Let me start off being
very clear here. I hold very few religious beliefs. I was raised Catholic, but the idiots at my Catholic high school accidently taught me to think for myself. Do I believe in God? The most honest answer I can come up with is that I have no evidence one way or the other to His existence. It's real easy to stand on the deck of my office building and see a great city surrounded by the natural beauty of the Pacific North West; the Sound, the mountains, the glorious blue sky and think, yeah, this is WAY beyond the understanding of man. Then, I think about the Geology and Astronomy and Chemistry I've studied and realize that, yeah, it's a complex system, and maybe we don't understand everything, but the depth of human understanding increases every day. There are more scientists alive today than have ever lived - we may just figure everything out! Maybe we will even find God, hiding behind some quark somewhere.
Then,
these morons show up. The Religious Right is just looking for new ways to piss me off! "Intelligent Design" is an effort to "seek objectivity in origins science." The idea is to poke holes in Evolutionary Theory by showing that there is a design, a purpose to life, that it didn't "just happen" naturally.
Now, if this was their neat little theory that they kept to themselves, I'd be fine with that. It's a free country, you can think whatever you want. There are people out there that still think the world if flat and that the moon landings were faked - enjoy, folks! What gets me is that they are pushing this into the public schools.
These jerks couldn't get Creationism taught in the public schools because it violates constitutional separation of church and state. So, now, they have come up with this
pseudo-science mumbo-gumbo and are trying to wedge it into the schools. The sick thing is that
it's working!
From what (little) I have read (because this stuff turns my stomach and makes me giggle at the same time) they are supposing that some unexplained Intelligence (notice the capitalization, there) has designed all life for a purpose. If you look at their website, they have papers and press releases and books that they point to - no real information on the site itself, more's the pity. These works are all supposed to justify this as an alternative to evolutionary teaching.
What's brilliantly sick about this is that it absolutely attacks science at it's most vulnerable spot. Scientists attempt to maintain objectivity. So, even if a theory is less likely, it should at least be entertained and disproved, not merely rejected out of hand. So, I can bring any theory to the scientific table, where it will be debated to death, tested to it's limits and either proven, disproved or left as an enigma. This process can take decades, centuries.
However, the process these ID people are using shows they have no concern for scientific method. Instead of letting the evidence of their science convince people, they are fighting this in the political arena. Evolution took almost 100 years to become mainstream science. Thousands of scientists presenting PHYSICAL evidence to support their theories won over the critics - not religious dogma or political power.
The thing that sucks the most, is that they want to foist this on the kids. On the website, they talk about evolutionary science "indoctrinating" children. I quote: "The naturalistic conclusion is antagonistic to theistic religion and leads to non-theistic belief systems, laws, morals and ethics that sharply conflict with those derived from the major religions of the world." So what? No "major world religion" agrees with any other "major world religion" on the origin of life. So, we should teach kids a "science" based heavily on judeo-christian teachings, just because kids might get other ideas? What about the kids who are agnostic or atheist before they get to school? You're going to teach them your philosophy, violating their rights, just because of your fears? Talk about hypocritical! "Don't be indoctrinated by science! Let us indoctrinate you!" Teach whatever you want in your private schools - it's constitutional right that you get to screw up your kids however you like, just keep it out of the public schools!
Scientists have never discussed "Intelligent Design" because there is no PHYSICAL evidence! All the "evidence" presented, to my knowledge, has other explanations that are based on PHYSICAL, not moral, ethical or religious, evidence. When is the Religious Reich going to get it through their head that we don't want a theocracy?
I was taught religion and science side-by-side - one of the few compliments I can give to my education. I probably fall on the side of science. But, I don't see a conflict most of the time. As far as I'm concerned, the Bible is a collection of history and stories, helping man understand the world around him. Did God create man? I wasn't there. Why not? Do I have evidence one way or the other? Nope. God didn't leave a (TM) on the human body, but science has yet to narrow down the fossil evidence to the point where we can say, "Aha! That's the missing link - the moment we became humans!" God could have taken cro-magnon and given him intelligence. Of course, so could have aliens from Alpha Fubastis. Or, mitochondrial Eve could have been a mutant with a big brain and we all trace back our families to her. No one knows the answer to this - so why invent one?
Now, as for actual intelligent design, I have plenty of ways to disprove that crap! If the human body is the best God can do - well, let's just say he's a poor architect. Start with the sinuses, I've already done a
rant on that - look at the bottom of the page, I really need to work on the archives! This is but one of the "vestigial anachronisms" in the human body. For all of you vegetarians out there, I refer you to the appendix - an organ in the body that would serve a purpose if we were MEANT to eat only vegetables! One of my favorites: two lungs, two kidneys, a liver that will repair itself if given time - one heart! Great design. Then we have a spine that's more intended for qudrapeds than bipeds - leaving us will all manner of neck, lower back and shoulder pain. The pinky toe? Besides being there to remind us that life is pain and to avoid the coffee table in the dark - it has zero use! Don't get me started on toe nails! The nose? I have theories, but I have no hard evidence, it could have been skipped or redesigned. In short, God designed a piece of shit. Thanks for nothing!
Posit: God designed man with all crap included, or all the crap is left overs from thousands of years of evolution? Occam's Razor says "evolution."
