The following message comes from Alastair Noble of the Centre for Intelligent Design
my bold
The Scottish Secular Society has
just announced that it has written to the Cabinet Secretary for Education in the
Scottish Government to ask that 'creationism and intelligent design are
expressly prohibited from schools outside of RME (Religious and Moral Education)
classes'[1] . This chimes in with various other calls for science to be
protected from 'anti-scientific' views like Intelligent Design (ID). So is
legal protection of scientific enquiry from uncomfortable views the way to
advance our understanding?
Is this how we achieved the
stunning success of modern science? Is this how scientific matters and their
implications are to be discussed? Clearly nothing arouses the passions of the
ideologues quite like the mention of 'creation' or 'intelligent design'. Better
to ban them, apparently, than to have to confront, in the case of intelligent
design, the obvious design implications of the scientific data.
What we are witnessing is not
really a commitment to science, but rather a dogmatic adherence to the
philosophy of naturalism. As Richard Lewontin, the Harvard biologist, has said,
'we can't allow a divine foot in the door'! [2]
Is that how we establish objective truth?
This all seems part of a
not-so-subtle campaign to impose materialistic thinking on scientific debate in
schools and elsewhere, to the exclusion of other considerations. For example,
only a few miles from where I live two head teachers have recently been removed
from post because of the distribution to pupils of literature which makes
reference to evolution and creation. [3] More
recently, a physics teacher in an East of Scotland School is under press
scrutiny for suggesting to senior pupils that scientific theories about origins
are subject to a degree of uncertainty. [4] The
Scottish Secular Society is also currently seeking, under the Freedom of
Information Act, to elicit information, among other things, about whether
creationists are infiltrating our schools. [5] In
2007, the Department for Children, Schools and Families in England issued
guidance to the effect that creationism and Intelligent Design (ID) should not
be considered scientific, though they did concede teachers should discuss these
topics sensitively if they arose in science classes. [6]
Of course, I am not in a position
to defend all the actions of others. I am also clear that 'creationism' as
popularly understood is not the same as 'intelligent design', and I have written
about that elsewhere. [7] But the determined and
sometimes mindless opposition to any suggestion of the possibility that we are
here as the result of an intelligent cause, as opposed to blind materialistic
forces, borders on the irrational and certainly does not sit easily with proper
scientific enquiry and freedom of expression.
The scientific study of origins
falls into the category of historical science where the everyday methods of
experimental laboratory science don't so readily apply. It is not possible to
repeat the events of long ago and so scientists often have to make 'an inference
to the best explanation' of the evidence available to them - an approach which
significantly distinguishes historical science from experimental
science.
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| Charles
Darwin |
This is precisely the approach Darwin took when
theorising about the origin and development of life. It is also the approach
taken by the proponents of Intelligent Design who argue that there is clear
evidence in nature and life of pre-existing mind.[8]
Now that's a highly controversial
proposition. But ID proponents are clear that this is not primarily a religious
position, but one which is clearly inferred from the evidence. That evidence
includes the fine-tuning of universal constants, the specified complexity of
living systems and the information content of the genome. The latter is the
most persuasive, in that all our experience teaches us that functional
information, such as that digitally-coded in DNA, always arises from intelligent
mind. As Henry Quastler, the pioneering information theorist observed,
'information habitually arises from conscious activity'. [9]
But the scientific consensus is
aggressively opposed to this obvious conclusion. And in its concerted
opposition to what many would feel is blindingly obvious, it consistently makes
two critical errors.
Firstly, contemporary science
defines itself in a way which excludes any non-material explanation of origins.
This is not a scientific finding but an assumed position. It is in fact the
philosophy of naturalism. It places a massive constraint on origins science and
rules out the rather obvious conclusion that our universe shows evidence of
intelligent mind. Interestingly, the perception of intelligent causation of the
universe was held, to varying degrees, by a significant number of eminent
scientists including, for example, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.[10 ]
While Prof Richard Dawkins will freely admit that
he has no idea about the origin of life[11], or
the universe for that matter, Prof Laurence Krauss argues that a 'universe from
nothing' is a feasible scientific position.[12]
This is where the materialist agenda gets you, in the face of the whole cause
and effect structure of the universe and the rational analysis of data which is
the foundation of scientific thought. The naturalistic philosophy which now
dominates science leads to breath-taking absurdity as well as the suppression of
legitimate debate.
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Schematic DNA
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The
second error in origins science is equally irrational. It is the confusion of
process with agency. It goes like this: if we can explain how certain processes
might have operated, we can dispense with any designing agency. So, if we
propose, say, an 'RNA-world' as a precursor to the DNA world and find some
chemical evidence of the possibility (actually, such a scenario is by no means
certain), then we have proved that no intelligence is at work behind the
process.
A striking example of this
approach was when Craig Venter's team managed to synthesise active DNA in the
laboratory by copying the known sequences of base pairs in natural DNA.[13] A leading scientist, when interviewed on Radio
4's Today programme, hailed this as conclusive proof that DNA could arise
naturally without any intelligent agent at work, somehow missing the point that
the highly intelligent scientists who worked with Venter took some 15 years to
assemble their synthetic DNA.
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| Model
T Ford |
Prof John Lennox exemplifies this fallacy by pointing
out that there are two ways to understand a Ford motor car.[14] You
can describe it in terms of the laws of engineering, combustion and motion, or
you can explain it through the original agency of Henry Ford and the hundreds of
design engineers who have subsequently worked for the company. These are
clearly not mutually exclusive positions.
A
designing intelligence behind the universe is entirely consistent with the laws
and processes which have got us to this point in our existence. That is the
position of Intelligent Design which does not suffer from the two critical
errors which beset contemporary origins science.
It's just a pity, and, more
seriously, also an affront to academic and public debate that these matters
cannot be discussed dispassionately in schools, universities and the public
arena. It makes you wonder if there really is an ulterior motive. Is it
that materialist science is in fact applied atheism? Why not just debate
where the evidence points and drop the need for Government interference?
Thank you for your continuing interest in our
work.
Yours
sincerely,
Dr
Alastair Noble
Director of the Centre for
Intelligent Design UK
Centre for Intelligent
Design
The Wheatsheaf
Speirs
Wharf
Glasgow
G4 9TJ
PS You may be
interested in the following publications:
1. 'Explore Evolution' - for more information please visit the dedicated web
site at www.exploreevolution.co.uk. Copies of the book may be ordered through that web
site.
2. My 32-page booklet 'An
Introduction to Intelligent Design' is available from info@c4id.org.uk for £2 plus pp.
Discounts of 50% are available on orders of 10 or more.
[2] From his review of Carl Sagan's book 'The
Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark', New York Review of
Books, Jan 9, 1997
[7] See my article on www.c4id.org.uk on ID and Creationism under An Introduction
to ID, section 14, and also in my booklet described above.
[8] See eg Signature in the Cell, Stephen
Meyer, HarperOne, 2009
[9] Quastler, The Emergence of Biological
Information, p16
[10] See eg 'Einstein's God' in Einstein,
His Life and Universe, Walter Issacson, Simon and Schuster, 2007, chap
17
[11] See interview in the DVD Expelled- No
Intelligence Allowed, NPN Videos, Swindon
[12] A Universe from Nothing, Laurence
Krauss, Atria Books, 2012
[14] See God's Undertaker - has Science buried
God?, John C Lennox, Lion, 2009, p45
Please do not reply to this
eBulletin email address - it is not normally monitored. However, we are always
pleased to hear from you and to ensure we receive your message contact me at alastair.n@c4id.org.uk
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