Intelligent Design: scientists afraid of finding the truth?

Should we teach Intelligent Design (ID) in our schools or just Darwinism?

Before approaching an answer to this question, it is worth considering the areas of lack of precision in the popular presentations of both these concepts.

Darwinism

Though Darwin titled his most notable book On the Origin of Species, his eventual contribution threw virtually no light at all on the origin of species. His credit rests on his development of the theory that life forms can and do adapt to meet new circumstances, within limits, based on his observations. To the end of his life however, he conceded he did not know how to explain the origin of life in scientific terms without an appeal to religion. And this should be of no surprise, since events at that remote time are clearly not subject to any scientific scrutiny and the best any of us can manage is reasonable conjecture and informed inference.

It has been those who followed Darwin who have extended his theory beyond its reasonable limits, by proposing alternative theories, for none of which is there any scientific evidence. An ardent Darwinist, Richard Dawkins, realised that “whatever is the explanation of life, it cannot be by chance”. Consequently, he proposed the idea, soon to become popular, that nature could “tame chance” through the progression of a sufficiently large series of finely graduated intermediaries.

Eventually, he claimed that “we shall be able to derive anything from anything else”. But Darwin had said that “if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down”. (Emphasis added). The term “Darwinian evolution” is imprecise in relation to any particular theory, but now refers to all those that exclude intelligence as a possible cause.

For many decades, some scientists have strongly urged an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection as the preferred explanation for the contents of the universe. Though they vehemently reject any suggestion of a designer for lack of evidence, they are happy with, but do not advertise, the fact that their position suffers a similar lack. But they are not only scientists, they are also members of the human race, and as ordinary men and women they must know that the universal experience of mankind is that everything that exists has a cause. No-one has ever produced any scientific evidence of anything having arisen without a cause. It is therefore reasonable to believe that everything was caused by something else or by somebody else, and unreasonable to believe the opposite, in the absence of evidence. Of Darwinism, Stanley Jaki was scarcely exaggerating when he said that it “among all major scientific theories is the one that claims the most on the basis of relatively the least”.

Intelligent Design

The relatively recent discovery of a certain kind of complexity, particularly in the areas of biological science, has rekindled interest in an old set of beliefs. It is not complexity alone that prompts the need for an intelligent explanation but the discovery of complex interactive sets of arrangements where, in the absence of the whole integrated mechanism, the individual components would have no purpose and no function.

Probably the commonest offered example of this kind of interactive complexity is the eye, to which critics have responded by explaining how an eye could have developed over time in relation to the stimulus of external light. But one sees, not with the eye alone but also necessarily with the occipital cortex at the back of the brain, and the unusual neural pathways connecting them by which stereoscopy is attained. Ultimately, sight occurs in the brain, not the eye.

The point is that the whole system of sight cannot work unless every part is present in its entirety, and it is not possible to explain how this could have developed step-by-step by chance, as it is impossible to believe that chance “knew” of the end towards which it was developing.

Further examples of ID are readily found, including the ear, a structure equally as wondrous as the eye, where hearing also occurs ultimately in the brain, and the mechanism of blood clotting. This latter is a cascade process, one step leading to another, all being necessary, but none being useful unless all components are present. Biology, then, at it most basic levels, displays an information-rich complexity which natural causes does not explain. The study of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry cannot be dismissed as non-scientific endeavours.

Probably the most compelling argument for ID arises from the known properties of DNA, which acts as a kind of molecular language, much like software runs a computer. Put simply, tell any computer expert that Windows XP just evolved by chance, and he would send you packing, as indeed, being trained to think, he should. DNA is an incredibly complex source of information, the kind of information needed for hands to move, eyes to see, hearts to beat, and so on. Indeed, the vast quantities of information contained in DNA is mind boggling. The amount of information in a single cell of the human body has been described as equivalent to several sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The information communicated is not random but loaded with what scientists call specified complexity. DNA contains information in a very complex and specific fashion, which leads to the conclusion that a “who” and not a “what” created this genetic language. Natural forces alone cannot account for the high information content of DNA. Chance cannot account for it. A reasonable rational mind demands that intelligence be involved.

Some problems arise for those who would reject the inclusion of a designer into the discussion. The first is that ID has not been developed by unscientific religious fundamentalists who simply disagree with Darwin, but by fellow scientists. In fact, ID gained prominence due to the work of such figures as Phillip Johnson, a Harvard-educated law professor at the University of California, Berkeley; Michael Behe, a biochemistry professor at Pennsylvania’s Lehigh University; William Dembski, a mathematician with two PhDs who directs an information theory research group at Baylor University; and Steve Meyer, a philosopher of science at Whitworth College in Washington state. They and others have led the dissemination of evidence showing that much of the physical universe exhibits unmistakable characteristics of design. They have done this to indicate that Darwinian theory has critical defects, whereby it fails to explain this new knowledge. Their work has been criticised but their case has not been answered.

It is true that a minority of Christians who use ID to their advantage in the debate reveal a major flaw in their argument when they suppress science in order to claim that the universe came into existence only in the last several thousands of years, and probably occurred over just a few days. But the overwhelming majority of Christians hold, and have always held, that in scientific terms, we don’t certainly know when the universe began, nor do we know how or for what purpose, though good science would indicate that it occurred a very long time ago.

As to whether the designer was the one we call God or not, it would be prudent to leave that to theologians and philosophers, but the possibility of the existence of God cannot simply be denied. It must remain true that God exists or not. To dismiss outright even the possibility of God’s existence, because the issue had already been prejudged in the negative, could only rest on prejudice. Blaise Pascal, at least, thought the best bet for man was to opt for belief. He figured that if you are right, you lose little in the short term and gain everything at last: while if wrong, you gain little in the short term but lose everything at last.

The best known proofs for the existence of God are those of St Thomas Aquinas, chiefly his arguments from cosmological, contingency, teleological, aesthetic and anthropological perspectives. For some people, taken together they are compelling, for others they fall too far short of certainty to be given credence. But there are no proofs for the non-existence of God.

Now, to come to the important question asked in the title of this paper. It is common to hear that the purpose of man’s intellect is to gain knowledge, and scientists always claim to be knowledge-seekers. But, and this is why the question is so important, far more important than gaining knowledge is the discovery of truth. The story of man’s historical progress is one of repeatedly making finds, called new knowledge, to be replaced sooner or later by even newer knowledge. One piece of knowledge can contradict another, but truth cannot contradict itself.

The second problem for those who would reject the possibility of a designer is one of their own making. They define scientific inquiry narrowly so that it will eliminate the possibility of their discovering the possible truth about the origin of life. They complain that ID is creationist religion in disguise but their eagerness to reject ID as science reveals their ideologically-driven definition of science. They think good science should only implicate chance and not intelligence, descent from apes and certainly not thoughts of God. But good science is not defined according to its implications. Science looks at the facts and lets them speak for themselves. When they aren't allowed to speak the result is pseudo-science, and that is why people are crying foul regarding Darwinian dogma. Even the famous atheist Anthony Flew has recently publicly renounced his atheism because of ID argumentation.

This motive for consciously avoiding a critical component of the issue is not the product of their opponents’ imagination - some Darwinists are quite frank about their anti-religious motives. A new research program at Harvard aims to study how life began. One of its researchers put it this way: “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.” British biologist Richard Dawkins believed that Darwin “made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist”. Something is seriously wrong when science becomes a project to keep atheists feeling intellectually satisfied.

The Darwinian revolution was as much about the success of one philosophical worldview overturning another as it was about science. The scientific basis of Darwinism has always been shaky but early on many people, unhappy with the concept of God, realised just how useful Darwin’s views could be to their cause and have carried it beyond the limits of its competence. Darwinism posits philosophical naturalism in the place of supernatural creation, relying on assertion without evidence.

The question about what to teach about the origin of life comes down to this - are we going to start teaching students at every level from junior school to tertiary in a way that is open to the possibility of an encounter with truth or are we going to continue to follow what has become the now common path in the public sphere that closes minds to the possibility of finding the truth? A definition of the evolution of life in terms of preconceived descriptors, such as unguided chance, unplanned and random variation, is not a biological definition. It is more like a mission statement for atheism masquerading as biology. Darwinists oppose the teaching of ID in the classroom but if it’s acceptable to teach atheism in the classroom, why not God also? We’re witnessing the spectacle of some scientists who are afraid of some science. Wanting to have one’s opponents unfairly silenced is simply bullying, a tactic adopted to avoid exposing one's beliefs to open examination.

Those who are serious about finding truth can’t afford to dismiss any reasonable proposal to find it and they should not embrace any unreasonable proposal. Let’s hope we can soon begin to debate calmly and honestly the implications of certain recent biological, scientific discoveries.