Six years ago, on December 20, 2005, a judge in Pennsylvania ruled that the counterargument to Darwinian evolution called "Intelligent Design" was not science and the teaching of it as science must be barred in Pennsylvania public schools. We don't hear much about Intelligent Design anymore, at least not in the mainstream media, but it simmers in the American Creationist fringe that continues to argue against Darwinian evolution on primarily religious grounds.
The Pennsylvania trial was something of a circus, essentially a battle of religious rhetoric against experimental science that included an imported British philosopher whose testimony on the Intelligent Design side was essentially an offering of the philosophical fantasy that since all views of reality, including science, are products of the human mind, all views of reality deserve equal treatment in education. The philosophical idea sounds wonderful, but the problem is that so far the only view of reality that allows us to build a bridge that doesn't collapse under the weight of traffic, or that allows us to point a projectile at the Moon and hit the surface of the Moon at an appointed time, or that allows us to identify the gene that causes a particular genetic disease -- the only view that allows us to do these things is the scientific view. Not the Bible, not Creationism, not Intelligent Design, not any religion extant or extinct, not anything except science and its objective methods that allow us to understand the real world around us.
The fundamental rhetorical argument of Intelligent Design was and remains the idea of "irreducible complexity" -- the existence of biological systems with functionally integrated parts that apparently cannot possibly arise by a succession of small changes produced by Darwinian evolution. One of the prime examples of irreducible complexity offered to the public in the mainstream media a decade ago was the human eye, a complicated organ consisting of functionally integrated parts difficult to imagine as step by step products of Darwinian evolution.
Nearly all biologists have been aware there is no difficulty at all in understanding in principle the Darwinian evolution of the human eye -- but the evidence for this understanding has for the most part been buried in biological journals not easily accessible by the general public--and apparently also not by magazine journalists.
Which leads to a just published book -- a most remarkable book -- that needs to be in the library of every school and college, and maybe in every household that can afford it (it's expensive). There aren't many books like this one, transformative books that provide a wondrous experience -- especially for young people -- just by turning the pages of mesmerizing illustrations of the evolution of the eyes that are looking at the book.
A deep majestic event: human eyes looking at a book explaining the evolution of human eyes. (The only event that I know of with more majesty is the human brain contemplating its own evolution.)
The book: Evolution's Witness: How Eyes Evolved.. Ivan R. Schwab. Oxford University Press, 2011.
Life on Earth has an apparent history of 3.75 billion years. Immerse yourself in this book and you will come away with a firmer understanding of what you are and where you've come from and where we all may be going. It's the Grand Trip, isn't it? The voyage of our species on this planet through space and time -- a short voyage for each of us but a long voyage for our species, a voyage so readily dramatized by the story of the evolution of the human eye.
The author and publisher of this book deserve much credit for producing it for the public interest. It's a book for all seasons -- a witness to the evolution of life on Earth.
There is a controversy brewing in molecular biology.The vast amount of information within DNA points to a mind and not a random and blind process. Everyone will agree that DNA contains information. Where did this information come from? This is the enigma that ID confronts. From what we know today, the best explanation for the specified information within DNA can only come from an intelligent source. A blind, random process cannot generate the information. Agency begets purpose and thus information.
Many scientists on the side of Neo-Darwinism only allow materialistic explanations to life's questions. This is why they reject ID. In doing so they commit the "Darwin of the gaps" in explaining how life works. Ask a scientist how the first life began? They do not know! However, they are positive it was by some chemical evolution that the first life emerged. Yet they fail to acknowledge to the laymen the vast amount of "information" necessary for this form of bio-genesis to occur. Enough! Read for yourself.
For further reading I recommend Stephen Meyer's "Signature in the Cell", Michael Behe's "Darwin's Black Box", and Philip Johnson's "Darwin on Trial".
The answer is of course not. Those are both examples of a complex structure that while they seem orderly, are basically the results of structured chaos. They form randomly, but with constraints, certain natural laws that they must abide by. If those examples can create order from chaos within the natural laws subject unto them, how is DNA any different?
Face it, ID is Creationism relabeled, and I have the missing link that cdesign proponentsists love to hate. Have a nice day!
A, C, G, and T "sticking together"? Are you mad? They do not "stick together". They are organized by the machines following the genetic code. "Code", meaning and ordered process and not random events. The cell follows instructions to build base pairs using the code.
Your reference to a crystalline structure also refutes you in that "finely-tuned" physical laws direct the formation of crystals, be it man-made or natural.
DNA contains specified information, meaning the information directs the events occurring in the cell. "Structured chaos"? Tell that to a computer programmer. To build a new function, information needs to be added. No information, no building, dead cell. There is "no free lunch". What you are suggesting is that we can all "shake up" the data in our smart phones and over a million years they will "stick together" to give us a more advanced OS.
I suggest you revisit Biology 101 and brush up on how DNA works.
How about Kitzmiller v Dover, where a highly conservative Federal Judge said, and I quote, "The evidence at trial demonstrates that ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism.", for starters.
Or how about Behe? His work is constantly refuted by the scientific community (Mouse trap tie tacks for Irreducible Complexity for one) and has a disclaimer at the university he works at.
Please, end the charade. Intelligent Design IS Creationism, just replacing God with Intelligent Designer (Point out to me one person who thinks it was aliens and not the christian god. Aliens? Seriously?). This is crazy for 2 reasons. It demeans god, and intellectual dishonesty only hurts the cause.
Where does Evolution state where life began? Wrong theory there buddy.
A blind, random process CAN generate "information". Crystalline structures? Fractals? Are these created by some outside agency or are they random processes guided by the laws of nature? DNA follows the laws of nature perfectly. Google Complementarity in DNA, Base-Pairing rules, Base Stacking, etc. No "Agency" needed.
Replacing "I don't know" With "God did it" is bad form. Do you know what causes lightning? Does someone in the Bronze age? I rather think "lets find out" is a better answer.
For further reading I recommend a text book.
Behe has yet to be refuted. The disclaimer is a result of cowardice on the university's part.
Charade? Intelligent design purposefully does not identify the designer.
The real charade is that science only permits for materialistic explanations. Science cannot explain purpose, this is a philosophical realm. If you wish to invoke God, go ahead.
Here is one for you? The universe had a beginning. How did it begin? Why did it begin? Science cannot answer these questions from a materialistic point of view. The universe came into being "ex nihilo", meaning "out of nothing". Nothing. No space, time, matter..... nothing. This is fact. Multi-verse? That just pushes the question back.
The Big-Bang riles most scientists because the answers are beyond scientific inquiry.
Where am I going with this? The universe had a beginning, and that beginning came to be because of a purpose. Purpose comes from mind.You want to call it God, go right ahead.
Have you ever painted a picture?
Think about it.
"the story of the evolution of the human eye"
...
Our creator, God, tells us there was NO evolution of the eye,
the seeing eye was created:
“The hearing ear and the seeing eye,
the Lord has made them both”
(Proverbs 20:12) NKJV (i., iii.).
"The more I study the human eye,
the harder it is to believe that it evolved.
Most people see the miracle of sight.
I see a miracle of complexity
on viewing things at 100,000 times magnification.
It is the perfection of this complexity
that causes me to baulk at evolutionary theory." (iii)
Dr George Marshall,
quoted in:
An Eye for Creation
An Interview with Eye-Disease Researcher Dr George Marshall,
University of Glasgow, Scotland
Creation ... Yes
Evolution ... No
References:
i.) Proverbs 20 NKJV Bible
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs%2020&version=NKJV
ii.) The Seeing Eye - Answers in Genesis by Dr. David Menton, PhD
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n3/seeing-eye#fnMark_1_1_1
iii) An Eye for Creation
An Interview with Eye-Disease Researcher Dr George Marshall,
University of Glasgow, Scotland
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v18/n4/eye-for-creation