Creationism, Evolution: Can a Real Scientist Believe in Intelligent Design?
This question is raised by a great (and biased) article today by Valerie Tarico on the Huffington Post. To be sure, there are otherwise intelligent people who believe in intelligent design, including some scientists. The question really is if there is sufficient evidence or argumentation on the intelligent design side to warrant reasonable doubt of the theory of evolution. I think not, and Tarico agrees with me, as do the vast majority scientists and informed people. The overwhelming amount of indisputable, theoretical and experimental evidence compels the reasonable, objective observer to accept evolution as a fact.
Note that I said “objective,” meaning someone not weighed down by any preconceived notions or prejudices. This assumes a person who, like a jury, believes nothing that could ever influence their conclusion one way or another, allowing their decision to be based on the evidence alone. Surprise, surprise, this does not describe many or most of the religious. Religious people – whether Jews, Christians, Muslims or others – come to the issue with a whole set of assumptions and presumptions about the nature of life and the nature of the origins of life, thereby skewing their perspective in a very detrimental way before any evidence has been presented.
As Tarico notes, when these intellectual preexisting conditions meet the harsh reality of the findings of science, something has got to give:
…some religionists still labor to create the illusion of confusion. Unfortunately, this forces them to cast aspersions on the whole scientific enterprise. They love the fruits of science in the form of mammography and cell phones and airplanes. But they reject the obligations of the scientific method, which say that before making truth claims you must ask the questions that could show you wrong. And they are deeply suspicious of scientists themselves. (Why would scientists keep getting the answers so wrong unless they were deliberately trying to undermine faith?)
This is an excellent point that I have made in the past. The fundamental, profound contradiction of modern devout religiosity is that it persists within a civilization that owes its success and prosperity primarily to its commitment to secular reason and understanding.
The religious like to say that reason is “just a human invention,” that secularism is “just a faith like any other,” or naturalism or materialism “a worldview on par with any religion.” Without going into the details of the bald falsity and intellectual contemptibleness of this mindset, we can certainly say that this all boils down to rationalizing away straightforwardly obvious truths because of what one wants to believe. Again, to Tarico:
We all are prone to “confirmation bias” which is a tendency to seek information in support of what we already believe, disregarding any contradictions. Religious orthodoxy over the centuries has refined confirmation bias into an art form called “apologetics.” Apologists start with a set of handed down conclusions and then reason backwards from there, drawing in logic and evidence only as these support their foregone conclusion.
And this from a religious person. On one level, these issues are just matters of personal preference and don’t carry much currency in the grand scheme of things. On a larger level, though, we are compelled to realize that nothing less than the human mind is at stake, nothing less than the truth itself. The debate over teaching intelligent design to schoolchildren, or even “teaching the debate” over evolution, alone tells us all we need to know about the stakes of this intellectual war. Tarico rightly points out that the light of truth, reason and clearheaded understanding will win in the end. But in the mean time, how much potential will be lost? How many opportunities for enhanced knowledge will be unrealized from generation to generation? How much longer will we get sidetracked by ancient superstitious baggage? How much more time will we waste?
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How can any intelligent human being believe that life originated from non living matter? It is absolutely beyond belief.
It is well known from the history of science that many great revolutionary works in science would never have been published if the writer’s peers had been asked.
During his lifetime Copernicus had only one follower, Rheticus, and was rejected by all others.
Kepler’s discoveries were rejected by Galileo, his peer;
Newton’s gravitational theory was rejected by Leibnitz, his peer;
Virchow did not support Pasteur;
Edison rejected and fought against Tesla and the use of alternating current, and
Archimedes’ rejection of Aristarchus, who taught that the earth revolves around the sun.
And so it is with science and scientists.
The intellectual battle has been won by the proponents of Intelligent Design but the political battle is still dominated by the Darwinists. But that is slowly changing.
How can any intelligent person believe it? Simple: by looking at the evidence. And there’s a ton of it.
Interestingly, your point about revolutionary works of science not being accepted by contemporaries proves the evolutionists’ case. Darwin’s writings and ideas stirred up massive controversy when they first came out in the late 19th century. Later on, as with the other examples you cited, people have come to understand the truth of evolution.
Your final point has it exactly backwards: evolution, my friend, has won the intellectual battle, although politically Intelligent Design still carries significant currency. And yes, that is slowly changing, as is inevitable.
I think you’re underestimating the views of those who accept that nature indicates the presence of a coordinating intelligence. It’s very good that you recognize that there are intelligent people, including scientists, who believe in intelligent design. But I think you should take that fact more seriously. Try to see the argument from their point of view, and understand why they accept it. What you claim to be “obvious truths” are really speculations that give the appearance of being truths, merely because they have the support of a consensus.
To Creationbydesign, the reason I don’t take that fact more seriously is simply because of the overwhelming evidence (theoretical, experimental, physical, chemical, genetic, philosophical or common-sensical evidence, take your pick) in favor of evolution.
There is no question that, to our human eyes and our tendency to recognize patterns, nature and life has the appearance of being “designed.” Hence the pocket watch-in-a-field fallacy. So I understand why someone might believe that.
The creationists and intelligent designers take this appearance of design, match it with their preexisting assumption of a universe or nature designed by god, and, as Tarico indicates, reason backwards from there.
That would be bad enough, but then they willfully reject the OVERWHELMING peer-reviewed evidence from a diversity of scientific disciplines. (And no, they are not “speculations,” in your words.) That’s why I don’t take it more seriously. Remember, it ultimately comes down to the evidence.
Intelligent Design–YES, Darwin & evolution– YES, Einstein & E=MC squared–YES, Cosmology & an entire universe of atoms–YES. The great physical latent power in each atom plus the talent to guide our every thought exceeds chance.
Charles, I’m with you. Just show me the evidence for that intelligent designer. Until then, public money should not be used to teach it to our kids. Everything about the diversity of life can be explained through evolution and its theoretical offshoots. No intelligent designer needed. You can believe it if you want, but the science does not demand it.
It does indeed “exceed chance,” but an evolutionary system that naturally favors certain life forms over others will, through an unguided process, lead to otherwise statistically improbable outcomes.