Religion deals with matters of the soul. Science deals with matters of what is tangible. Religion is Faith. Science is Reason. This is the widely accepted division between Science and Religion, the stereotypes, if you will. In the same way, the phrase Intelligent Design in the secular scientific community is not a phrase without meaning behind it. If you took a poll of 10 random people on the street who were untrained in any scientific field outside of what is taught in High School and asked them the question “What is Intelligent Design in regards to the Origin of Life?.” I would venture to guess that as many as 10 out of 10 would answer God is the Designer. This is to be expected as everyone knows that science has solved the origin of life problem in the form of Darwinian Evolution. At least that is what we are teaching our students in the classroom. Evolution is presented in such a way that the most important part of Evolution has slowly been removed, the word “Theory”. Secular society has been so adamant about separating church and state that they have extended that separation beyond the bounds of church and state. Any phrase that even suggests at something “churchy” automatically gets the religion tag and is considered unconstitutional. The facts are that in regards to the Origin of Life, the origin of you and me, there is no factual process that can be proven. There are only theories based on interpretations of scientifically collected data. The most prominent of these theories being the theory of evolution. Where Evolution struggles to provide logical explanations based on the evidence alone, a growing number of scientists are looking at alternative hypothesis. The Theory of Intelligent Design is one of these Hypotheses. To make it unlawful for our students to learn about alternate theories about the origin of themselves seems itself, to be unconstitutional. It is time to teach without bias and provide information for our students to draw their own conclusions. Teach them critical thinking, not group think.
To understand this conflict requires us to go back to the basics. We need to revisit the Scientific Method. The Scientific Method is a step by step process that is widely accepted as the way to test a hypothesis based on observations. Test those observations and analyze the results independent of bias and restructure the initial hypothesis. This cycle is the very core of what science is. Robert Prisq said the scientific method is good for “testing the truth of what you think you know.” This applies to everything. There is no exception for the Theory of Evolution despite what some teachers and curriculum writers would like us to believe.
To this point, you may be agreeing with what has been said because you see it as semantics over how the theory of evolution is perceived, perhaps. So, let’s look a little closer at a few situations in science that are at the center of this Intelligent Design vs. Evolution debate, and let you decide. The most common Icon of Evolution is the poster of the gradual evolution of man, from a chimpanzee to modern man. Everyone has seen it and knows it. A slouched over chimp slowly begins to walk erect over a series of transitional beings to the point where it is eventually fully upright and completely evolved as modern man. This process took place over millions of years. This is standard evolution. This is a fact. Or is it? Since this process took place over millions of years, the fossil record should have recorded hundreds if not thousands of transition specimens to demonstrate the power of Natural Selection. Natural Selection is the mechanism that drives Evolution. It is the process of random mutations creating a strategic advantage for the survival of the species in order to reproduce. So the evolution of man would slowly have the process of natural selection push towards modern man. This is not something that happens over one generation, but thousands of generations. So during these “transition” periods of thousands of generations, the fossil record should record a few of them to preserve for modern archeologists to piece together what an artist depicted in the famous drawing of the evolution of man. The problem is, the missing link is still missing. Not only have we not found thousands of these transition specimens, we have yet to verify one. Every time an archeologist finds a skull that appears to be abnormal, main stream media jumps all over it as front page news of the missing link. Society looks at it as more evidence for our evolution and moves on. When later tests begin to show that the skull is actually more likely to be a modern man with a genetic disease, the media doesn’t cover that. That isn’t nearly as interesting. So the fossil record doesn’t reflect the evolutionary story of man’s evolution. So how do we explain this evolutionary gap? Evolution will keep searching for the missing link. Other scientists will look at the evidence and go back to the original hypothesis and adjust it to fit the observed evidence. More specifically, they follow the scientific method instead of trying to find evidence to fit the original hypothesis.
The tree of life is another iconic phrase. All species evolved from one simple cell and slowly branched out to form the current diversity of species we see today. Evolution will again point to the fossil record as their evidence. Don’t look too closely however because it is pretty difficult to map this tree of life. Namely, because of this phenomena known in scientific circles as The Cambrian explosion. The Cambrian Explosion has been called ‘The Biological Big Bang’ because it gave rise to the sudden appearance of most of the major animal phyla that are still alive today, according to Michael Behe, without any indication of transition species. The tree of life is not seen in the fossil record. If we want to use an analogy to describe it, the lawn of life might be more appropriate. Charles Darwin gave us some insight into what he thinks about the fossil record in his famous book Origin of Species when he said, ”The most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory [is the fossil record]. Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms?” So how does modern evolution explain the fossil record? Keep looking for a way to explain it in Darwinian terms. Other scientists will follow the Darwin’s own doubts and follow the scientific method and seek to revise the original hypothesis based on observed scientific evidence.
So the fossil record has some gaps, we just haven’t found the complete evolutionary picture yet. Perhaps, but to call it a fact might be jumping the gun a bit. Maybe we should look at the very beginning, the simple cell, our common ancestor. The problem here is that the simple cell, isn’t so simple. Bruce Alberts, The President of the National Academy of Sciences, puts it this way; “We have always underestimated the cell. The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines.” According to today’s textbook, Stanley Miller conducted a ground breaking experiment that showed how amino acids, the building blocks for proteins can be made from inorganic material in the right proportions given an electric pulse. The electric pulse would represent lighting on the early earth and the inorganic material would be representative of the primordial soup and atmosphere on the early earth. Unfortunately this mixture requires a specific ratio of Hydrogen, which is now believed to be much lower due to the weight of hydrogen and its likely hood that it escaped into space. The experiment has been repeated since then with more accurate inorganic ratios, and no amino acids were formed. That aside, all Miller’s experiment did was create amino acids, which are only pieces to form the multiple proteins which must be assembled in the correct order and then form the “factory and elaborate network” from a variety of different proteins. This is not just a matter of getting lightning to strike. When asked how life began, renowned biologist and prominent critic of Intelligent Design Richard Dawkins said simply, “We don’t know.” So again, Evolution will continue to explore ways to try and demonstrate the current hypothesis is correct, others will look at the observed scientific evidence and form a new hypothesis.
Just forming a simple cell is difficult enough, how do you even begin to explain the origin of DNA through random mutations. Bill Gates said “DNA is like a software program, only much more complex than anything we’ve ever devised.” That is interesting considering the source, and knowing that Microsoft wasn’t developed by random mutating variances to produce the first version of Windows. Intelligence was behind it. The last thing that should be brought up is the concept of Irreducible Complexity. An irreducible complex machine or process is one that has multiple parts, and will not function if any one of the fundamental parts is taken away. All of the parts must be there, all at once, for any function to occur. Michael Behe, the Ph.D Biologist who coined the term, uses the example of the molecular flagellum. The Flagellum is one of the many parts of the previously discussed “elaborate network” in the simple cell. To illustrate this paradox, let’s look at the engine of a boat. It has a motor, and axel, gears, and a propeller. If you remove even one of these, the engine doesn’t function. If the gears aren’t in place, the axel can’t turn the propeller. If the propeller is missing, the boat doesn’t move. You get the picture. This is a problem for evolution because the key factor of natural selection is that each mutation creates a reproductive advantage. This would require all the parts to mutate and form all at once with the appropriate function. The odds of this happening are astronomically impossible. So Evolution will set out to find a way to explain how each part evolved separately and had a beneficial function step wise. This is dangerously close to creating additional theories to support another theory. Other scientists will follow the scientific method and modify the current hypothesis.
So is providing an alternate explanation of the origin of ourselves a threat to curriculum? Many people blindly say the Intelligent Design is not science. Looking at the above dilemmas for evolution, it seems that intelligent Design solves a lot of problems and arose from the scientific method. Some might say, that is great, but Intelligent Design is God, and God can’t be brought into the classroom. Simple. It’s the constitution. The problem is that this is another assumption that has been engrained by the same scientists promoting the tree of life and the evolution of man. I wonder what The SETI institute would think of Intelligent Design. They spend countless hours scanning the heavens for radio signals that indicate there are other advance civilizations. After all there may be more than 50 billion planets in the universe. If only 1% of those planets had life, that leaves 500 million planets with life. If 1% of those had advance civilizations, there may be as many as 5 million advanced civilizations in the universe. Perhaps one of those 5 million advanced civilizations are so advanced that they designed their own version of life and seeded this planet. That is also Intelligent Design. Yes, aliens. Aliens might have seeded this planet. Is this grasping at straws? Then what is SETI doing searching the stars if this is crazy? Richard Dawkins, the most notable anti Intelligent Design critic said this about Intelligent Design: 2 min video, sorry, Embedding was disabled
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoncJBrrdQ8
See, the issue isn’t that Intelligent Design isn’t science as some claim. It clearly is. The issue is with whom people associate the Intelligence doing the designing. If an advanced civilization visited earth and claimed they seeded the planet, suddenly ID would be widely accepted and taught in parallel and in some cases might replace current evolutionary teachings. Whether the Intelligence is a Supernatural God, or an Advanced Civilization shouldn’t matter. Science should be able to follow the evidence to whatever conclusion it leads them to. Teaching alternate hypothesis to the origin of life in our schools will force our students to think critically for themselves, not recite what curriculum developers determine is relevant in their view. Critical Thinking is one of the most difficult things to teach. Let’s not take that away from our students. Lets’ follow the scientific method and let them draw the conclusion for themselves; Evolution, Intelligent Design or another Origin Hypothesis. Why do we have to limit it to only one? Teaching is not about brainwashing, it is about giving our students the tools to think intelligently. We need to design a curriculum that allows for the development of this intelligence. In its current state, Evolution requires Faith. It’s time for science curriculum to evolve.
To prevent the state of Texas from teaching out dated science curriculum, copy and paste the link below.
http://support.discovery.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=1742.0&dlv_id=5581
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