Show Me the Science
Recently President Bush cast intelligent design (ID) as the "other side" of the evolution "debate." ID proponents promote a false equivalence between these two competing ideas. In explaining the unity and diversity of life on earth, it is wrong to equate ID with evolution.
Among scientists, there are no
credible challenges to evolution. All of
the major scientific organizations in the
A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that usually incorporates many confirmed observations, and successfully verified hypotheses. Hypotheses must, by definition, be testable. Among the general public, a theory is an idea. ID is not a scientific theory; it is merely a statement of a possibility. There are very few theories in science. These include the atomic theory, the theory of gravity, and the theory of evolution. Without the ability to test ID, it cannot be considered a theory in the scientific sense.
If ID is not science, then what is it? Richard Dawkins has said that, “Darwinian natural selection can produce an uncanny illusion of design. So powerful is the illusion of design, it took humanity until the mid-19th century to realize that it is an illusion.” This perception of design is one part of the rationale behind the belief in ID.
The other factor in the push toward acceptance of ID is a misguided attempt to maintain and advance religious faith. The ID movement is financed and disseminated mostly from Christian sources, such as the Discovery Institute (which spends over $1 million per year on public relations for ID) and the Templeton Foundation. Although many ID proponents deny the religious component, they are not being truthful. Is it a good idea to try to advance the cause of faith by disguising it as science? While all scientific knowledge is provisional - capable of being overturned when better answers are discovered - many people of faith have a view of the world that is the opposite of provisional: everything is either black or white. I respect all persons of faith. However, theists are wrong to hold creation and evolution as mutually exclusive alternatives, and it is a mistake to take the Holy Scriptures as elementary textbooks of anthropology, astronomy, biology, and geology.
ID proponents base their “theory” on irreducible complexity, describing metabolic pathways and cellular structures that are so complex and organized that if you remove one component, they would cease to function. An analogy can be made to a watch. If you take away even one spring, it would be unable to keep accurate time.
The leading advocate of ID is
probably Dr. Michael Behe, the author of “
Dr. Ken Miller debated Dr. Behe on “intelligent design” at a forum in 2002. Miller demonstrated that the mousetrap could be made to work without one of its parts. Additionally, Miller was able to show that individual parts of the mouse trap could provide alternative, useful functions. Miller’s point was to show that portions of a purported irreducibly complex structure could arise and provide for a positive selective advantage without being a part of the irreducibly complex whole. Behe had maintained that there would be no natural selection advantage (i.e. functional advantage) for an organism unless it had all of the parts in their correct arrangement of an irreducibly complex whole. Additionally, Dr. Miller and others have refuted in print the irreducible complexity of the mammalian blood clotting pathway as well as the bacterial flagellum.
The current ID examples of supposedly irreducible complexity are part of a long series of failed examples. In 1994, Behe himself asked: If whales evolved from land mammals, where are the missing links? Unfortunately for him, he published this question in the very same year that the discoveries of not one, not two, but three different transitional fossil links between a four-legged land animal and whales were published!
In order to learn more about
the details of both the arguments against ID as well as in favor of
evolutionary theory, I refer the reader to a book by Dr. Ken Miller, Finding
Darwin’s God. In this book, Miller describes a
“scientist’s search for common ground between God and evolution.” Dr.
Miller is a Professor of Biology at
Proponents of ID never publish their arguments in major scientific journals, mainly because they are more interested in advancing a religious cause than they are interested in science. Ken Miller writes, “They are using political and social tools to gain acceptance in the classroom that they are unable or unwilling to win in the scientific community.” However, no scientific theory has ever been validated by legislation demanding its inclusion in the classroom.
Does ID or evolution by
“descent with modification” offer valid explanations for both the unity and
diversity of life on earth? I agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky, who said,
“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” Take
vitamin C as an example. Humans and chimpanzees are rare among mammals in
their inability to synthesize vitamin C. Both humans and chimpanzees
require preformed vitamin C in their diet for optimal health, with a deficiency
of vitamin C causing scurvy in humans. Additionally, both humans and
chimpanzees possess a “decommissioned” (defective) pseudogene for vitamin C,
and, just as evolutionary theory predicted, the chimp and human pseudogenes are
closely related. In fact, they are so closely related that they contain
the exact same defect: a rare missing code letter (a deletion), and in the
exact same position in the pseudogene! Anyone familiar with
What is the evidence in favor of ID? Simply saying, “…it looks like design to me” is not considered to be evidence in science. The current absence of knowledge regarding the origin of a structure or a pathway based on scientific ignorance in 2005 is not positive evidence in favor of irreducible complexity. This is often referred to as the “God of the gaps.” In other words, if something is beyond comprehension today, some people invoke God or some other “designer” in order to explain it. However, “you haven’t explained everything yet,” is not a competing hypothesis! What will happen to their position in the future when the mechanisms of their pet phenomena are explained? ID is not scientific. It involves public relations, religious faith and politics. ID is not science, and, therefore, it has no place in a science classroom.
(Note: see “Evolution” and “Creationism and Intelligent Design” links on my web page @ http://www.gocolumbia.org/hodgej/Default.htm)