The Intelligent Design Movement
March 28, 2010 · Print This Article
“If you really want to know what is at risk from the anti-evolution movement, look at Kansas. And the reason of that is, when the anti-evolution movement got control of the state board of education, what did they do? They rewrote the definition of Science itself. Not just Biology. Not just Evolution. Science.”
This is a great speech by Ken Miller about the dangers of the anti-evolution movement in America, and the very real danger that they pose to our education system. In the process, he presents conclusive proof of evolution (as if we needed any more) and rips apart the reasoning behind intelligent design. It’s almost two hours of video, but half of that is taken up by the QA session. Even that part is well worth watching all the way through.
Physicists are searching for the “creator”; they call it the Higgs boson. Evolution came later. To say evolution is not intelligent or lacks design is to deny recent discoveries of microbiology and astrophysics. Before you reject ID entirely, read the 40 books on psychology, biology and physics in the bibliographies of my e-book at http://www.suprarational.org If we were to completely dismiss that which we didn’t understand, progress in science and technology would come to a halt. It is the mysteries of life that drive researchers onward.
I’m blissfully agnostic, and the reason for that (beyond finding many atheists so fundamental in their beliefs that it might as well be religion) is the fact that no, I cannot confidently denounce the possibility a higher existence than ours.
With that said, what I do know is this: whatever God there might be, it will not be the anthropomorphized version that any common religion is trying to sell us. It will not take the interest in us or our well-being as stout believers usually postulate (I would much rather believe us to be a by-product because that’s how the universe works). And it will not be imposing any sort of morality on us as organized religion’s… well, bibles are trying to make us believe.
Which is completely at odds with anything that the ID movement stands for, of course, whose backers subscribe to doctrine of organized religion.
So, we might actually be on the same page, just to varying degrees of advocacy. I don’t reject the idea of there being a “creator”. But I very much do reject what the American ID movement, as rebuked in this video, stands for, because I don’t believe in their interpretation of the idea, or any of their motivation.
I don’t believe in a “god particle” nor most religious concepts of God. The Higgs boson and God are theoretical; no one has conclusively found either.
The 40 books on the sciences are in the Specialized bibliography on pages 100-101 and the Omitted bibliography on page 104 (omitted because most readers would find them less important, although you might).
The apparent intelligence and seeming design of living organisms and particles of matter are not the ID of proponents of religion, let alone the myths of Genesis. There is a middle ground, which is often attacked by both sides. Do you truly believe that current science has discovered everything?