Intelligent Design

One of the biggest jokes of the last few years has been the theory of "Intelligent Design" and the religious fanatics' attempt to try to make it part of the Science curriculum in schools. Those peddling the Intelligent Design theory claim that it is not an attempt to make the Bible and Christianity a science, nor to use the Intelligent Design theory as a means of introducing religious studies into the schools.

Yet, if one does a quick search in Google on Intelligent Design, every site you find that supports this theory, have links to sites that either preach about Christianity, God or simply peddle Christian books on the Internet for you to buy. Pure coincidence?

But, lets assume that the Intelligent Design theory is not about bringing religious studies into the science classrooms, or trying to make Christianity a science.

What exactly is "science"? Well, according to the Dictionary, Science is "The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena. Such activities applied to an object of inquiry or study." [www.dictionary.com]

And "Intelligent Design"? Well, according to the Wikipedia, Intelligent Design is " Intelligent Design is presented as an alternative to purely naturalistic forms of the theory of evolution. Its putative main purpose is to investigate whether or not the empirical evidence necessarily implies that life on Earth must have been designed by an intelligent agent or agents. William Dembski, one of Intelligent Design's leading proponents, has stated that the fundamental claim of Intelligent Design is that "there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design]

When I went to school years ago, one of the courses we had to participate in was Science. Part of our learning was to look at the world around us and through experimentation, show how certain events happened. We could take a jug of water, boil it to create steam, and then convert it back to water by allowing the steam to hit a cold object. Very simple experiment, but easy to prove that when you boil water it becomes steam, and when you cool steam, it reverts back to liquid water.

This simple experiment is one of millions that one can do to prove how things occur in life and nature. In main cases, we don't even have to do the experiments to prove them. They occur naturally around us on a daily basis. True, there are theories that currently can not be proved because we have not achieved a level of technology to be able to prove them. However, that does not mean that the theory is wrong.

With the Intelligent Design theory however, its premise is that some unknown intelligence has become involved in making certain things happen. So the question that begs me to ask, is this. How is the Intelligent Design theory going to prove that there is an "unkown intelligence" out there? What evidence do they have that this "unknown intelligence" actually exists? What documentation do they have to support this "unknown intelligence"? Unlike true science, can the Intelligent Design theory point to something and say "There! See? Told you! the Unknown Intelligence made that!".

The answer to all these questions is a simple "No".

The Intelligent Design theory fails in every aspect in being considered a "Science". It can't observe, identify, describe, experiment and explain a phenomena without falling back into religion. And looking at those who are pushing for the Intelligent Design theory to be incorporated into the schools' Science courses, the only religion they will be falling back onto is Christianity and the Bible.

For this reason [amongst others], the Intelligent Design theory is not a scientific theory, but a religious one. Allowing it into the schools as a "science" is not only an attempt to railroad and stifle rational thinking, but also a means of bringing religion into the curriculum of schools.

The sooner the governments put the Intelligent Design theory back where it belongs - religious studies - the better for us all.

James

PS .. you may like to read this article for a non-scientific perspective http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103AP_Vatican_Evolution.html