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This website is being renovated throughout 2008. Pages and the content of pages will continue to change until the end of the year and there may be some inconsistencies and missing links. Please do not quote from or link to specific pages (apart from the home page) without contacting the webmaster first. Abdicating science The hypocrisy behind Intelligent Design By © Martin Foreman Word Count: 800 words Publication date: December 4, 2005 Several thousand years ago some people looked up at the sky and saw the sun move across it every day. They didn’t know what caused this movement, but they were curious and intelligent and given their existing knowledge of the world the most logical explanation was that a supernatural being not too different from themselves pulled Sol across the heavens. Other natural phenomena had the same explanation. Gods, whether in human form or animal-shaped, were responsible for the wind, the harvest, the creation of the world and so on. Each culture had its own version – Poseidon was the Greek god of the sea, Neptune his Roman equivalent – but the principle remained the same. As time passed and our knowledge grew, the gods retreated. We learnt that gravity underlies the earth’s movement around the sun, we saw blood being pumped by the heart through the body and we uncovered the mystery of fertilization of plants and animals. Each year that passes brings new discoveries and stronger proof that we live in a universe determined by natural, not supernatural, processes. That evidence may be all around, but too many of us choose to ignore it. Creationists are the most wilfully ignorant, but they have been superseded in politics and the headlines by proponents of “Intelligent Design” who claim that inconsistencies and gaps in our current knowledge are proof that another being created us. There’s a superficial attraction to “Intelligent Design”. Where science fails to provide an explanation of a phenomenon – the current poster-child is the bacterium flagellum, which ID-ers argue could not have evolved in nature – the fallback position of a supernatural creator is comforting and familiar. Furthermore “Intelligent Design” claims respectability by using the language of science to support its position. But using scientific terminology in an attempt to destroy science is pointless, like using a hammer and drill to attack rather than create an artefact. In the real world, scientific rigor, when properly applied, comes swiftly to the conclusion that ID is based on hypocrisy and fallacy. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Firstly, let us recognize that there is much in the natural world that we cannot explain. In that sense we are no different from our distant ancestors. And like our distant ancestors, when we face facts or events that do not fit easily into our worldview, it is easier for many of us to attribute them to God than to admit our own ignorance. Secondly, we can freely admit that there are inconsistencies and unknowns in our current understanding of evolution. But inconsistency and incomplete knowledge in any discipline are not an indication that the discipline is untenable. Occasionally science heads down a blind alley – alchemy and phrenology come to mind – but continuing discoveries in genetics and paleontology increasingly confirm the basic precepts of evolution, including the evolution of species. Thirdly, when confronted with the uncertain or the apparently contradictory, no serious scientist or intellectual makes the illogical and tendentious leap from “I don’t understand this” to “God Did It”. The rational response to anomalies is not to give up on research and to allocate responsibility to a convenient deity, but to admit ignorance and to be driven by curiosity to find a scientifically-consistent solution to the problem we face. Fourthly, and somewhat flippantly, let us recognize that if there is a Designer, He/She/It is a notoriously poor one. What is the point of men’s nipples, other than to give them sexual pleasure? Why do air and nutrition share the same intake, with the increased risks of choking and infection, and, in males, why do sexual and excretory functions share the same organ? Why are human eyes so badly designed in comparison with octopus eyes? Why are so many beings born with defects? What is the purpose of male beards? And so on. Fifthly, finally, and most importantly, “who designed the designer?” Here hypocrisy reigns supreme as the “Discovery” Institute – the leading proponent of ID – declares that scientists must be “open-minded” (ie accept the idea of in “Intelligent Designer”) while in the same breath refusing to investigate the nature of the Designer. (Source here) Like the man in the New Testament parable, proponents of “Intelligent Design” are so eager to point to the motes in the eye of evolution that they are unable to see the log that blinds their own vision. ID is not science but the abdication of science. It is not an attempt to resolve a problem, it is an attempt to impose a solution on a problem. In its reluctance to admit ignorance and its eagerness to jump to conclusions, ID proves not the existence of an Intelligent Designer, but its own bankruptcy as a scientific or philosophical method. Americans and American children deserve better than this superstition masking in science’s clothing. 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If God existed, he would... admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create recognize that eternity is meaningless deny both heaven and hell disown all men and women who speak in his name denounce the harm caused by religious "morality" help the human race to thrive without him If God existed, he would be an atheist. |