Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all. - Herbert Spencer
For those unfamiliar with Intelligent Design, also called Creationism, it is the latest attempt by Fundamentalist Christians to have their religious view of the world forced onto the American school system as fact. Even Catholic schools don't teach it because it is unsupported by any scientific fact. The Rev. George Coyne, Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was "wrong" and was akin to mixing apples with oranges. "Intelligent design isn't science even though it pretends to be," the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying. "If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science." Recently, a Pennsylvania school board required science teachers to teach Intelligent Design as equal to other theories of creation of the universe. Thankfully, the Federal court saw through the thinly veiled Fundamentalist efforts to inculcate school children into the Christian faith as scientific truth.
Having just lambasted the theory of Intelligent Design, I probably ought to back up my words with a why. Okay, here goes:
The basis of the Argument for Intelligent Design is a thinly veiled teleological argument. A teleologic argument posits a goal (the Designer’s, i.e. God) of which the Universe's design is a manifest sign of this goal. The classic teleological argument looks like this:
Teleological Argument (A)
Major Premise) Look at the universe - world - cockroach - eye ball. Isn't it incredibly complex?
Statement of ignorance) I can’t explain it.
Minor Premise) Only God (The Designer) could have made it/them so complex.
Conclusion) Therefore, God, the Designer, exists.
Argument from Beauty, variation (B) of the Teleological Argument
Major Premise) Isn't that sunset - flower - waterfall - Sports Illustrated swimsuit model beautiful?
Minor Premise) Only God (The Designer) could have made them so beautiful.
Conclusion) Therefore, God exists.
The minor premise in both arguments contradicts accepted scientific understanding and cannot be accepted as scientific evidence or reasoning. The truth is science can often explain how these things came to be. It also does not follow logically from (1.) There are lots of explanations for complexity and beauty. Even the inventor of this argument, St. Anselm, admitted you have to believe in God first before the argument can be accepted. No kidding. In other words, it is an argument that believers can use to convince themselves they are right. That is Creationism; believers trying to convince themselves they are right, despite all the evidence.
The Argument for Intelligent Design is a religious or philosophical argument and not a scientific argument. All of the Intelligent Design arguments are variations of the teleological argument. They state that they can’t see how the universe could come into being the way it is unless God did it. It isn’t science and it isn’t supported by fact. It is an attempt to convince themselves that they are right by having their unique religious beliefs taught as though they were scientific facts. These arguments are as stupid as the argument, 'Shakespeare couldn't have written the plays since he didn't attend University.' In each argument there is no causality relationship between the antecedent and the consequent terms. One doesn't have to exist for the other to be true.
The argument for intelligent design is based on religious belief, faith, unsupported by physical or scientific evidence, except as stated above, “Gee, isn’t it unexplainable? God must have done it.” It isn't good science and it isn't even good theology.
The statement, "The world is so complex that science can't explain it," isn't scientific evidence, whether or not it is a scientist saying it. People like Anthony Flew who say scientific evidence points to the existence of God because they can't explain the operation of the Universe are wrong on both counts; it isn't science and it isn't evidence. It is simply a statement of their own ignorance. That hardly qualifies as proof: I'm ignorant, therefore: God must exist. It isn't proof because there are scientific theories out there that do explain it.
Intelligent Design proponents try to attack science by showing that science doesn't know everything. They find some fact that current science doesn't have a complete explanation for and argue, see you can't explain this so all of your science is wrong! They ignore the billions of facts that do support our current scientific understanding. They ignore the fact that Evolution is supported by biology, chemistry, geology, astrophyics and every other branch of science. Their theory on the other hand, has no facts to support it but they ignore that. They have a book written 3,000 years ago that is internally contradictory. Genesis 1 and 2 contradict each other. That is their total 'proof.' Science constantly accepts changes as new facts become known. Science is our best explanation of what we see around us. It isn't perfect but it is as right as the human mind can make it. If you think science is wrong stick your finger in a light socket to prove it wrong. Only religion believes its contradictory fables are perfect and above change or criticism.
As to whether or not intelligent design has any scientific basis, the lack of scientific results in support of it was substantiated by George Gilchrist’s survey. He reports that, "This search of several hundred thousand scientific reports published over several years failed to discover a single instance of biological research using intelligent design theory to explain life’s diversity." Again, for science that is paramount. If it doesn't accord to the known world and it can't be used to predict future outcomes, it isn't science. The complaint used by the Intelligent Design folks against standard science that it can't explain everything is worse for Intelligent Design, it explains nothing .
Even as a philosophic proof there are serious problems with Intelligent Design. The foremost is that it is an argument from ignorance. There is always a "We don't know..." statement that starts the argument. Then God is made the answer to what we don't know; the God of the Gaps argument. Gaps in our current knowledge require God's intervention. They squeeze God into the gaps of our knowledge. A hell of a place to put God in my opinion. What happens though, is that scientific knowledge eventually fills those gaps and the argument retreats, over and over. The argument over evolution is similar. There are currently gaps in our knowledge. That must be God's intervention. But new fossils are found every few years. Once there was a gap between birds and dinosuars. Then fossils of transitional animals were found in China. Now, there is no gap. The fossil record shows clearly that birds are actually the direct descendants of dinosaurs. In fact, scientists now contend that Dinosaurs didn't disappear, we just call them birds now. The record is so clear that we have had to go back and rethink our understanding of dinosaurs as we now know them to have been warm blooded. They weren't reptile, but an intermediate group from which warm blooded birds evolved. Sooner or later the fossil record will be intact and we won't need any intervention. The last two hundred years are a continuous record of the gaps disappearing and the argument from design losing its Gaps. It is only ignorance of history, or deliberate deception, which allows Intelligent Design to be taken seriously.
Another sort of current ID argument is the argument from probabilities. This is another argument from ignorance where God is forced to fill in the Gaps of our knowledge. One need only look at history to see how this fails. When Newton was working out his theory of gravity he mused that God must exist because the chances of all of the planets moving in the same direction wouldn't be possible without the hand of a designer. His calculation of probability put the chances of all of the planets rotating in the same direction in the same plane at 7.5 million to one. Indeed, there must have been a creator! according to Newton.
Until Laplace, a French astronomer, developed the nebular hypothesis of planetary formation, a gas cloud began revolving just like water does in a sink and gravity forces clumps which accrete into planets. This is now the accepted model since it explains the facts as we know them. Astronomers have been watching a planet form in exactly this way 10,000 light years from Earth. This is the way planets from. We are watching it happen. The probability of planetary rotation as we see it becomes one to one. What was lacking in the random Probability assumptions used was a mechanism of formation. It is an argument from ignorance. All the ID probability arguments have the same flaw; they fail to mention that things do not generally form randomly. There is a mechanism of formation. For instance, an eye is formed by the action of DNA process in the body. It is a mechanical and chemical process, not a random one. It wouldn't matter that the chances of an eye forming randomly is a billion to one. It wasn't created randomly, but through natural processes in the Universe that must inevitably result in the formation of an eye, and only an eye every time.
You probably have heard of the argument from irreducible complexity. ID proponents use it to 'prove' that evolution couldn't be true. Here is how their argument works. The idea is that some natural process is so complex that you can't break it down into discrete steps which could have naturally evolved, so God must have done it. The problem with this argument is that every time they come up with a natural process which is 'irreducibly complex,' a little science has always found that it isn't. It is sort of like the God in the gaps argument. When science looks at it, it has to retreat. An example is blood clotting. The argument went that blood clotting requires a complex series of chemical reactions using chemicals that have no other purpose so that they couldn't have all come together all at once. The problem is that once scientists began looking they found that not to be true. They broke down the process, studied each chemical reaction and found the precursor reaction in the body. All of the checmical processes had precursors. Blood clotting turns out to be a simple reshuffling of steps. Michael Behe of the Discovery group, the ID cover group, has cited protein transfer as irreducable, “This constant, regulated traffic flow in the cell comprises another remarkably complex, irreducible system. All parts must function or the system breaks down.” The problem for Mr. Behe, as soon as real scientists get hold of it, they prove it isn't so. “This analysis of protein transport provides a blueprint for the evolution of cellular machinery in general,” write researchers, led by molecular biologist Trevor Lithgow at Australia’s Monash University. “The complexity of these machines is not irreducible.” They turned out to be two sets of protein machines already in existence that evolution combined in a new useful way. There was nothing irreducibly complex. Another thing ID folks mention frequently is the eyeball. It couldn't have just happened. They are right, it didn't 'just' happen. It is the product of a long evolutionary process and it develops in the individual as the product of normal genetic development. It isn't random, much like the Laplace Newton argument, it isn't long odds. Once we understand the natural process it is inevitable the eyeball will develop the way it does. It isn't a million to one, it is one to one. It's why every human has two eyeballs built by our human DNA into our eyeballs.
One other problem for Intelligent Design is that we aren't so intelligently designed. Why do humans have tails, wisdom teeth, and an appendix? Why do men have nipples? That isn’t very smart to stick in things which have no use. If God was intelligently designing us why did he add details of no use? Intelligent Design can’t explain vestigial organs. Evolution can answer that question. We used to use them when we were apes.
Intelligent Design has a very serious dilemma when it attacks science using these empirical methods of science as it is trying to do. First, science, unlike religions, only comes to probable causes, a statistical likelihood, never a certainty. Therefore, the empirical method used by Intelligent Design supporters could only imply a probability of God, never a certainty of God. Second, empirical observations only work based on a large number of occurrences. A cancer patient leaves the doctor and is hit by a car. During his treatment for a broken leg his cancer goes into remission. Therefore, the doctor assumes the treatment for cancer is running over the patient with a car. We don’t make empirical conclusions on one occurrence. However, we only have one universe we know. We cannot use empirical evidence of cause when there is only one occurrence. Finally in all scientific inquiries, negative evidence is MORE important than positive evidence, that is facts which contradict your premise carry more weight. So looking around and noticing order is offset by any evidence of disorder, beauty by ugliness, pleasure by pain, etc. One cannot posit a perfect God creating all of the ugliness, disorder, and pain we see in this universe by using the empirical methods of science. In fact, using the empirical method we could posit four different kinds of creator. The first, all good. But the evidence of the universe, the good people suffer, babies die young, lawyers get rich, the Khardashians exist we can say this universe could not be created by an all good being. Second, an all bad creator. Again, the evidence of beauty, loving families, the Dodgers winning the pennant all deny an all bad creator. Third, we could have two dueling creators, one good, one bad. But the evidence of consistency, both good and bad, in the universe denies that. Fourth, there could be a creator who is neither good nor bad in human terms and frankly doesn’t give a whit about us. That is the only creator the empiracal evidence supports. You need blind faith to get to the Christian God and that isn’t science and another reason why the Intelligent Design project is fatally flawed.
David Hume, in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, takes apart this argument for God from the analogy of design of the Universe. Hume's argument went like this: One, we cannot infer an infinite God since all we can observe in this finite universe is in fact finite. By observation, the designers of our universe must be finite. Two, Perfection does not exist; therefore the creator of this universe cannot have been perfect. Three, Unity does not exist. Everything is made of component parts and any large scale construction is the effort of many individuals, for instance a coral reef is made of billions of corals. Therefore, by observation of the universe this universe must have been created by billions of Gods, not one. Four, spirit cannot exist since all effects we observe are made by material objects; the science of empiricism is based on this. Five, we cannot infer the intelligence of the designer since the most common material in the Universe is solid like stones or crystals. Therefore the designer must be a giant rock or perhaps a giant vegetable since plants are more common than animals. Last, we cannot infer wisdom to the designer since Man continually improves upon the design and Man is not especially wise. Man creates a field for grains, shelters for homes, medicine for health, etc. the original design is flawed enough that imperfect Man can improve it. Looking at the universe to posit a perfect supreme being is not possible. The whole Intelligent Design project is a logical impossibility. The scientific method, in fact the whole subject of empiricism cannot make even guesses about a supreme being since by definition such a being must be outside of what we can empirically experience. Empirical science can never be mixed up in religion since the two subjects can never touch in any meaningful way. Science and religion operate in separate spheres, reality and myth.
Genetics is a most powerful tool in proving evolution. We have been able to gather DNA from ancient humans and compare it to modern humans to show how we have changed over time. For instance, there is a mutation that has happened in the past ten thousand years in human blood types to make man more resistent to one type of malaria among Africans. It doesn't exist outside of Aficans since most of us left Africa before then. Chance? Not a chance, it is evolution in action.
Most Christian theologians have rejected the Intelligent Design argument. Within a few years of its first appearance theologians were pointing out that even if it were proved true, it still wouldn't prove anything about the nature of God the Designer. Maybe there was a team of designers. Maybe the Designer was a tyro who failed his Universe Creation class. Maybe the Designer resembles Plato's Demiurge who created the Universe but then forgot about it. Maybe the Designer is Allah, or Vishnu or the Easter Bunny. Intelligent Design doesn't accomplish what the proponents really want, which is to prove that Christianity is true. I recently saw a Catholic priest point out that science continuously changes as new facts emerge. It is the nature of science. Using the Bible as the basis of science would require changing the Bible every few years like we change science textbooks every few years. That would be ridiculous. The whole point of the Bible, from a believers view, is that it reveals an eternal and unchanging truth. To use the Bible as the basis of science would to make it a constantly changing search for the truth. Of course, that isn't what the Creationists want; they want to stop all speculation and revert to a Middle Ages world where their church runs everything and no questions are allowed.
One reader accused me of overstatement because his professor said evolution is just a theory. He is mistakenly using the common definition for the word, an idea without support, which in scientific jargon is called a hypothesis. What this person failed to realize is that in science, a theory is at the top of the knowledge pyramid. A theory in science is the thing we are most sure is true, above discrete facts. A whole body of facts, of knowledge supported by experiment, gathered by the scientific method, reproducable, and capable of predicting real world phenomenon is needed before a theory can be put forth. Theory, in science, isn't a hypothesis. Atomic Theory, also called the standard model, is how we know the world is put together. Experiments coming out of the Large Hadron Collider keep proving the Standard Model is how the Universe works. Evolution is true and verifiable. We see it all of the time. Mosquitoes evolve to be resistant to certain poisons. That is evolution in action. How many dog breeds have been created in the past 300 years? God's miracle of design? No. That was Jethro looking for a better hunting dog. Evolution is fact. This is also why, fundamentally, Intelligent Design is not science. It isn't supported by a body of facts, gathered by an objective method, reproducable, which can be used to predict the real world. It fails all four tests of scientific inquiry.
If you want a good read completely debunking the science of Intelligent Design, read The Blind Watchmaker By Richard Dawkings. The Design argument was popularized by William Paley in his book Natural Theology. He compared the Universe to a watch. Dawkings shows where Paley, and his followers, have gone wrong on their science and logic.
Don't buy into the argument that all of this ID stuff is just a different type of science. It isn't science at all. It is in their own words, Christianity. They want to replace reasoning and science with theology and religion. Look at their own words...
Last, for all of you wondering what is all the fuss. The fuss is because these sorts of anti-intellectual movements can cause, have caused the collapse of civilization. Sound like an overstatement? During the period 800-1100 CE, Baghdad was the intellectual capital of the world. Maybe you have noticed we use Arabic numerals? Algebra is Arabic. Algorithm is Arabic. Most of the stars visible in the sky have Arabic names because they were the first to do a detailed map of the sky for navigation. All of our copies of Aristotle we got from the Arabic copies. Then along came a fundamentalist religious leader in Islam, al-Ghazali, who wrote in his Incoherence of the Philosophers that faith needed to be more important than scientific speculation. His arguments won and Islam as an intellectual force was done, and it is still done. Europe came to the fore and the rest is history. How many science Nobel’s have been won by Muslims? One, two? How many have been won by Americans? I can’t count that high. There are 338 American winners. Throw out the Peace and Economics prizes which are politics and the majority are for real science. This is exactly what the ID proponents are trying to stop, like Al-Ghazali they want to stop all intellectual progress. Science, is to be replaced by Genesis! That is 3,000 years old for God’s sake. Do you really want to go back 3,000 years? They do. They say so in their own words. Medicine? Read the Bible and find out women have one less rib than men. Oops, sorry I cut in the wrong place, but the Bible said so. Thanks to Neil deGrasse Tyson who got me researching this. Important, listen to Neil's wonderful 10 minute explanation, much better than mine. Watch Dr. Tyson's talk about fundamentalism's war on science
The problem exists because of the rise of naive literalist Biblical interpretation. Nowhere else is there a strong literalist tradition. As early as the Fourth Century, St. Augustine pointed out that literal interpretations of the Bible wouldn't work because they did not conform to our understanding of nature. As an example he pointed out that the world could not have been created in six days. Yet, here we are in our supposed advanced age with naive literalists arguing for a six day creation. Why? It grew in the southern United States born of ignorance. It grew up alongside the KKK and from the same roots of exclusion and marginalization. It was a reaction against the educated North. We are proud of our ignorance since it is all we have. There isn’t much difference between the Klan and the creationists. The Klan is concerned with the supposed superiority of Whites despite all proof and facts; proof and facts only seems to make their irrational resolve harder. Creationists are concerned with showing their version of the bible is correct despite all proof and facts to the contrary and facts only seem to make their resolve even stronger. As an American I can only hope that like most ignorance, education will eventually vanquish the literalist Biblical belief system and Creationism along with the Klan will join witch burning in the trash heap of hisory.
Despite the publicity it receives, hard sought publicity by the way, we must keep in mind that this is a minority opinion. That's why we only hear of one school board in Minnesota, or one in Oklahoma. It takes the radical few to worm their way into position before they can introduce their ideas. The last time they tried this with Creation 'Science' every major religion lined up on the side of excluding Creation 'Science' from the science classroom. Mainstream theolgians reject ID and the naive literalism it springs from. One person defined a fundamentalist as an belligerent evangelical. And that belligerence is evident in the way they have pursued getting their beliefs into the schools. This is a political fight about controlling access to information. And there is nothing scarier than giving belligerent extremists control of information dissemination.
If there was any real doubt about the motives and methods of the Intelligent Design "scientists" then the words of Intelligent Design theorist William Dembski, ought to make it plain: “Christ is never an addendum to a scientific theory but always a completion.” If it isn't based in Christ, it isn't science. Or the comment by one ID theorist, "It is about who sits in the driver's seat." In other words, the ID debate is about who controls education, the Fundamentalists or the majority of people. They will not rest until they have replaced scientific truth with their religious belief. If they fail to replace science with Intelligent Design, they'll be back with something else until we Americans let them know that we will never let them replace truth with their brand of religion.
Thomas Jefferson understood 200 years ago why the Fundamentalist Christians behind Intelligent Design would want to overthrow science, “[All religious sects] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight; and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversion of the duperies in which they live." The Fundamentalists know deep in their hearts that their beliefs don't stand up to rational scrutiny. Their answer, destroy rational thought and science just as al-Ghazali did in the Muslim world.
If you hear someone talking about Intelligent Design, laugh at the absurdity of it and please point out it is nothing but the discredited Teleological Argument in sheep’s clothing. And if you happen to live in one of these backward locales, don’t let them get one foot in the door with Intelligent Design. The next foot will be a mandatory religion. That is their ultimate goal, a mandatory fundamentalist Christian religion. It is worth fighting against.
I personally am stunned by the ability of a person to ignore reality and facts. How is it that belief, especially religious belief can lead a person to ignore facts? The whole evolution-isn’t-true movement in this country stuns me with the level of ignorance it requires. Yes, if you think evolution isn’t true you are ignorant. Just as ignorant as if you said gravity doesn't exist, electricity isn’t true, or matter isn’t made up of atoms because you’ve never seen an atom, or the sun goes around the earh because the Bible said it does, which it does say. It is ignorance of the most basic scientific truths.
As an example of how these folks think, here is a quote from Mike Riddle on a Discovery Institute website, answersfromgenesis.com, "When a scientist’s interpretation of data does not match the clear meaning of the text in the Bible, we should never reinterpret the Bible. God knows just what He meant to say... So we should never think it necessary to modify His Word." In other words, ignore any plain facts which contradict their interpretation of the Bible. That's how you get the Discovery Institute's blindness. It is a purposeful blindness to truth, a calculated blindness. I want to draw your attention to his line that has interpretation in it. They are interpreting the Bible. Thay just think their interpretation is true and every other one is wrong. What he should have said is if a scientist's interpretation of the data doesn't match OUR intrepretation, we should blindly reject his data.
How can a person like Mike Riddle tell me they believe in God the creator and don't believe in science? What is science? Science is the study of the natural world, that is, it is the study of the creation, the reality of creation, not someone’s interpretation, but the real thing. When God created the world He left his fingerprint in every part of creation. What does science do, they describe those fingerprints. Physics is the study of the laws of the world, the laws God put there. Newton didn’t invent the laws of inertia; he just described them for us to understand. Biology describes the beauty of living things. Astronomy is the story of the whole of creation around the Earth. Chemistry is the study of the utility of the things put here on earth for us to use.
Science is the study of reality; that is, the way God actually created the world. Anyone who says science is wrong is telling you not to try to understand God’s actual creation, his reality. Anyone who tells you a story different than science, i.e. God’s reality. Is taking you away from God’s truth. Science is the search for the truth in nature. To abandon science is to abandon the search for truth.
If someone tells me The Bible says science is wrong! I know that person does not understand the Bible. Their interpretation is wrong! Why? Because God does not contradict himself. God has left an image of himself in Nature, his creation, and science is our best understanding of that creation. Science lets us glimpse the mind of God, directly, not through a preist's intrepretation. False interpretations, like Creationism, are the work of the Deceiver.
What is it in the nature of religious interpretations that make them so powerful that all other truths and facts can be ignored or discounted no matter the strength of the evidence? And it isn’t just dumb people for very intelligent believers are just as susceptible to this phenomenon. Depend on't; no Truth can ever subvert true Religion. - Richard Bentley. I think Mr. Bentley hit on something here. Religious belief isn't subject to inspection against the truth since it is founded in faith, not truth. Faith is assertion without evidence. By definition faith is anti-truth for the truth is always based on evidence.
Frankly, this has been very confusing for me. The Greeks founded Western Philosophy and their's was a very profound schools of thought. And yet, these same profound thinkers were believers in the most outrageous fairy tales as religion, almost as simplistic as the Bibilcal fairy tales. Gods throwing lightning bolts, God speaking from a burning bush, Gods coming to earth to mate with our women, virgin births, God walking on water, flowers talking to strangers, a horn causing the walls of a city to fall, monsters like the Minotaur eating virgins, witches needing to be burned. All of it the most ridiculous unbelievable hogwash, and yet, otherwise intelligent folks raised in the culture to have faith, believe this claptrap.
Galileo didn’t get in trouble for saying the world is round like most people think today. It was pretty common knowledge among the educated that the world had to be round. Galileo got in trouble for proposing to prove the heliocentric model of the solar system. That went against Biblical literalism since the Bible said the Earth was the center of the universe. He got in trouble for proposing a truth that contradicted people's faith. How could the earth revolve around the sun if the Bible said we were the center of the Universe? Galileo got in trouble for showing the Bible was wrong, not for saying the earth is round. He pushed us off our special place in the universe and to where we really are way off to the side of the universe.
So too with Darwin. He didn’t get in trouble for Evolution. Almost all intellectuals who read his book accepted animal evolution because he argued and proved it so well. He got in trouble for one sentence suggesting that people were animals and subject to evolution. Once again, the problem was knocking us down a peg. ‘I’m not related to no monkey!’ was the rallying cry of the anti-Darwinists. Now of course, modern genetics has shown that we share 98% of our genome with the bonobo and the chimpanzee. We sure as hell are related to monkeys. No matter how much you close your eyes to facts, you can’t change the truth. Chimps are our close cousins through evolution. But people, the Discovery Institute is infamous for ignoring the evidence of genetics since they cannot contradict it, try to ignore the truth and even convince themselves that the truth isn’t the truth.
But what is it that makes belief so powerful that people can ignore and change facts to fit their belief system? The two things the above historical examples have in common is that in both cases the furor was more about people being knocked off their pedestal than the science involved. Why would a common man care if we lived in a Geocentric or Heliocentric solar system? They wouldn’t. Hell, most folks wouldn't even understand the words. But tell that same Joe Sixpack he isn’t the center of the Universe anymore, that the Universe doesn’t revolve around him like his priest has been telling him it does and you’re likely to get a response and not a good one.
So too with Intelligent Design, or unintelligent Design as I call it. The reason this issue creates such powerful response is it assails our special place on earth, that we have dominion over the Earth, that we are special and selected above all other things when standard Biblical teaching has been telling us we are special. All of us humans share narcissist tendencies and knocking us off our special place runs right into that irrationality we all have. And the more narcissistic we are the more something like Evolution turns on that irrational response.
Now the ID movement makes sense, that faith can go against such obvious facts, for it is at base a result of an irrational mental response, our narcissism. Things like Intelligent Design are at the heart of them mental irrationalities, they are mental illness. Not the kind of mental illness that cause people to shout on street corners and drool, but the kind that holds an irrational thought in place despite all the evidence it isn’t true.
One common definition of insanity is performing the exact same action time after time expecting a different result. I'll give you another, it is continuing to hold a belief despite all the evidence contradicting that belief, refusing to change a position despite all the evidence, e.g. Creationism.
All of us have our little irrationalities. Most of the little irrationalities like believing that the number 13 is unlucky don’t affect our ability to be productive members of society so we don’t call them illnesses. But it is just as crazy to believe one day of the month is bad as it is to refuse to come out of your house because Russian agents are following you everywhere you go. One gets you locked up while the other no one even comments on. So it is with the kind of irrationality caused by our challenged belief systems. It is so common and it doesn’t cause people to drool so we accept it as part of our culture, but it is just as irrational as any paranoid talking to themselves as they walk down the street.
And that is the answer to why people can believe something so contrary to known facts, they are reacting irrationally because the facts challenge their closely held beliefs. Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance. 'I believe that humans are special and above all others and I like being special. Evolution places humans in the same class as all other animals. I want to be special therefore, I am going to reject the facts I don't like.' Yeah, it is a mental aberration but it is all too human. Intelligent Design is simply a mental failing, an insanity caused by the perceived challenge to their Christian beliefs.
We need to start calling the Creationists supporters out for what they have, or more accurately what they don't have, any evidence. We can't win these 30 second debates with long complex arguments like I have made above. In these debates, the typical Creationist spends all their time attacking small points, one fossil from here, one chemical process in the protein chain, etc. The scentist then spends all his time defending against a party who won't believe him anyway. It's a lose-lose. What we need to do is go on the attack. Ask the Creationist for the evidence he has in support of Creationism. Don't let him dance around. Keep after him until he admits all he has is Genesis. Then go for the Kill.
Point One: The Christians own Saint, St. Augustine, the most influential theologian in Christian history said that no one could actually believe the world was created in six days, we know better than that. We can see from looking at the world that it wasn't created in six days. St. Augustine said you cannot read Genesis as history.
And why did St. Augustine say that? Because he could read critically.
Point Two: Genesis is internally contradictory; two diferent stories that disagree in basic facts. If you read the two creation myths that start the Bible you come across difference after difference. If this is truly an infallible perfect book that we should use to replace science, why the conflicting stories? Christian scholars mostly agree there two or three sources were used when the Editor wrote what we now know as Genesis. One story is based on a Hebrew desire to promote their God above all others. The second story, first in the Bible, was written after the Israelites had been in the Babylonian captivity and has elements of Babylonian myth integrated into the story.
In the first myth, the stages of creation are separated into six days. The earth is covered in water. God commands the waters covering the earth to separate, forming land and sea. God creates man and woman (both unnamed) together from the dust, then tells them to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. God gives the man and woman dominion over the earth. There is no reference to a Garden of Eden where the man and woman must remain or a snake to tempt them. There are no geographical references. The animals of the sea and air are created on Thursday, while the animals of the land, including man, are created on Friday. This myth is where we get those six days of creation.
In contrast, the second myth does not mention any separation of time periods. The earth is dry. The Lord, coming from a different source the story uses a different word for God, has not caused it to rain yet so there is no water unlike the first myth. He then causes water to spring up from beneath the earth. The Lord creates Adam, then later, a day, a week, a month, who knows He creates Eve from Adam's rib. Adam and Eve are not told to be fruitful and multiply. The Lord does not give man dominion over earth. The Garden of Eden first appears here along with that snake. Names of the rivers and lands near the Garden of Eden are included. Man is created before any plants are even created, let alone any animals to eat them. So much for Genesis being one perfect and true story. As is typical for most people's understanding of the Bible these two contradictory tales are mushed together to 'create' the story in most folks heads. Man is given dominion from one tale and the Garden and Eve's temptation from the other. Just pick and choose the parts you like and ignore the parts that are nonsensical or contradictory and can't both be true.
To win arguments from Creationists, we need to go on the offense and point out that they have no facts, and the one source they have is internally contradictory to the point of laughability. They have NOTHING to support their arguments.
Who would really believe we should replace science with a contradictory fable that even Christian Saints have said isn't true? No one with an ounce of sense. That is how we should be fighting the Creationists, with their own fire.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave. - Sir William Drummond
And if he is all three, he is an Intelligent Design believer... Rod O'Steele
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