why are the most educated among us most apt to embrace science vs. falling back on “God did it” as an explanation for everything?

This is a bit sarcastic, but why — if we’re going to push for faith-based, intelligent design teachings to be added to school curriculum — we don’t just use Scientology’s? (Started by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology enjoys tax exempt religious status and believes many things…including intelligent designers who came from other planets, arrived in spaceships and are beings called “thetans” that have existed for tens of trillions of years).

Great article here that helps frame up the ID vs. evolution debate and will give you a lot more background. To me, it sure seems like ID is just Creationism morphed slightly toward science and name-changed to be more palatable to the masses.

My belief in science is that theories (or parts comprising theories) can be proven experimentally. That’s the whole point of science and building upon what we’ve learned previously. Proofs are rigorously peer reviewed, often rejected and/or subjected to great debate…and often later changed when new data becomes available. God gave us brains and curiousity to not just hang around filled with hope and faith…but rather to learn, to discover, to build, to explore, and to seek.

Every atom, every particle, every one of the billions of galaxies comprising trillions of Suns (and an unknowable number of planets) show me God. Why does the theory of evolution work for me and that I believe it and only it should be taught in schools? Because it is THE most cogent, logical theory of the origin of species that we have today. It does a good job at explaining variation and speciation on Earth. Instead of evidence of evolution, proponents of ID look for evidence of what they call signs of intelligence — physical properties of an object that necessitate design. So anything not readily explainable, complex, beautiful or mysterious is lumped in to “intelligent design” without further explanation needed.

ID’ers making the assumption that incredible complexity, beauty and interconnectedness point to God just ’cause — and that it should be taught in school as an alternative though lacking any logical framework — is disingenuous. In ones place of worship? Fine. But I’ll go back to my original statement above as the primary push-back to ID’ers: if ID is mandated to be taught side-by-side with evolution in our Nation’s public schools, just wait for Scientology to push for teaching that thetans came to Earth on spaceships and were responsible for humanity and the evolution of our species.

Sound farfetched?  Though President Bush (who is pushing intelligent design teachings in schools) is notorious for not being well informed, well read or a critical thinker, I’d bet that anything other than a solidly Christian-based intelligent design curriculum would be summarily dismissed by he and his minions.