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Intelligent Design, my thoughts

Lets lay the cards on the table up front, ID (Intelligent Design) is creationism! Of that there can be no arguement, as the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District showed in a quite spectacular manner! 

ID was shown to be repackaged creationism. But the real problem is the creationists and ID proponents don't like Darwinian evolution because it states that mankind might not be the pinnacle of all life! They claim that Darwinian evolution does not explain everything, it has holes. They claim it does not explain complex systems of biological life. One of the biggest proponents of ID is Micheal Behe and he used a few examples such as the eye, immune systems and the bacterial flagellum. The basis of his claim is called irreducible complexity, which states that removal of one piece makes the whole non-working. On the face it might seem as if this is true, but it blatantly ignores how evolution works! Behe uses a mousetrap as an example. Basically a mousetrap has a base, spring, latch, hold down bar and hammer. (hammer being the part that does the dirty work of snuffing the mouse) Take one of those parts away and the mouse trap will not operate as a mousetrap. Very true, but as Ken Miller shows there are all sorts of uses for a mousetrap with parts removed. So what does this say about Behe and ID? It shows their remarkable lack of imagination for one, but it also shows a fundemental ignorance of Darwinian Evolution! 

In my opinion the best proponent of Darwinian Evolution is Richard Dawkins.  I know that he is a bit off a controversial figure, but his books including "The Blind Watchmaker" and "Climbing Mount Improbable" offer some of the best explanations of Darwin's theory. Dawkins is nothing if not detail specific! 

Another complaint that has been leveled against the ID/Creationists is how can you have a theory whose entire point is to use the holes in one theory to justify itself? That is not a theory. From what I have read Darwinian Evolution does a pretty good job at explaining life, where it falls down is how life began. But that is not a point that Darwinian Evolution covers, that is an entirely seperate arguement. Darwin covers once life had begun. There are plenty of theories about how life began, and I have a sneaking suspiscion that we may never know how life began on Earth. But that should not deter anyone from trying! But to say that because we don't know that it must be some supernatural or alien force at work is not helpful. That simply stacks ignorance on top of more ignorance! "We don't understand this, so it must have been God, Yehwah or Zenu" is not a good arguement. It says stop looking because it is the work of a power man cannot understand! 

Here is a little history lesson to show why supernatural explanations are not explanations but caving in to ignorance.

Mankind believed that the Earth was flat.  When it was shown it wasn't flat the Earth became the center of the universe or at the very least the center of the solar system. But now we know that the Earth, our solar system and even our galaxy are nothing special.

Mankind believed the literal truth of the biblical creation. But then fossils were discovered of animals that no longer existed. This posed a problem because extinction of entire species and families of life did not fit in to the biblical narrative! This was a problem, but not one they couldn't shoehorn into the Creation. The great flood was an explanation for many uncomfortable bits of evidence popping up, like fossils, sea shells on top of mountains, all kinds of stuff. But it wasn't an explanation, it was white wash to cover up the holes in the creation myth.

I will write more on this later! 

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