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August 5, 2005
Bush Remarks On 'Intelligent Design' Theory Fuel Debate
Topics: Political News and commentariesAgain, we have the MSM being anti-faith, anti-Christian, and anti-'the very existance of God," while flat out stating something that isn't true. On Wednesday, Peter Baker and Peter Slevin, Washington Post Staff Writers, wrote that intelligent design was "a view of creation that challenges established scientific thinking and promotes the idea that an unseen force is behind the development of humanity."
President Bush invigorated proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution in public schools with remarks saying that schoolchildren should be taught about "intelligent design," a view of creation that challenges established scientific thinking and promotes the idea that an unseen force is behind the development of humanity. While finding no fault with the idea that intelligent design promotes the idea of an unseen force being behind the development of humanity, I do find fault with the statement, "challenges scientific thinking."Although I'm not a theologian, I do consider myself a well-trained scientist, albeit not a Noble Prize winner or an Albert Einstein, but nonetheless, a scientist with a strong background in Biology, immunology, pharmacology, and new drug development. Yet, I find no problem with intelligent design, and further, don't even see a conflict between intelligent design and the concept of evolution for explaining changes in biological systems over time.Although he said that curriculum decisions should be made by school districts rather than the federal government, Bush told Texas newspaper reporters in a group interview at the White House on Monday that he believes that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution as competing theories.
Even for an agnostic, there has to be concern over legitimate criticisms of evolutionary theory, such as the limits of natural selection and random mutation in explaining the explosion of new body plans during the Cambrian period (about 570 million years ago). The intelligent design theory tries to plug the holes in Darwin's theory of evolution and its idea of natural selection with the theory that there's an intelligence behind life's creation, whether it's God or some kind of alien life force.
So, count me in the category of at the very least, teach both sides by teaching about the controversy - and doing so by teaching all of the evidence relating to evolutionary theory; BUT ALSO teaching where evolution theory is weak or falls apart and the arguments supporting intelligent design.
Although I find no problem with the concept (evolution) of living things have common ancestors, I do have a little problem with just where those ancestors came from and how they appeared amidst the tremendous odds of all this (life, the world, and the universe) appearing by magic in perfect order with such interconnectedness. And I think that students should be taught about intelligent design at the very least to the extent that they are taught about evolutionary theory - although not to the exclusion of the perspective that living things appear to indeed evolve and also appear to have common ancestory. As to how that conflicts with my faith, it doesn't. If I've learned anything in my life, it's that God is fully capable of handling such matters on His own, and is fully capable of accomplishing complex matters that are beyond my understanding.
Yet, I recognize that teaching complex and conflicting theories is difficult. However, as John West, associate director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture and an advocate of the institute's "teach the controversy" approach to teaching evolution in U.S. public schools suggests (and quoted in National Geographic News, not exactly a Right Wing bastion of Christianity):
"If high school or college students are capable of understanding evidence for evolution, certainly they could understand scientific criticisms of key parts of the theory, particularly the limit to the creative power of selection and random mutation."As Keith Miller, a geologist at Kansas State University who describes himself as a practising Christian has said:
"Prominent conservative Christians, evangelical Christians, have found no inherent conflict between an evolutionary understanding of the history of life, and an orthodox understanding of the theology of creation."In summary, do I want to see intelligent design taught at the exclusion of evolution? Absolutely not. Nor do I want to see the converse. In my humble South Georgia farmboy opinion, they are not necessarily exclusionary, but of course as I said in my introduction, I'm no theologian. But as for the MSM article referred to in my introduction, they lied again!
A damned good scientist should always strive to explain the unexplained, while also recognizing, he or she is not God or our Creator ( or if you just can't bring yourself around to recognizing God, just think of some intelligent design as being that of some life force too complex for us to understand).
Suggested readings:
Intelligent Design (Wikipedia)
Does Science Point to God? The Intelligent Design Revolution
Does "Intelligent Design" Threaten the Definition of Science?
Intelligent Design? a special report reprinted from Natural History magazine
Did Albert Einstein Believe in a Personal God?
Posted by Hyscience at August 5, 2005 9:34 PM
Didn’t we already do this with Galileo?
Posted by: Sean at August 6, 2005 6:32 PM
Articles Related to Political News and commentaries:
- Bush Remarks On 'Intelligent Design' Theory Fuel Debate - Aug 05, 2005
