In case you had any doubt, the last nail was just placed in the coffin of intelligent design (ID). And, in case you had any doubt, that last nail joins many others that have been in place for quite some time.
The latest attack appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) and provides conclusive evidence that the design of the human genome is incredibly imperfect, or, in other words, very far from being intelligently structured. As John Avise, a University of California-Irvine biologist, noted in the paper, his focus "is on a relatively neglected category of argument against ID and in favor of evolution: the argument from imperfection, as applied to the human genome."
The basic concept of intelligent design comes in two parts and is as simple as it is satisfying for those unwilling to think deeply about the natural world, science, or the nature of religion. Part one, stretching way back to the ancient Greeks, notes that nature is so perfectly integrated that it must have been designed just as we see it. Part two, largely attributed to Lehigh University biologist Michael Behe, says that while some aspects of nature might certainly have changed (evolved?) over time, others are so complex that they must always have existed in the form we find them in today. Indeed, he coined the term "irreducibly complex" to explain such structures. Change anything at all in these irreducibly complex structures and they fail to work.
Both parts of ID are spectacularly wrong.
Indeed, demonstrating imperfect design in humans has become something of a fascinating cottage industry. Listen, for example to Abby Hafer, a physiologist at Curry College, discuss five serious flaws, from the blind spot in the human retina to the placement of human testicles, on NPR's Here & Now. In his PNAS article, Avise simply extends this analysis to the human genome discussing myriad serious problems arising from "gratuitous gene complexities" that no self-respecting designer would tolerate.
As Avise notes, Charles Darwin rebutted the intelligent design argument offered by William Paley in 1802. In chapter 14 of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Darwin said, "On the view of each organic being and each separate organ having been specially created, how utterly inexplicable it is that parts ... should so frequently bear the plain stamp of inutility."
Beyond the obvious, and growing, problem that natural design is far from perfect, the concept of intelligent design also runs afoul of the scientific method. Simply put, ID offers no hypotheses that can be tested -- the hallmark of scientific investigation.
The concept of irreducible complexity is even more problematic. Each example of a biological entity or process that has been advanced as being irreducibly complex has been found, after further investigation, to be understandable as a function of its constituent parts. Not surprisingly, as scientists focus their attention on complex structures, over time, they begin to make sense of what they see.
Proponents of ID, on the other hand, demonstrate the height of arrogance in their position. Rather than working toward greater understanding of their subjects, they proclaim something to be irreducibly complex and call for scientific investigation to be halted, claiming that any additional study would be a waste of effort.
Not surprisingly, Darwin had something to say about this anti-intellectual position as well. In The Descent of Man, Darwin wrote, "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."
In calling for enhanced science literacy, most major scientific organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences (in the US) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, have made it clear that ID has no scientific underpinnings and that promoting it so blurs the line between science and non-science as to make the former almost meaningless.
Religious organizations have also recognized the paucity of intellectual content embodied in ID -- and the damage that it can do to religion as well as science. The United Methodist Church, for example, at its 2008 General Conference, resoundingly adopted the following motion: "The United Methodist Church goes on record as opposing the introduction of any faith-based theories such as Creationism or Intelligent Design into the science curriculum of our public schools."
For religion to accept the concept of intelligent design would mean embracing the concept of the "God of the Gaps," a religiously vacuous idea in which adherents turn to God for an explanation for that which science cannot explain. As science advances, the "gaps" become smaller and smaller and God is relegated to a progressively less interesting role.
From both a scientific and a religious perspective, intelligent design is dead and buried. All that's left is to spread the word about its demise.
Follow Michael Zimmerman, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mzclergyletter
Karl Giberson, Ph.D: How Darwin Sustains My Baptist Search for Truth
Another truth revealed in the Qur'an is the expansion of the universe that was discovered in the late 1920s. Hubble's discovery of the red shift in the spectrum of starlight is revealed in the Qur'an as :
It is We Who have built the universe with (Our creative) power, and, verily, it is We Who are steadily expanding it. (Surat adh-Dhariyat: 47)
In short, the findings of modern science support the truth that is revealed in the Qur'an and not materialist dogma. Materialists may claim this all to be "coincidence" but the plain fact is that the universe came into being as a result of an act of creation on the part of Allah and the only true knowledge about the origin of universe is to be found in the word of Allah as revealed to us.
First of all, the creation of this universe from nothingness is revealed in the Qur'an as follows:
He(Allah) is the Originator of the heavens and the earth…(Surat al-Anam: 101)
Another important aspect revealed in the Qur'an fourteen centuries before the modern discovery of the Big Bang and findings related to it is that when it was created, the universe occupied a very tiny volume:
Do those who are disbelievers not see that the heavens and the earth were sewn together and then We unstitched them and that We made from water every living thing? So will they not have faith? (Surat al-Anbiya': 30)
There is a very important choice of words in the original Arabic whose translation is given above. The word ratk translated as "sewn to" means "mixed in each, blended" in Arabic dictionaries. It is used to refer to two different substances that make up a whole. The phrase "we unstitched" is the verb fatk in Arabic and implies that something comes into being by tearing apart or destroying the structure of ratk. The sprouting of a seed from the soil is one of the actions to which this verb is applied.
Think about the future not the past , don't think and argue about things we are sure of them .
If you are not a beleiver in god , what ever is your excuse , there is no other explanation .
can a car or a house appear by its self with no creator , same for the whole universe .
Did any one till now make a living cell with all the technology we have , we are till now just stuying what god created for us .
About me , I think we know our origin very well and the explanations are clear ,may be we need to learn more details and thats great .
But the issue greater than this is to discover why we were created ,for what reasons and beleive me guys nothing will help you to get all the answers more than god words .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/20/AR2010052003336.html
But, hey that's just that science stuff...
Oh, and btw, human shape and size has changed - go visit some museums in England and look at some of the suits of armor, you will see quickly that we have gained 5-8" in height over just a few hundred years. And, the first civilization came from Africa with China not far behind. Not Babylon and Egypt :-) We are all decendents of a very nice African women, we know because we can see it in our Mitochondrial DNA.
Since the first civilizations which were discovered in Babylon and Egypt , it was clear that the human being shape and size and intelligence did not change .These civilizations appered more than 10000 years ago , too much for the evolution thing...
Adaptation is the word , the livings respond to the enviroment and change a little bit here and there .
Thats what explains the gaps in Darwin's and all other theories ,which till now with all techonlogy we have , are all not logical , always bring you back to where you have strated in the first place .
I not only have my doubts, but think this statement is wishful thinking. Creationism began in the late nineteenth century, I think, primarily as an opposing view to the emerging cosmology and biology of the day. Creationism begat creation science begat ID in one century. Pretty quick evolution if you ask me.
The evolution of human knowledge is from the known toward the unknown yielding a new known from which to penetrate the unknown for the next known. IDers already know and have no unknown. Their evolution of knowledge has ceased. No facts can alter this condition. I am encouraged by one of Harry truman's lines, "The only things worth knowing are the things we learn after we know it all."
Attention Creationists Shoppers... "THINK!!!"
The problem creationists have with evolution is in the origin of species. As I read what evolutionary biologists are now saying about speciation and their disagreement as to a precise definition of same, I cannot imagine this getting any better.
I.D. takes a more intelligent, more respectful approach to biology, whereas the "blind watchmaker" paradigm is careless and has stunted science. I.D. also believes that the genome is a treasure trove; an organic museum, if you will, full of stunning art (design). On the flip-side, the anti-I.D. position states that life is a cobbled together mess, a walk through a trash heap. Clearly the I.D. position is the more alluring position, the position more likely to attract young students to the wonders of science. Every which way you look at it I.D. ends up on top.
If I.D. were truly dead and not viewed as a huge threat, this article would've never been written. You don't kick a dead dog. Zimmerman, as well as every other biologist, knows that it's not, which is why we see so many desperate, flimsy attacks against it. These people are insecure, a little bit frightened, and they know that I.D. is here to stay.
That tears them up inside, as it should.
1a. If you believe that some animals -- for example, dinosaurs -- were not saved on the Ark, explain why you believe the Bible is incorrect.
1b. Why are many Christians evolutionists?
1c. If you are a young-earth creationist: Why are many creationists old-earth creationists?
1d. If you are a young-life creationist: Why are many creationists old-life creationists?
1e. Some people say that scientific creationism does a disservice to Christianity by holding Christianity up to ridicule. How would you answer that charge?
2. Is there any observation which supports any feature of your theory? (An adequate answer to this question will not be something which is a problem for evolution, but is rather evidence for your theory. Remember that it is logically possible for both evolution and your theory to be false. Something which appears to support Lamarkian evolution rather than Darwinian, or punctuated equilibrium rather than gradualism is not enough. Also, the observation must be something which can be checked by an independent observer.)
2a. Is there any observation which was predicted by your theory?
3. Is there any comprehensive and consistent statement of your theory? (The suggestion that major points are still under investigation will only be accepted for theories that are relatively recent. Any exposition which cannot be distinguished from solipsism or nihilism will not be accepted.)
4. Why is there the remarkable coherence among many different dating methods -- for example: radioactivity, tree rings, ice cores, corals, supernovas -- from astronomy, biology, physics, geology, chemistry and archeology? (This is not answered by saying that there is no proof of uniformity of radioactive decay. The question is why all these different methods give the same answers.)
4a. Explain the distribution of plant and animal fossils. For example, the limited distribution of fossils of flowering plants.
5. Is there any feature of your theory which is subject to scientific test? This is often stated: is creationism scientific in the sense that it could be falsified? (After Karl Popper's criterion.) Another way of phrasing it is: is there any kind of observation which, if it were seen, would change your theory?
5a. Is there any observation which has changed your theory?
5b. Is your theory open to change, and if so, what criteria are there for accepting change?
The scariest thing of all for the Intelligent Designophobic? We're at the tip of the iceberg.
The more we learn, the more we decipher the underlying intelligence and sophistication of life, the stronger the appearance of design becomes -- the exact opposite of what one would expect if it were just an illusion, as Richard Dawkins claims.
To quote geneticist Michael Denton...
“Although the tiniest living things known to science, bacterial cells, are incredibly small (10^-12 grams), each is a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of elegantly designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world.”
The only way to stop the massive growth of Intelligent Design is to shut down biology altogether, keeping science stuck in a world of ignorance where the brilliantly designed, elegant algorithm of the cell remains a mystery, a world where "chancedunnit" is considered good enough an explanation.
Intelligent Design proponents wont let that happen.
- L. Cohen, Beautiful Losers (1966)
Since God's creation is true, the nature of the Earth and the creatures that live upon it are truth that is revealed to us. The rocks upon which the land and oceans rest are truth. The fossils we find in the ground are truth. The sciences of physics, chemistry, astronomy, cosmology, geology, biology, genetics, paleontology, and archeology are valid tools for exploring God's Creation.
The Book of Genesis is therefore a summary of membrane theory, the Big Bang, hyperinflation, general relativity, geology, and paleobiology written appropriately for a 2-year old to grasp.
Therein lies the problem I have with creationism or its latest incarnation, "intelligent design." The assertion that the Earth and the entire universe are only 6,014 years old and that evolution does not happen contradict everything we find in God's Creation.
The only way that creationism can be correct is to make God's Creation a work of illusion. That denies God's Nature of Truth. It makes God into a little god of parlor tricks. An illusionist and arbitrary trickster.
It is insecurity that demands some sense of proof that God exists and is involved in our everyday lives.
We can recognize God in our lives if we search with our hearts.
"If thou hast faith, as unto a mustard seed ..."
One does not need proof if one has faith.
Exactly the point.
When your religion does not support the most barbaric, ignorant cultural practices, I'll stop being "mad" at it. If you want to support a theocracy, try Iran. Then you can always spend your day praying for your safety. It's not what I don't understand about religion that bothers me, it's what I do understand that bothers me.
Science says - keep looking forever, accept nothing on faith. No limitations on knowledge!!