The U.S.A. is the most amazing of all in that it harbors ignorance like no other. Bend’s daily paper published an “In My View” June 3 titled: “Intelligent design (ID) should be tolerated in public school!” The author, Sarah Anderson, has apparently been living in a cocoon since the Dover Pennsylvania trial of Kitzmiller v. Dover, 2005. Biochemist Michael Behe, the guru of ID, conceded under oath at the trial that ID was God-based. The court ruled that “ID” was “thinly veiled religion,” unsuitable for public schools and unconstitutional!
She starts with the usual mocking of the theory of evolution. Evolution is a proven theory with overwhelming evidence and “has been confirmed to such a degree, by observation and experiment, that knowledgeable experts accept it as fact” (National Geographic, Nov.2004.) Her belief doesn’t change that fact!
She errs in what happened to Sister’s teacher Kris Helphinstine. He was not fired for “presenting scientific information opposed to evolution” (does any exist?). He was fired for “presenting creationism” in his biology class (Bulletin, 3-20-07). There is no debate between science and mythology! Anderson suggests that ID is not a religion in spite of the fact that it’s not founded in science. If, as she claims, “ID uses the same evidence as evolution,” then wouldn’t it be called “evolution?” ID lacks scientific evidence. Anderson finally got it right in her last paragraph: “ignorance is the enemy; blind adherence is the enemy.” She’s guilty of both! Scientist Daniel C. Dennett of Tufts University states: “The evidence for evolution pours in, not only from geology, paleontology, biography and anatomy, but of course from molecular biology…to put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by the process of evolution is simply ignorant!”
I’m glad she brought up the “Law of Biogenesis.” But isn’t it in dispute with God creating Adam out of dust? Biologist Harold Morowitz, George Mason University, says the mystery of life is answered by our metabolism – chemical reactions that turn energy and atoms into biologically useful molecules, involving 11 small carbon molecules – “the stuff abundant on the young Earth.” Those 11 molecules perhaps developed amino acids, lipids, and genetic molecule. “Life is an elaboration of something very simple.
Recommended reading: “Was Darwin Wrong? NO!” Nat’l Geo., 2004; “Darwin’s Ghost” by Steve Jones, renowned geneticist.
Bob Bates, Bend
This article appears in Jun 12-18, 2008.
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All one need do to end this ‘debate’… is to contemplate a fossil. Repeated cross testing of fossil radiometric dates confirm validity.
End of debate.
We can’t be surprised that people parse ‘intelligent design’ as science–and at the same time they deny that the term ‘designer’ imputes the existence of a designer or has any religious implications. Intellectualism is spiraling downward: Obama is a Muslim; Bush orchestrated 9/11; Kennedy was killed by a right wing cabal; astronauts never landed on the moon. Why not believe that evolution is a myth–not a valid scientific theory (ever heard of the theory of gravity)–and being pushed as part of a materialistic, secular agenda? Our schools have ceased to teach science in any meaningful way to the mass of students. Reading and math skills are minimal. Children are indoctrinated by the public, their parents and peers that history, social sciences, economics, and the liberal arts are irrelevant. Only be concerned with the pragmatic–is it going to be on the test–will it be required in the career of choice?
BC White–the reason the ‘debate’ continues is that only one American in twenty can read your twenty-five word posting and understand what you are writing about.
First Darwin didn’t own molecular microscope. Second he couldn’t account for DNA or mRNA in his theory. Third he discounted himself in his last book, try reading it sometime. By the way, a proposed theory isn’t fact. The theory of gravity by Newton is pretty relative correct. Guess what? Newton was an intelligent design theorist.
Lady Hope, who visited Charles Darwin during his last days on earth, has the following to say regarding his views on evolution towards the end of his life:
It was on a glorious Autumn afternoon when I was asked to go and sit with Charles Darwin. He was almost bedridden for some months before he died. Propped up with pillows, his features seemed to be lit up with pleasure as I entered the room. He waved his hand towards the window as he pointed out the beautiful sunset seen beyond, while in the other he held an open Bible which he was always studying.
“What are you reading now?” I asked.
“Hebrews,” he answered, “still Hebrews. The Royal Book, I call it.” Then he placed his fingers on certain passages and commented upon them.
I made some allusions to the strong opinions expressed by many unbelievers on the history of the creation and then their treatment of the earlier chapters of the book of Genesis. He seemed distressed, his fingers twitched nervously and a look of agony came across his face as he said, “I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything. And to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.” Then he paused and after a few more sentences on the holiness of God and the grandeur of this Book, looking at the Bible which he was holding tenderly at the time, he said:
“I have a summer house in the garden which holds about thirty people. It is over there (pointing through the open window). I want you very much to speak here. I know you read the Bible in the villages. Tomorrow afternoon I should like the servants on the place, some tenants and a few neighbors to gather there. Will you speak to them?”
“What shall I speak about?” I asked.
“Christ Jesus,” he replied in a clear emphatic voice, adding in a lower tone, “and His salvation. Is not that the best theme? And then I want you to sing some hymns with them. You lead on your small instrument, do you not?”
The look of brightness on his face I shall never forget, for he added, “If you take the meeting at 3 o’clock this window will be opened and you will know that I am joining with the singing.”
Quoted from the Bombay Guardian, 25th March 1916, by Prof. H. Enoch in Evolution or Creation (Union of Evangelical Students of India, P.O. Box 486, Madras 7, India, 1966), pp. 165-167.