C
Clay
Guest
By Dinesh D'Souza
Monday, April 7, 2008
As a Christian, I believe that the universe and its living creatures
are the products of intelligent design. This belief is not merely
derived from theology but is also supported by rational
considerations. There is enormous intelligence embedded in the laws of
nature. The greatest scientists over the past few centuries have
worked to decode the intelligence mysteriously imprinted in the
workings of nature. Scientific laws, as spelled out by Kepler, Newton,
Einstein and others, reveal nature as exquisitely orderly. So who
encoded this intelligence in nature?
Since the universe had a beginning, how did it get here? There is no
natural explanation, since the universe includes all of nature. It is
more than absurd to posit that the universe caused itself. The most
reasonable explanation is that our rational universe is the product of
some super-rational or omniscient intelligence. An intelligent
designer is not the only explanation, but it certainly is the best
explanation.
How the creator went about His business of making the universe and its
life forms is another question, and this is a question for science to
answer to the degree that it can be answered. Darwin's theory of
evolution posits that chance, mutation and natural selection largely
account for the transitions between one life form and another. Man, as
an animal, is also the product of evolution, having descended from the
same evolutionary "tree" that produced gorillas and chimpanzees.
Did God order things this way? Certainly if you read the Bible you
would never predict Darwin's theory of evolution. But neither from the
Scriptural accounts could one predict that the earth goes around the
sun. The Bible is not and does not purport to be a science textbook.
It takes no position, for example, on the heliocentric theory.
Unfortunately, in past centuries, many Christians interpreted a few
casual references to the sun "rising" to mean that the earth must be
stationary and the sun must revolve around the earth. These
interpretations were hasty, to say the least: the Bible is describing
sunrise from a human or experiential perspective. Still, these
narrow-minded Christians opposed Copernicus and Galileo until they
were forced to admit that they were wrong. It wasn't the Bible that
was mistaken; it was the foolish certainty of its interpreters that
was exposed and discredited.
Today some Christians may be heading down the same path with their
embrace of "intelligent design" or ID. This movement is based on the
idea that Darwinian evolution is not only flawed but basically
fraudulent. ID should not, however, be confused with bible-thumping
six-day creationism. It does not regard the earth as 6,000 years old.
Its leading advocates are legal scholar Phillip Johnson, biochemist
Michael Behe, mathematician David Berlinski, and science journalist
Jonathan Wells. Berlinski has a new book out The Devil's Advocate that
makes the remarkable claim that "Darwin's theory of evolution has
little to contribute to the content of the sciences." Ben Stein's
movie "Expelled" provides horror stories to show that the case for ID
as well as critiques of evolution from an ID perspective are routinely
excluded or censored in the halls of academe.
ID advocates have sought to convince courts to require that their work
be taught alongside Darwinian evolution, yet such efforts have been
resoundingly defeated. Why has the ID legal strategy proven to be such
a failure, even at the hands of conservative judges? Imagine that a
group of advocates challenged Einstein's theories of general and
special relativity. Let's say that this group, made up of a law
professor, a couple of physicists, several journalists, as well as
some divinity school graduates, flatly denies Einstein's proposition
that e=mc2.
How would a judge, who is not a physicist, resolve the group's demand
for inclusion in the physics classroom? He would summon a wide
cross-section of leading physicists. They would inform him that
despite unresolved debates about relativity--for example, its
unexplained relationship to quantum theory--Einstein's theories are
supported by a wide body of data. They enjoy near-unanimous support in
the physics community worldwide. There is no alternative scientific
theory that comes close to explaining the facts at hand. In such a
situation any judge would promptly show the dissenters the door and
deny their demand for equal time in the classroom. This is precisely
the predicament of the ID movement.
The problem with evolution is not that it is unscientific but that it
is routinely taught in textbooks and in the classroom in an atheist
way. Textbooks frequently go beyond the scientific evidence to make
metaphysical claims about how evolution renders the idea of a Creator
superfluous. my book What's So Great About Christianity provides
several examples of this.
Most Christians don't care whether the eye evolved by natural
selection or whether Darwin's theories can account for macroevolution
or only microevolution. What they care about is that evolution is
being used to deny God as the creator. For those who are concerned
about this atheism masquerading as science, there is a better way.
Instead of trying to get unscientific ID theories included in the
classroom, a better strategy would be to get the unscientific atheist
propaganda out.
===============
Bestselling author Dinesh D'Souza's new book What's So Great About
Christianity has just been released. His book The Enemy at Home will
be published in paperback in February.
-----------
-C-
Monday, April 7, 2008
As a Christian, I believe that the universe and its living creatures
are the products of intelligent design. This belief is not merely
derived from theology but is also supported by rational
considerations. There is enormous intelligence embedded in the laws of
nature. The greatest scientists over the past few centuries have
worked to decode the intelligence mysteriously imprinted in the
workings of nature. Scientific laws, as spelled out by Kepler, Newton,
Einstein and others, reveal nature as exquisitely orderly. So who
encoded this intelligence in nature?
Since the universe had a beginning, how did it get here? There is no
natural explanation, since the universe includes all of nature. It is
more than absurd to posit that the universe caused itself. The most
reasonable explanation is that our rational universe is the product of
some super-rational or omniscient intelligence. An intelligent
designer is not the only explanation, but it certainly is the best
explanation.
How the creator went about His business of making the universe and its
life forms is another question, and this is a question for science to
answer to the degree that it can be answered. Darwin's theory of
evolution posits that chance, mutation and natural selection largely
account for the transitions between one life form and another. Man, as
an animal, is also the product of evolution, having descended from the
same evolutionary "tree" that produced gorillas and chimpanzees.
Did God order things this way? Certainly if you read the Bible you
would never predict Darwin's theory of evolution. But neither from the
Scriptural accounts could one predict that the earth goes around the
sun. The Bible is not and does not purport to be a science textbook.
It takes no position, for example, on the heliocentric theory.
Unfortunately, in past centuries, many Christians interpreted a few
casual references to the sun "rising" to mean that the earth must be
stationary and the sun must revolve around the earth. These
interpretations were hasty, to say the least: the Bible is describing
sunrise from a human or experiential perspective. Still, these
narrow-minded Christians opposed Copernicus and Galileo until they
were forced to admit that they were wrong. It wasn't the Bible that
was mistaken; it was the foolish certainty of its interpreters that
was exposed and discredited.
Today some Christians may be heading down the same path with their
embrace of "intelligent design" or ID. This movement is based on the
idea that Darwinian evolution is not only flawed but basically
fraudulent. ID should not, however, be confused with bible-thumping
six-day creationism. It does not regard the earth as 6,000 years old.
Its leading advocates are legal scholar Phillip Johnson, biochemist
Michael Behe, mathematician David Berlinski, and science journalist
Jonathan Wells. Berlinski has a new book out The Devil's Advocate that
makes the remarkable claim that "Darwin's theory of evolution has
little to contribute to the content of the sciences." Ben Stein's
movie "Expelled" provides horror stories to show that the case for ID
as well as critiques of evolution from an ID perspective are routinely
excluded or censored in the halls of academe.
ID advocates have sought to convince courts to require that their work
be taught alongside Darwinian evolution, yet such efforts have been
resoundingly defeated. Why has the ID legal strategy proven to be such
a failure, even at the hands of conservative judges? Imagine that a
group of advocates challenged Einstein's theories of general and
special relativity. Let's say that this group, made up of a law
professor, a couple of physicists, several journalists, as well as
some divinity school graduates, flatly denies Einstein's proposition
that e=mc2.
How would a judge, who is not a physicist, resolve the group's demand
for inclusion in the physics classroom? He would summon a wide
cross-section of leading physicists. They would inform him that
despite unresolved debates about relativity--for example, its
unexplained relationship to quantum theory--Einstein's theories are
supported by a wide body of data. They enjoy near-unanimous support in
the physics community worldwide. There is no alternative scientific
theory that comes close to explaining the facts at hand. In such a
situation any judge would promptly show the dissenters the door and
deny their demand for equal time in the classroom. This is precisely
the predicament of the ID movement.
The problem with evolution is not that it is unscientific but that it
is routinely taught in textbooks and in the classroom in an atheist
way. Textbooks frequently go beyond the scientific evidence to make
metaphysical claims about how evolution renders the idea of a Creator
superfluous. my book What's So Great About Christianity provides
several examples of this.
Most Christians don't care whether the eye evolved by natural
selection or whether Darwin's theories can account for macroevolution
or only microevolution. What they care about is that evolution is
being used to deny God as the creator. For those who are concerned
about this atheism masquerading as science, there is a better way.
Instead of trying to get unscientific ID theories included in the
classroom, a better strategy would be to get the unscientific atheist
propaganda out.
===============
Bestselling author Dinesh D'Souza's new book What's So Great About
Christianity has just been released. His book The Enemy at Home will
be published in paperback in February.
-----------
-C-