Logic Times

Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design

Posted by Aslan, 04/11/05, 10:51pm.  Comments (0)

 

Part One: Where the Theories Fail

The evolution debate has intensified in recent years.  This debate – which sees those espousing intelligent design opposed by scientists who are aghast that anyone could question the "proven" theory of Charles Darwin – appears to have only two sides, one of which must be correct.  

 

Not so.  Both are wholly inadequate.  

  • Darwinism may be one of the weakest theories ever adopted by the scientific community.  Blind adherence to its precepts suggests it is a form of secular religion at whose altar scientists have gleefully sacrificed the scientific method and a sizeable portion of their credibility all in the hopes of vanquishing theism.
  • Intelligent Design (which I shall assume encompasses classic Creationism as a subset) limits God and declares Him to be both inconsistent and deceptive.  I exclude from this criticism those versions of Intelligent Design that are satisfied with God beginning creation at the point of the initial singularity (Big Bang).

This essay series will argue that a hybrid theory – Punctuated Creation - satisfies the demands of both logic and observation.

 

In brief, where do these two pre-eminent theories go wrong?

 

Darwinism – Microevolution Writ Large

Darwinism is a theory that got too big for the supporting data.  A marvelous theory of microevolution – interspecies variation via natural selection (think of dog breeds) – it is unsustainable as a theory of macroevolution (interspecies variation via natural selection that gradually produces new species).  Gradualism requires unlimited plasticity of species, which cannot be demonstrated in breeding experiments. Waiting at the end of every breeding experiment that continually introduces variant traits is sterility or reversion to type.

 

Gradualism also requires a far better fossil record, which is pathetically lacking.  Consider the words of reputable (pro-evolution) paleontologists, including the man himself:

  • "But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" - Charles Darwin
  • "The history of most fossil species includes two features inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear ... 2. Sudden Appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed.'" - Stephen Gould, PhD
  • "...Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils ... I will lay it on the line, there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument." - Colin Patterson, PhD
  • "Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of 'seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them..." - David B. Kitts, PhD

How about dramatic environmental selectivity? In the same environment where we see a mudpuppy developing a 3-pound brain, we see closely related species not changing at all. The same intense environmental pressures that transformed an amphibian into homo sapiens sapiens couldn't seem to budge a cockroach from being a cockroach, or evolve the reptile world much at all. For every dramatic leap in evolution - the addition of lungs, brachiation, opposable thumbs – there exist dozens of species in the same ecosystem that didn't even change color over hundreds of millions of years.

 

Gradualism fails every challenge presented by macroevolution, from the fossil record, to breeding experiments, to selectivity, to irreducible complexity (a nasty riddle not presented here).  Yet most uninformed adults believe this clever theory of microevolution to be Truth, to be an unshakable theory of the origin of Man, as if microevolution and macroevolution are as interchangeable as their labels might indicate.

 

Creationism and Intelligent Design – A Limited and Deceptive God

The foundation of Intelligent Design is divine intervention to explain, in large part, speciation.  The irrational fervor of the Darwin crowd is fueled by their conclusion that such intervention is not required and therefore compatible with an atheistic universe.  Theists laugh at scientists clinging to the fragments of this broken theory like shipwreck survivors clutching a piece of floating wood, but then they go too far.  Just because the boat is not seaworthy does not mean there isn’t good wood there.  Supporters of intelligent design mistakenly view this scientific failure as evidence partially supporting the strict Biblical idea of a tinkering God.    

 

What is science?  

    (sci·ence - the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena - Dictionary.com)

Science is not something that stands independent of a Creator, but is a rational system for describing our universe.  Indeed, science is one method of classifying God’s creation.  The very existence, proliferation and success of science demonstrates that there is a mechanistic order to the universe.  As our understanding of the world around us grows, what was once confusing and baffling reveals itself in the form of a system that Man can comprehend, model and employ in the prediction of phenomena. Those aspects of our physical world that we do not today understand – evolution, for example - we can reasonably expect to be similarly systematic in their operation.  

 

A claim, therefore, that God actively intervened to create the plant and animal species defies logic.  Logic because God is certainly capable of evolution.  Does anyone suggest that God intervenes because He was unable to design and launch a natural system that produces a wide array of life?  And if He is capable of evolution and to date His creation can be understood as systematic, why would anyone insist that the mechanism for speciation was managed through non-scientific direct intervention?  

 

(Of course the answer for many is that it is in the Bible, if the Bible is taken literally.  I am not going to persuade anyone who believes in a literal interpretation of Scripture over an inerrant one.  The rest, stay tuned.)

 

Part Two: Where the Theories Succeed

 

Copyright ©  2005 Dan Hallagan. All Rights Reserved.