Finally Some Science

The university and media elites have been all in a tizzy since George W. Bush responding to a question about teaching Intelligent Design (ID) said he felt both sides ought to be properly taught so people can understand what the debate is about.

The media feeding frenzy has included numerous statements such as the following: Intelligent design explains nothing and predicts nothing, it isn't even a theory. Like creation science, ID is presented as a scientific alternative to evolution, though its scientific content is intentionally vague. Exactly eighty years after the Scopes "monkey trial" in Dayton, Tennessee, history is about to repeat itself.

The crux of the argument seems to be that the theory of evolution underpins all modern biology while ID isn’t even science. Evolutionary science is, supposedly, like any vibrant science constantly being expanded and modified as new lines of evidence appear. Furthermore, it must be true since thousands upon thousands of research scientists have contributed to it since Darwin proposed the mechanism of natural selection as an explanation for the relationships among species.

It sounds like a closed argument. Yet, over 400 distinguished scientists from all disciplines have signed onto a list of those expressing skepticism of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. And that list is growing, despite the persecution of some signers since they signed it. As the prestigious Russian biologist Vladimir Voeikov said, The ideology and philosophy of neo-Darwinism, which is sold by its adepts as a scientific theoretical foundation of biology, seriously hampers the development of science and hides from students the field's real problems.

Even scientists who are proponents of Darwinian evolution worry about the frantic rejection of alternative thinking. Take for example Darwinist Richard Lewontin of Harvard. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life ….. because we have a prior commitment to materialism. … materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.

If their science were unassailable, would they so vigorously resist its subjection to academic scrutiny?

Indeed, perhaps it is because Evolution Science is really an oxymoron. When Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859 he explicitly described the problems with his theory of the evolution of species. He asked, firstly, why if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms. Why is not all nature in confusion….? Darwin discussed three other serious objections, and he never did address the origin of life itself. Now if Evolutionary Science were a true science, one would expect intense investigation of these weak points of the theory by the thousands upon thousands of research scientists who have contributed to it.

Instead, as Michael Behe notes in his book Darwin’s Black Box: There has never been a meeting, or a book or a paper on details of the evolution of complex biological systems. The same can be said about the creation of living cells from inanimate matter. That is reinforced by a recent announcement by Harvard University that it is at long last launching a research project to study how life began. My expectation is that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention, said David R. Liu, a professor chemical biology at Harvard. Doesn't Liu sound like a research scientist… simply looking for the truth. Amazing!!