There is a bitter intellectual war going on involving Intelligent Design and Darwinian evolutionists. Both sides dislike each other much like Trump supporters versus Hillary supporters. Each side delights in ridiculing the other. I’ve explored what both sides have to say. I don’t believe either of ‘em. Well, not all of it. The theory of evolution states that genetic mutations and natural selection account for the development of species. I think they only have part of the story.
Intelligent Design is pooh-poohed by most scientists. Many of its proponents are Christian Fundamentalists who are trying to use science in a desperate attempt to backup their religious beliefs. The Discovery institute that funds much of the research on Intelligent Design is a little questionable from a scientific viewpoint. A review of the 1997 tax year found that among the donors for the Discovery Institute were 22 foundations. More than two-thirds of the foundations explicitly state religion missions. Those who don’t believe in ID are very suspicious of the motivation behind the funding of this research, for good reason. Many of the backers of ID don’t have a scientific agenda but a religious one. However, this does not mean that ID scientists do not have something to offer, they do.
I read Michael Behe’s “Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution“. He came up with the term Intelligent Design. His book is scientific and doesn’t contain creationist dogma. This guy is a true scientist. He is not a young-earth-creationist. Behe admits that gene mutations and natural selection play a part in the development of species and believes in common descent. He says evolution explains the appearance of new organisms including antibiotic-resistant bacteria and that it can account for new species including humans. That being said, his book points out serious flaws in the theory of evolution.
Michael Behe writes about the biological cell and its mind boggling complexities. He coined the term “irreducible complexity”. It states that for an organism to develop, certain systems have to be formed as one functioning system without going through intermediate steps. If one part is taken away, the system will not function. This conflicts with the theory of evolution which says for components to develop, each part has to evolve one step at a time.
I think both sides of this debate make legitimate arguments in some areas. I just don’t buy the whole package either side is selling. I believe natural selection and gene mutations account for part of what is going on but it doesn’t explain everything. For example, how does evolution explain insect metamorphosis? A butterfly goes through 4 stages – egg, larva, pupa and adult. How did this remarkably complex process come about by random selection? A caterpillar is incredibly complex. A butterfly is incredibly complex. A caterpillar does not have sex organs and cannot reproduce. How did the caterpillar pass on its genes? How did the caterpillar change step by step into a butterfly? It would be thousands or maybe millions of changes. It couldn’t pass on its genes until it developed into a functioning organism that could survive long enough to reproduce. Now, I’m not a scientist but the Darwinian explanation for this makes as much sense to me as a talking snake. Darwinists do not have sufficient evidence or even a plausible explanation for this process. Google it. The answer is not there.
In many ways it does look like there was some sort of design involved in creating creatures such as ourselves. But if there was a designer, why would there be such obvious design flaws? In Richard Dawkins’ book: “The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution”, Dawkins gives the example of the recurrent laryngeal nerve which travels from the brain to the larynx. As it heads south from the brain, the laryngeal nerve comes within a couple of inches of the larynx but instead of taking the obvious route it descends to the bottom of the neck, takes a u-turn around a major artery in the chest and heads back up to attach to the larynx. In a giraffe, this could mean as much as a 15 foot detour! In other mammals the neck is not as long, but the path of the laryngeal nerve is the same. This suggests horribly poor design if there was any and makes more sense from an evolutionary perspective. The ancestors of mammals were fish. The vagus nerve of fish attaches to the gills. Mammals lost the gills and grew necks (fish do not have necks). This caused the nerves and blood vessels to migrate and grow in length with no regard to plotting the most direct path. It doesn’t make sense that a designer would plan for the laryngeal nerve to take such a circuitous route, at least, not an “intelligent” designer.
Non-scientific questions arise regarding a designer. If there was a designer why would he/she/they/it create the influenza virus? Why create something and then create something else to kill it? Turkeys might be asking the same question. Why didn’t the designer give the poor caterpillar mentioned earlier any sex organs? I shake my head at the purported planned cruelty.
Intelligent design proponents use a false dichotomy, saying if evolution doesn’t account for the development of species, then an intelligent designer must have done it. I think that something else is going on here. I just don’t know what. Let’s pretend for a moment that what I am saying is correct, that there is something else that is involved in the development of species. Now that is freaky! Perhaps there is something we don’t understand or maybe something that we don’t even know exists. Quite fascinating, me thinks.
Psssst….If you know the answer and you’ve been holding out on us, please send it to me.