A Post To Make Evolutionists Angry

The debate over whether intelligent design is a credible topic to teach children (or even mention to children) in school is such a no-brainer to me that I am simply flabbergasted as to why it is such a hotly debated topic. The only way I can think to explain its passionate dismissal by so many educators, is complete professional bias because of its connection to religion, the most unpopular of subjects today.

When looking for an explanation, is it not simply good practice to consider more than one possibility? Of two explanations, one may very well be proven wrong, eventually, and then the other would be more sure. And yet in the case of the origin of life, only one possible explanation is put forward in schools, and it is one that has not been proven. Rather, it is one that has been proven to be very shaky indeed.

The refusal to consider alternate explanations is dishonest, unwise, unbalanced, and just bad practice. And it's not just refusal. It is protest marches, court cases, hate mail... it is pulsating forehead veins! I say stay this madness! Education has been hijacked by the dogma of the staunchly irreligious.

Logic seems to dictate loudly that intelligent design is not only a credible explanation in talking about the origin of complex systems, but a far more likely explanation than unaided evolution is. We must remember, however, that they are very different types of explanation. While one of them is purely based on science, the other admits that science alone cannot always be used to prove what can be proven logically or philosophically. But is it really so strange that a thing, contemplating itself, is unable to explain its own origin using observation and analysis?

Why then such fury? Is it anything more than a gross overreaction to the hint of a religious flavor? It is a fury that causes evolutionists to become more narrow and religious in their thinking even than their counterparts! For which is more narrow and dogmatic, to accept nothing but what the scientific method can prove, or to accept some element of the unexplainable? Is it more narrow to believe only in the natural, or to leave room also for at least the possibility of the supernatural?

But logic gives the greater argument. Setting aside the question of life, let us ask this: What complex system, showing clear order, do we know of that did not come about from something even more complex and orderly than itself? A complex thing like a book can only exist because it came from a more complex author. A complex ECG printout can only exist because it came from a much more complex printer. A complex ant hill, can only exist because it came from a much more complicated ant. What about a beehive? A melody?

In fact, we cannot find anything complex and orderly that did not originate from something even more complex and orderly, and with a specific creative intent. It would be madness to try to explain a book by postulating that a nearby printing press exploded, and the letters, ink and paper all fell down together coincidentally, and in the right sequence to produce intelligent text. It would be lunacy to try to explain a pop song by postulating that there was an accident in the recording studio, and all the instruments were knocked about while the record button was pressed. It is madness and lunacy precisely because even the dullest of us recognize the signs of intelligent design in literature and music.

We cannot find anything complex and orderly that did not originate from something more complex and orderly. And yet in the case of the most complex and orderly thing of all, life, we are taught to believe that the opposite is true. Even with absolutely no precedent, we are taught to deny these clear principles. We are taught to believe that life did not originate from something more complex and orderly, but instead that the universe exploded and that all the pieces did indeed fall down together coincidentally and in the right sequence.

Is this not simply madness? It may very well not be madness, it may in fact be true. In the case of life, perhaps the printing press may well have exploded to produce the book. But what about the likelihood of those two contrasting explanations? We are talking about astronomical figures here. What sane person, finding a book, would assume such a far-fetched explanation? And yet, this is how we are taught to think!

Is it the apparent absence of an author that leads men to think this way? They look around, and see no obvious sign of an author (besides life itself), and so they wrack their brains for centuries in order to come up with any explanation that is at least feasible. And then they tell it to themselves for centuries more, until they they actually believe it is true. That is precisely our situation! Evolution may be feasible, but is it likely? Is it not more likely that we simply have not found the author?

Actually, it is not the apparent absence of the author only, but it is the intentional unwillingness for there to be an author that has caused us to take the most unlikely explanation imaginable, and elevate it to the dogma of our age. Why? For many reasons. For intellectuals, it is because believing in God means accountability. For non-intellectuals, it is because believing in God is so damn unfashionable. Also, because religion through the ages has proven to be so damning, men will believe anything to escape it. Is it really so foolish to imagine God away for the sake of self-preservation?

But intellectual honesty must at some point prevail. And even though we may hate the idea, we must admit the obvious. As clearly as we know that a beehive is the result of the intelligent bee, we can see that life is also the result of something, or someone intelligent, beyond our ability to fully explain or perhaps ever understand. Either that is true, or we are betting on the feasibility of a theory with a likelihood of somewhere between a number astronomically minuscule, and zero.

So why is there such vehement protest against the theory of intelligent design? Why do we insist only on the dogmatic indoctrination of evolution? Bias, nothing more.

SPF