What are Darwinists afraid of?

President Bush touched a MAJOR nerve with his rather innocuous comment about Intelligent Design.  The Darwinists are going crazy and the liberal media has been hammering him over the head.  It has been the number one topic on Technorati for about the last 24 hours.  Google News is showing 230 articles on the subject.

If the scientific evidence is so strong in favor of the theory that the universe and humans evolved by chance from nothing, why would these Darwinists feel threatened by both theories being taught in a classroom? 

Oh yeah, because it "smells" of religion.  Someone grab a "SEPERATION OF CHURCH AND STATE!" sign.  Thank goodness we're getting rid of Christianity in America. 

The Darwinists have had a total monopoly in the classroom for decades and yet only 22% of Americans today believe that we evolved!  And the number is decreasing every year. 

(I will say that, somewhat surprisingly, so many of the blog entries throughout the day have been anti-ID, contrary to what one would expect according to the Harris Poll.  Wonder what the Harris people have to say?  I have no explanation...)

Similar to how the mercury-autism debate always turns political instead of sticking to science, the Intelligent Design/Evolution debate has turned from intellectually honest, "tolerant" scientific discussion to "those damn religious wackos want to force God on everyone" faster than a cilia can change directions!  (If the cilia reference doesn't make any sense, it comes from Michael Behe's excellent book, "Darwin's Black Box".) 

In reality, Darwinism is a faith that requires you to throw out reason and logic!  We came from nothing?  Deep in our hearts, we know it is untrue.  But we want to believe it because if we came from nothing, we report to no one.  But in our heart, we know that's not true either. 

A little known fact is that there are numerous ex-Darwinist scientists that started down the path to ABSOLUTELY PROVE ONCE AND FOR ALL that we all came from nothing.  Along the way, they found that this just couldn't be done and they became Christians because the Biblical record was more scientifically plausible than any other theory. 

An excellent book for the layperson is "The Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel.

PS - Is it any wonder that my nameless, faceless, east coast surgeon, arch-nemisis Orac has an anti-ID post up right now?  Although, LaShawn Barber didn't settle for any of his babble.  (See omments 62 and 63.)  Orac, may the God you surely do not believe in bless you anyways. 

Comments

[westamastaflash]

"Darwinism is a faith that requires you to throw out reason and logic!"?

Reason is the antheisis of faith. The theory of evolution was created by analyzing the facts and trying to find a solution - this is how science works. Faith, on the other hand, involves submission to the idea that the individual is not able to understand reality. Once we decide that reason is worthless, then we can make up any mystical being and decide that he's got all the answers, and they've been convienently written down in whichever book is popular at the time, be it the Koran, the Bible, the Talmud, or the Book of Mormon.

[Ed Darrell]

Darwinists fear only that people will get one side of the discussion, the wrong, anti-science side.

Do you know that there is not a single laboratory anywhere on Earth working on intelligent design right now? Do you know that the chief organization behind ID asks that it not be discussed in high schools, for fear that a court challenge will knock it out -- since there is no theory or even a body of data to support intelligent design?

Do you know there are ten times as many publications supporting cold fusion in science journals as there are supporting intelligent design?

ID is the cold fusion of biology, except that it lacks any experimental support . . .

Woud you support teaching high school kids that cold fusion is the hope of the future?

[What?]

"Reason is the antheisis of faith."

I wonder if this is true; I have faith that it is not.

Lets check my faith at Merriam-Webster Online Thesaurus:
"Near Antonyms: disbelief, doubt, unbelief
Antonyms: atheism, godlessness"

If "Reason is the antheisis of faith" than M-W seemsed to have missed it. I wonder why that would be?

Maybe it's because "Reason" isn't What? westamastaflash has faith it is. Or maybe it's because "faith" isn't What? westamastaflash has faith it is. Maybe it's a case of both not being What? westamastaflash has faith they are.

I would say the position that "Reason is the antheisis of faith" is rather a rather poorly reasoned position that IS an article of faith among athiests and other assorted foolish fellows including some so called "people of faith."

"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into."-Jonathan Swift

"Many a 'Free Thinker' should think about adding the adjective 'incompetent' to the head of their resume."-What?

[What?]

"Do you know that there is not a single laboratory anywhere on Earth working on intelligent design right now?" NO I do not know that, is it true? However I think such a question might reflect a bit of ignorance on the part of the asker about the method and theory of ID.

"Do you know that the chief organization behind ID asks that it not be discussed in high schools, for fear that a court challenge will knock it out -- since there is no theory or even a body of data to support intelligent design?" On your main point I did not know this but would not be that surprized if it were true that they recognize that ID theory is still quite speculative and needs further consideration and researech. I do know that the assertion that there is "no theory" is flat out false and would not be something "the chief organization behind ID" would say. I suspect the "body of data" comment is also quite flatly contradicted by facts, but I don't know enough about ID to say one way or another.

"ID is the cold fusion of biology, except that it lacks any experimental support." While this might make a nice sound bite, I am unsure when the analogy is considered that it really holds or the commentator would want it too. From my understanding the problem with "cold fusion" is not that it didn't or doesn't happen, but that when it happens it takes as much or more energy input as it gives in output.

[Trish]

What's the problem with teaching religion, in a format similar to an English literature class? Wouldn't it be worthwhile for kids to read the Bible from an academic perspective (since it's the most widely read book in the world) and also read excerpts from the Koran and the Torah, to find out what the majority of people believe around the world? Isn't religion an academic subject worthy of discussion? Maybe we should ban all non-scientific classes, like English literature and history (both of which are grossly biased-in many cases biased towards Christian thinking and perspectives.) No one ever talks about that. I took a HS class on Great Books and they were almost all the "great" European Christian authors. What about that?

[Pat Sullivan]

Reply to Ed's comment:

If "Darwinist's only fear that people will only get one side of the story", that is exactly what is happening today and the past several decades! Only one side of the story is being taught -Darwinity! ID'ers have touched an exposed nerve because they are very smart scientists who are exposing the true shallowness of the Darwinian religous dogma! What laboratory is today or has ever tested any of the Darwinian theories. Both sides can only discuss ideas and theories since our "origins" are not something that can be demonstrated or reproduced in a lab. Both sides are theories resistant to laboratory proof. Both sides are philoshopical in nature trying to interpret the same set of observed facts. Both have very smart people that are proponents of each theory! Both have merit and both deserve to be taught.

It is only logical to observe our world and see obvious design. If you tell me that something as well designed as the human body is NOT DESIGNED, my mind says "whoa, that is mind boggling." That is why only some 22% of people believe evolution even after decades of having it forced down their throats!! It is just too hard to believe! It is not logical. It is the dogma of people who desperately don't want a Creator!!

[Ed Darrell]

What? suggests that there is a theory of intelligent design. More than 80,000 research biologists want to know just what that theory is, and the top dogs at the Discovery Institute will be pleased to learn about it -- can you tell us where we might find it explained? It's not explained in any book by any advocate of intelligent design, nor is it published in any science journal.

///Trish wonders why religion can't be taught as literature -- and the answer is that there are many classes in high schools where the Bible is taught as literature. There are several comparative religion classes in high schools, as well, and most states, such as Texas, require that religion be covered well in social studies classes -- history, geography, economics, etc. Government cannot advocate religion, however. Consequently those classes, if they are within the bounds of the law, stop well short of advocating any religion. This does not rest well with many religionists, who appear to want kids to be given religion similar to the way they get a school dress code, uncritically, and with an expectation that they'll toe the line. The Supreme Court has noted in several cases that comparative religion classes and scripture-as-literature classes are not only legal, but virtually necessary to an educated person.

///I note again that it is not "Darwinists" asking that creationism in any form, including intelligent design, be prohibited from classrooms. Scientists ask merely that nothing be ordered to be taught as science that has not won a place in the curriculum through the ordinary trials of any science idea. To this point, intelligent design has completely failed in the marketplace of ideas, including science ideas. It has proven to be completely sterile in promoting scientific inquiry, even by its most ardent advocates. However, people whose enthusiasm appears to surpass their love of the Constitution have proposals now in 20 states to dilute science classes, to hamper science education, to steal time from real science and order by legislative fiat that intelligent design be taught despite its lack of scientific data or theory. It's not scientists who ask for laws to close off inquiry, it's the advocates of ID. There is a court test pending in Dover, Pennsylvania, over one such order. In recent weeks the expert witnesses for intelligent design have quit the case, evidence of the ill-advised nature of ordering nonsense to be taught in place of science.

///More, next post

[Ed Darrell]

Mr. Sullivan said: "ID'ers have touched an exposed nerve because they are very smart scientists who are exposing the true shallowness of the Darwinian religous dogma!"

///Are they smart scientists? Why do they do no research into intelligent design? Check the bona fides of the advocates of intelligent design: William Dembski is not a biologist, but a theologian; Angus Campbell is a speech professor; Jonathan Witt has a degree in creative writing; Steve Meyer has a Ph.D. in history and philosophy, and has never done a lick of biology research; John West is a professor of political science. Those are the big guns. Michael Behe is a biochemist, but oddly, though he has three dozen publications on his vita, cannot find a question of intelligent design to research that will produce results supporting intelligent design. Six years ago Behe said he had a project that should yield results shortly; now he says there is no project in the works. There were no publications in the interim.

If you check your milk carton this morning, it's likely that "intelligent design research" will be pictured as missing. No one has seen it.

Just taking the word of "very smart scientists" isn't enough -- but why don't you take my word, if that's your sole criterion?

///Mr. Sullivan said: "What laboratory is today or has ever tested any of the Darwinian theories. Both sides can only discuss ideas and theories since our "origins" are not something that can be demonstrated or reproduced in a lab."

///There is no part of evolution theory which has not been tested in a laboratory, and observed in the field. New species -- such as broccoli -- have been observed to rise, many times. One of the best, lay explanations of the research is contained in Jonathan Weiner's 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, *The Beak of the Finch, a story of evolution in our time.* Peter and Rosemary Grant have detailed records of evolution occurring in the wild, from more than 30 years of observations of every individual in three separate species of birds.

Or check out major science publications indices, such as PubMed (which is available, free, online). There are about 10,000 papers each year published with spectacular new evidence of evolution, or based wholly on applied evolution. Research for treatments and cure of cystic fibrosis, for example, is thoroughly grounded in already-demonstrated mechanisms of evolution. Diabetes' mechanism was diagnosed with applied evolution theory; early treatments using bovine and porcine insulin were based on evolution's suggestion that humans are close enough to other mammals; modern treatments, using human insulin grown by engineered bacteria, are similarly grounded in evolution theory.

///Evolution theory has survived 170 years of hard and often furious experiments to disprove it. It is among the best proven theories we have in science, if not the best proven.

///Mr. Sullivan said: "Both sides are theories resistant to laboratory proof. Both sides are philoshopical in nature trying to interpret the same set of observed facts. Both have very smart people that are proponents of each theory! Both have merit and both deserve to be taught."

///I think that's a demonstration that evolution is NOT taught in schools (as polls have repeatedly demonstrated -- teachers and administrators other than AP biology tend to avoid teaching it at all, and most Americans are quite ignorant of what the theories say and how they work). Evolution is the basis for modern medicine and modern agriculture. Evolution is not only subject to laboratory testing, it passes such tests hundreds of times daily. (Go see these excellent articles by Dr. Randolph Nesse for good examples in medicine: http://www.darwinianmedicine.org/)

///Mr. Sullivan said: "It is only logical to observe our world and see obvious design. If you tell me that something as well designed as the human body is NOT DESIGNED, my mind says "whoa, that is mind boggling." That is why only some 22% of people believe evolution even after decades of having it forced down their throats!! It is just too hard to believe! It is not logical. It is the dogma of people who desperately don't want a Creator!!"

///It doesn't have anything to do with not wanting belief in a creator. Critics of Darwin generally "forget" that Darwin was a devout Christian when he found the evidence for evolution and while he teased out the nuances of the theory (and for most of the rest of his life), as was Wallace. Most contributors to evolution theory over the years have been Christian, many quite devout, such as Asa Gray, Theodosius Dobzhansky, and Francis Collins who is the current head of the Human Genome Project. Evolution says nothing against a creator -- and the claims that evolution somehow does demonstrate instead that the claimants do not know Darwinian theory well, if at all.

///Darwin constantly noted, "belief" in evolution is difficult, if not impossible. However, when the evidence shows it -- especially when the evidence comes directly from God's creation -- belief is not required. One need only repeat the observation if one has difficulty understanding. Darwin did that often, and always with the same results.

///Anti-Darwinism itself is anti-God, at least for Christians. We Christians start from the faith that God created the universe, and as Augustine and others noted, therefore what the universe shows us about its characteristics and origins must be true as another testament from God that cannot be edited by humans.

///Intelligent design creationism, as young Earth and old Earth creationism before it, deny the plain evidence God gives us in nature, from the start. Any philosophy which starts out with such a denial of God cannot end up well.

///Don't take my word for any of this. Go check out the sources. Check out PubMed for articles on intelligent design. Check it out for articles on evolution. Get Ernst Mayr's wonderful book, *What Evolution Is*, and read it. Read Weiner's book. Check out the website for the PBS series on evolution: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/

///In this day, there is little excuse to fail to understand evolution, one of the great ideas of western civilization, whether one wishes to "believe" it or not.

[Trish]

Ed: Thanks for responding. My previous post, I now realize, is overly simplistic, and the topic of Intelligent Design (after reading more on the issue) explores the issue of "where we came from" rather than the study of religion, or the incorporation of religion in schools. Could it be argued that God created us, and that, by free will, we evolved to what we are today? That does not deny the existence of God and at the same time, does not deny the evidence of evolution. I agree with you that evolution is not taught adequately in high school, and in my case, religion is not taught at all. A real failure of the school system on both counts.

[Pat Sullivan]

Repy to Ed:

Many thanks to Ed for his well written reply to my comments in reply to his comments. Did you follow that?

I won't reply to each of his statements as I agree with much of what he writes. Sort of! The problem I have is that I totally agree that evolution can and has been observed often in nature. But there are TWO TYPES of EVOLUTION. There is micro evolution, change within species and there is macro evolution, one species becoming another species. The first has been observed. The first has been utilized in medicine and agriculture as he says. My problem is not with micro evolution at all. It makes perfect sense and is readily proven that it happened and still happens today! My problem is logically taking that observation and making the jump to MACRO EVOLUTION. I am not aware of any evidence or observation showing that has happened or is happening. The total lack of "intermediate" species in the fossil record are very telling. Also, the sudden appearance of species in the fossil record is totally unpredicted by evolution. Smarter people than I could go on and on about the huge holes in the theory of Macro Evolution. I think that this is the main problem in a discussion about "evolution". One needs to make sure we know which type of evolution we are talking about! Id'ers, get accused of being stupid because they supposedly don't accept the concept of micro evolution when they readily do. As to the lack of "published" work from ID'ers, scientific publications are controlled by Darwinists and they are not going to allow anything written by an ID'er to be published so that can continue to use the argument that ID is not scientific because they have never been published! That circular argument works in medicine too! I also fail to follow Ed's argument that somehow it is anti-God to believe in ID and not in evolution. Clearly the basis of belief for every athiest I have ever talked to has been Evolution and not Creation! It seems rare to find Christians who believe in a Creator but also believe that creation happened from NOTHING and totally randomly by chance. I also don't like the tendency for evolutionists to attack ID'ers personally. I have read things written by people like Dembski and Behe and it is hard for me to believe that they are stupid people with an evil agenda. They seem extremely smart and their arguments compelling. One could argue as Ed does, that this is because I am simply ignorant and have not been properly taught what evolution really is. The fact is, I have read things from evolutionists and I have gone through the obligatory evolution classes both in High School and College. In those classes I found myself saying, "that is all there is?" "That is what evolution is?" I wanted to know where the beef was. I don't think the reason that only 22% of Americans believe in Evolution is that 78% of them are just too stupid or ignorant! I think that evolutionists have to do a better job explaining how what is observed happened totally from NOTHING and totally randomly. That is the huge problem that they have it seems to me. What is observed appears to be extraordinarily well designed! Nothing that we use or work with in everyday experience came into being from nothing or by chance. Our experience readily teaches us that everything worthwhile has been designed by someone.

[Pat Sullivan]

I was intrigued by Ed's comment that Darwin was a devout Christian when he discovered the evidences which he believed suggested Evolution. I googled "Was Darwin a Christian?" and got over a million hits! Here was the first one. http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/darwin.html

[Jonathan Witt]

There are a number of errors in Ed Darrell's comments. If you spend any time at discovery.org, evolutionnews, or idthefuture, you'll find many of them addressed. I also have a Darwinism and Design section of Wittingshire. Let me just touch on one or two of Darrell's errors:

* He states that 20 states are trying to dilute science standards and force intelligent design in the public school science curriculum. That's untrue. There are a few states trying to push through curriculum that will teach both the strengths and weaknesses in Darwinism. These have be aggressively opposed by some Darwinists, who claim that there is no controvery and no weaknesses in the theory. In fact, there are profound weaknesses in the theory, and her defenders must constantly add new patches to the theory to absorb uncooperative data, much as the early astronomers had to keep adding epicycles to the geocentric model of the earth.

Darrell says that Darwinism underpins virtually all of modern medicine. No. If that were so, a recent poll would not have found that 60 percent of physicians reject the Darwinian account of the origin of humans. They can because modern medicine can get along quite well without Darwin's theory of common descent by random variation and natural selection. An article about this poll and its signficance can also be found at the Discovery Institute website.

Just because Darwinists say something over and over doesn't mean it's true.

[Erik Nanstiel]

Personally, it does not bother me if the concept of "intelligent design" is taught in the classroom. But it does ride the fence when it comes to separating church and state.

I am a christian who believes in a creator. That said, I also believe that the creator set up the world with a set of physical laws that would guide the formation of stars, planets and even life. The particulars of it... biology's adaptation to environment, is left to the physical laws mandated at the beginning of time.

Evolution makes SENSE. Especially since environments change. If we look at the huge genetic diversity around the planet...each creature perfectly ADAPTED to its environment... we see the result of evolutionary changes. Without natural selection, there'd be no life...because species couldn't survive abrupt changes in their environments.

I can't understand why this notion threatens those that believe in GOD as a creator. "He" designed the laws of physics...but he didn't need to micromanage every last thing that resulted from those laws.

[Pat Sullivan]

Repy to Eric,

Thanks for your comment! I have read several things from leading ID thinkers/writers and they don't push their ideas about religion at all. They point out the holes and issues regarding what is taught about Darwinism and also show how the evidence strongly suggests Design not random or natural selection. Besides, I think the Constitutional Framers had in mind that they did not want their to be an "Official Government Sponsored Religion" as there was in England. I think they would be appalled at the idea that Government was supposed to protect everyone "from religion" as it is today. I basically agree with your description of how life adapts to it's environment. I think God designed everything to adapt using the principles of genetics and I certainly believe in "Micro Evolution". I just don't think the data, the science, the evidence suggests "Macro evolution" where one species becomes and entirely different species. That is the leap that I have been unable to make. Also, the Darwinian concept that everything came from absolutely NOTHING and evolved totally randomly by chance is too big of leap requiring too much faith and no evidence at all.

[Pat Sullivan]

Discovery Institute senior fellow Jonathan Witt passed along to me the comment of a biologist friend of his who said, "No one has observed the
origin of broccoli, in the lab or in the field -- it has been cultivated for centuries." Witt added that the significance of the Galapagos finch
story is wildly exaggerated: "The finchs' beaks varied in size, getting longer and then shorter again later. No novel form was created. If the
evidence for Darwinism is so overwhelming, why must the Darwinists appeal to such unremarkable instances of microevolution? It's not just Darrell. The finch beak is a fixture of high school biology textbooks."

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[Ed Darrell]

Jonathan Witt demonstrates the great bait-and-switch tactics ID advocates often use.///

Mr. Witt denies that 20 states are trying to dilute evolution, but then says several states have political efforts to "teach the strengths and weaknesses" of evolution. He fails to mention that phrase is intelligent design code for "dilute evolution so it's not taught well." Curricula currently call for teaching strengths and weaknesses of all theories. When ID advocates talk to state school boards, of course, they never mention the strengths of evolution theory, nor do they actually urge they be taught well. In Texas they claimed weaknesses where there are none -- the Jonathan Wells hoax about Kettlewell's moth research, for example; advocacy of teaching a hoax is cruel and dishonest -- but Witt's group urges it. Go see for yourself; read the transcripts of the Texas hearings.///

On the other hand, Witt fails to ask that any real controversy be taught. Real scientists who do real research in real laboratories and in the real wild argue incessantly about rates of evolution, for example. Witt and his colleagues at Discovery Institute absolutely go pale when school board members threaten to teach such a true controversy; it reveals that the dispute is not whether evolution occurs, but instead about exactly how it occurs. The fact that evolution occurs is denied by no serious researcher in biology.///

I note the work by Dr. Randolph Nesse on evolutionary medicine (you can see it here: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nesse/). Dr. Nesse has several papers in juried journals about the necessity of understanding evolution in treating patients successfully -- for allergies, for example -- and Mr. Witt tries to switch the argument. Rather that discuss how evolution affects medicine, Witt claims that physicians don't understand it. That is completely off the mark and irrelevant. It's sad, and it hurts people, as Dr. Nesse notes -- and it's irrelevant to the argument. (Does your physician understand evolution? Do you know when it would be important to your health? Go seek out Nesse's articles . . .) It is also probably true that many chemists don't understand quantum mechanics, and they get along well enough. But your physician relies, and your health care relies, on the evolution-based work done by companies like Genentech, to treat diabetes. In fact, the understanding, diagnosis and treatments of human diabetes is completely evolution-based. Mr. Witt may not think it important that your physician understand why your diabetes treatment works, or why it may stop. Mr. Witt is not a physician and faces no malpractice threat when he goofs. But this is not my error -- it is Mr. Witt's spin.///

Which is what we would expect from an award-winning creative writer who has never done a lick of research, but is the chief public relations guy for the Discovery Institute. Remember what I said about IDers doing no research? Mr. Witt's position, as the chief PR guy, has no analog anywhere in evolution. Real science speaks for itself, and does not need press agents, press releases, slick films, million-dollar-a-year budgets for public relations, or the PR group for the Swift Boat Veterans to back them. One might begin to think that intelligent design is a political thing, and not a science thing. One would be correct.///

He mentioned all that, though, didn't he?