Unintelligent Design

What Would Darwin Do? -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Bruce Chapman and John West are President and Associate Director, respectively at a policy think tank called the Discovery Institute. In today's Dallas Morning News, they question why Darwinists are afraid to debate them -- they are Intelligent Design proponents. I can probably help to shed some light on this, since I have followed an unusual path to my own enlightenment. First of all, let's settle some terms:

Evolution -- Noun. Means 'gradual change'. And that is all it means. It implies no reason why the change happened. People on both sides of the issue have muddied the debate by saying that evolution necessarily means Neo-Darwinist Evolution. It doesn't mean that unless you place the modifier 'Neo-Darwinist' in front of it. You can also have Intelligent Evolution. Example, you say? American automobiles have evolved over decades from the Model T to the Ford Fusion. The change has been mostly gradual, across about 110 years. If you look at junkyards across America, you'll see the fossil evidence of old cars. The 50's might be likened to the Age of Dinosaurs. What caused the change? Intelligent design of course. Teams of highly trained engineers from the nation's best schools designed these cars. Sometimes, as with the 1964 Ford Mustang, we had 'punctuated equilibria' or 'macro mutation' but more typically the changes were gradual and progressive.

God -- Noun. A Higher Power, a superior intelligence. That is all. It doesn't say Jesus. It doesn't say Christian God. Just an unspecified superior intelligence.

Creation -- Noun. Act of creating. It doesn't say when or where or how. It doesn't say Garden of Eden. It just implies that something was created. That could be gradual, over time. It could be the work of many, and it could be the work of a fallible intelligence.

People such as the Creation Science Institute always frame this as a debate between atheists and Christians. Nothing could be sillier or more off-base. No wonder Darwinists don't want to join the debate. They don't want to cede even an inch over to rabid proponents of a particular faith. When I was about 26, I myself determined that there must be a higher power. Prior to that, I was a Darwinian atheist. My epiphany was not a Christian awakening -- it wasn't even connected to any organized religion. Mine was more a logical progression using even some of the logic of Intelligent Design enthusiasts. The likelihood of even advanced proteins happening accidentally is nil.

Until the debate is framed correctly, and the proponents of Intelligent Design can firmly disassociate themselves from witnessing for a particular religion, there will be no meaningful debate. Admittedly, I occupy an almost solitary niche -- the God of my understanding endorses no organized religion. A religious pamphet I picked up tells me that if my God isn't a particular type of religion, that God is by definition the Devil. Well, they say the devil is in the details and it may come to pass after all is said and done -- we'll find that only the Devil has the details.

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