A case for intelligent design

Monday, April 11, 2005
By Clifford W. Randall

When I read the "Evolution vs. creationism" headline in the March 27 Horizon section, I expected to read a comparison presentation of intelligent design principles versus evolutionary principles. Instead, I read a misrepresentative article about ID that made no pertinent points about it, and three articles written by fervent evolutionists who were neither forthcoming enough nor astute enough to deal with the troublesome issues of evolutionism.

For example, Steve Olson goes to great length to explain the difference between "hypothesis" and "theory" ("An argument's mutating term"), but doesn't seem to realize there is a term beyond theory, i.e. "law." Apparently he has not noticed, but physical scientists do not refer to the "theory of gravitation," they refer to the "law of gravity (or gravitation)."

When it was first proposed by Sir Isaac Newton, it was the theory of gravity. Since that time, the scientific community has developed a mathematical model that accurately describes the forces of gravity and is able to use the model combined with centrifugal force and other models to very accurately predict the escape velocities for rockets, the movement of spacecraft among planets, the presence of dwarf star companions of larger, more visible stars, and the presence of planets circling stars by the wobble of the stars.

That is why the theory has become a law. You can mathematically express it and you can use the relationship to accurately predict what will occur because of the existence of the gravitation and other forces.

None of the preceding is true for the theory of evolution. There is no mathematical model for it. Those who purport to understand it cannot study it conclusively in controlled experiments, cannot use it as a predictive tool, and it plays no important role in biochemistry. Even the remarkable finches of the Galapagos Islands, if removed to a mainland environment, do not continue to evolve to new genera or beyond, but, instead, revert back to ordinary finches. That is why evolution is still a theory and not a law.

As long as it is a theory, it is in the best interest of science to debate its veracity and other options for explaining what is being observed. It has become almost impossible to do that in academic settings because so many academicians uncritically accept all of the proposed principles of evolution and the teachings of the popular evolutionists, many of whom have a poor understanding of what the evolutionary principles are, and then they dismiss those who challenge the status quo rather than truly listen to what they say.

This approach discourages scientific breakthrough rather than encouraging it. This is similar to what happened with geophysical theory early in the 20th century. Geophysical scientists were so committed to the concept of stationary continents that they refused to accept the obviousness that the West African and Eastern South American coasts used to be joined together to form a larger land mass. Also, the "stationary continents" adherents actively belittled and ostracized those who insisted that drifting had occurred. Today, continental drift and plate tectonics are known to be geophysical laws.

It is time to expand the evolutionary debates, given the minimal progress that has been made in defining and explaining the fundamental mechanisms of evolution since the time of Darwin. This is the objective of the intelligent design scientists and why they should at least be given the opportunity to present their concepts and ideas within scientific forums.

Robert Boyd ("Science is neither good nor evil, just logical") emphasizes that science is based on logic. Yet he, and most evolutionists, verbalize that evolutionary forces were responsible for the development of life on planet Earth, even though the basic principle of evolution is "survival of the fittest." Note, however, that survival of the fittest is impossible unless you already have both life and death. Therefore, evolutionary forces could not have been responsible for the existence of life on Earth.

To overcome this obvious problem, evolutionists expand Darwin's theory to include chemical and biochemical evolution, without any logical support for this leap of faith. Darwin himself did this in later life.

However, there is no supporting evidence for it on planet Earth. All efforts to accomplish generation-of-life-requirement chemicals (amino acids, proteins, DNA, RNA) in the laboratory have been recognized as failures, even by most of those who performed the experiments. Even the few amino acids formed were the wrong kind. In fact, most of the experiments were performed using very reduced environments, and it is now accepted that the early Earth environment was oxidized, not reduced.

Boyd refers to Pasteur to support his argument, yet Pasteur disproved spontaneous generation, the very force that evolutionists are relying on to explain life on this planet. Where is the logic? Based on existing published evidence, the evolutionist's belief that life on this planet was spontaneously generated is the equivalent of the creationist's belief that a supernatural force was involved. Why should one leap of faith be allowed into the classroom but another one excluded?

The evolutionists who wrote the articles you published appear to be confused about where the disagreement lies. No ID scientist disagrees with the adaptation of species, or that new species can be formed because of it. They do not dispute that so-called evolutionary forces can be used to explain the modification of whales from land to aquatic animals, or bats from nonflying mammals. They agree with Darwin's theories as long as they are consistent with the title of his book, "The Origin of the Species."

They do dispute that these same forces can be responsible for the development of conscious life, or for the development of complex mammals from single-celled organisms, within the time limits of suitable conditions on planet Earth. They dispute the random development of a flagella for a bacterium, or the random development of an eye for a vertebrate creature. For that matter, they dispute the spontaneous generation of DNA and RNA from random chemicals and environmental conditions based on the logic of statistical probability.

Boyd is correct in noting that the "Big Bang" theory, which states that the universe had a discrete beginning and will have an eventual end, i.e., will run out of usable energy, leaves us with only one logical conclusion. The universe was established by a force outside of it, and that force, whatever its form, is God. However, Professor Suchitra Samanta ("Why the argument?") would be wise to read the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible with careful attention to the use of the words translated as "created" and "made." Note that only three creation events occur, as recorded by the writer. The creation of the entire universe (heavens and earth, a phrase meant to mean the entire universe) and, logically, all of the physical, chemical, biological and biochemical laws that operate within it; the creation of conscious life; and the creation of the spirit of humans, because God is spirit. Everything else is made.

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