Yesterday while I was chillin out on the lawn by the Union with the student paper taking in the life of the OU Campus I came across an article that I thought was interesting.
What’s the most interesting part is the column is titled, “Fundamentalist doctrine does not belong in schools.” As soon as I read the title I had a hunch of what was ahead but that’s not what I am writing about. What I am writing about is not whether the doctrine should be included or not (because that’s not really what the article was about either – more just a rant on why evolution makes sense) but more so the concerns raised by the author.
The author really used the column to essentially smash creationism and intelligent design thinkers with his apparently much more logical “evolution” methods.
The author writes:
Intelligent design doesn’t belong in schools for two reasons.
Firstly, it’s not science. Secondly, it’s not true.
Intelligent design proponents usually promote their cause by attempting to pick holes in the theory of evolution and then suggesting their own idea as the default alternative. And I do say “idea” advisedly because intelligent design is not even a theory.
A theory is a framework of propositions formulated to explain a phenomenon. A theory must be predictive, and it must be testable. It must be capable of being disproven.
Intelligent design makes no predictions, and is so amorphously defined that it is effectively unable to be proven false.
It is not even truly explanatory, as it creates the problem of the origin of the designer, an agent necessarily more complex than that which it has created.
Scientifically, intelligent design is worthless.
Intelligent design proponents frequently refer to the elaborateness and complexity of organic structures as evidence for design.
Breathtaking elaborateness, yes — but nothing that isn’t predicted by evolutionary theory. Evolution accounts for the numerous design flaws we see in organic structures such as the human body, which intelligent design cannot do without a bit of contortion.
Take, for example, the fact that the urethra runs directly through the prostate.
Surely an entity capable of aligning the 100 billion cells of the human brain would know better than to make such an oversight. And a major oversight at that — just ask any man over sixty.
Observations in genetics, zoology, botany, microbiology, epidemiology, paleontology and ecology all affirm evolution’s validity with mountains of evidence, while not a single paper confirming intelligent design has ever been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Intelligent design — according to the overwhelming preponderance of evidence — is nonsense.
Whoa there cowboy! That’s a lot of hating and very little about why teaching the theory of creationism in schools is a bad idea and for those of you, especially the students who got your hands on this paper, who might be a bit perplexed or confused about the issues – fear not, God is NOT dead. I promise!!
There are two GREAT articles that I recently read that confront an unbelieving, skeptical culture from a past issue of Christianity Today.
The first one is called, “A New Day for Apologetics”
I think Christianity and the Christians proclaiming it went through a phase were we tended to think that gatling gun apologetics were the answers for everything. Then there was a reaction to that where it became popular to say, “Apologetics don’t work at all. God is mysterious and and Christianity is weird but I like it” (think how some people used “Blue Like Jazz.”) The above article discusses what is good and appropriate about the role of apologetics.
The second article is written by one of the smartest guys out there, William Lane Craig on how to deal with “the new atheism.” It is called “God is not dead yet.” It’s a good one and well worth the read.
Again, the intention behind this post is not to incite a heated argument but more-so present information that is counter to the above columns assertions and that shows there are indeed SMART reasons for the belief in God.
If you wish to read the full article from the OU paper, just click HERE. And when you do, be sure and read the comment posted to the article at 9:04pm, I thought it was right on…
Good post Jeremy. I genuinely feel embarassed for that kid. So much heat with no light. I am sure there are some good arguments against teaching ID in public schools – arguments that deserve healthy debate and good answers – but the author of the article didn’t make any. He’s just angry.
And you are right on about William Lane Craig – that man is smart!
But hey, college is where you are supposed to wrestle with ideas and where all opinions can be voiced and challenged and debated, right? So I guess the newspaper will print a well thought-out response to this article, right? I won’t hold my breath…
When the most respected evolutionist of the 20th century, R. Dawkins, published the concept of punctuated equilibrium to describe the sudden appearance of complete species in the fossil record it became apparent that the theory of evolution had come to a dead end. Much like the fossil record that necessitated the punc. equil. theory.
I think what I would like is a new theory. Show me something that honestly addresses some of the issues that critics of evolutionary theory are presenting.