In the Style (D) section of the Sunday, May 15 2005 edition of the Washington Post, there was an article called Doubting Rationalist by Michael Powell that discussed the history of "intelligent design" and its current state. Primarily, the focus was on the leading proponent (and the man who birthed the idea) of intelligent design, a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley's law school, Philip Johnson. What is unique about Johnson and his followers (who consist of "microbiologists and geologists and philosophers") is that in the current atmosphere where creationism is viewed by many liberals or atheists as a political tool, they are a group of intelligent, academic intellectuals who believe in creationism primarily as part of a search for truth as opposed to a quest for political power (although it is undeniable that politics will always be a barnacle on the rock of such religious debates). Evolutionary biology professors enjoy debating with Johnson. The director of the Institute for Biocomplexity at the University of Calgary believes Johnson and his movement "are asking terribly important questions" about the legitimacy of evolution. Basically, this group is engaged in deep discussion with the scientific community without being brushed aside as religious crazies.
So what is my problem with this intelligent design movement? Sure, these proponents may "debate in the language of science" and don't simply spew fundamentalist rhetoric, but ultimately, they are not presenting a view with any kind of scientific evidence or backing, which is a death knell for any theory that purports to be part of the scientific field. From what I gathered from the Powell article, Johnson and his followers have only pointed out weaknesses in the theory of evolution (some of which have already been countered) without coming forth with any solid proof of the soundness of their own intelligent design theory. For example, they emphasize the dearth of evidence for the "large-scale mutations" necessary for prokaryotes to evolve into man. In response I ask - how does this shortcoming of the evolutionary explanation translate to a strengthening of the creationism argument? It doesn't. If all Johnson's followers can do is to poke holes in the theory of evolution - holes that may be patched up in the coming years or decades as we inevitably gather more knowledge - without offering any scientific evidence for their own ideas, then creationism does not stand a chance in a world based on molecules and strands of DNA.
And ultimately, it is because of this that creationism does not belong in schools. No matter how much Johnson and people like him can intellectualize the creationism argument - legitimize it with academics and "important questions" - they can never transform it into a a scientific theory. As long as the principle of separation of church and state still holds in this country, creationism should not be taught because it simply has no scientific backing. Go ahead, say that evolution still needs to work out some kinks, say that we have yet to find the end-all key to why mankind exists, but for Pete's sake, don't tell me God is the answer just because we still have some questions.
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St Vorph: now creationists have come up with the "intelligent design" proposal
St Vorph: which sounds like humans were devised by general motors
Auto response from MattDMan14: i am noah's ark, and insomnia is the dinosaurs
stereopatheticSM: I know I would pay money to see dinosaurs attack noah's ark
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