I just read an article entitled Devolution: Why Intelligent Design Isn't. It was all about Evolution v. Intelligent Design (I.D.) and how proponents of I.D. are blathering idiots. Something to that effect. (I'm exaggerating. You can read it for yourself: he's fairly civil, although the title is telling.)
Anyway, this article crossed my path at an interesting time. I just spend two days and nights cramming for a biology final that I had to make up from last semester. I hadn't taken the class since the fall and I waited until the very last minute to study for this (hey, I had other classes this semester). By the time I took the exam I had blood-shot eyes and all kinds of facts about enzymes and electrolyte balance and ligand-gated ion channels swimming in my head. I am not a science person... it was a horrible two days.
Then I read this article and started thinking again about the evolutionary theory I had to study just days before. I can understand Orr's main point: that I.D.ers are going by faith and that their reasoning is not as scientific as they claim. Whether or not that is true is a matter of opinion. I think that it is to a certain extent. I always took I.D. to be something you infer, not something you prove, because it is unprovable, after all.
I have always believed in a higher power. Even when I get to the point of doubting the specifics, I never think that there's nothing out there. Some people believe evolution took place under a Creator's watchful eye. Perhaps. I don't have much of an opinion on that because I'm not a science person and I don't have enough information. Anything's possible; why not? But to think that no one was behind all this... I don't buy that. As I was studying biology, I was overwhelmed by how much Someone had to be. I always knew our systems were complex but I didn't realize how much. Everything is so systematic, and even though people get diseases and things go wrong, the fact remains that billions of people's bodies function in the right way, even if they have a problem in a certain area. And that's not even considering nature and its systems. It's unbelievable.
Someone came to our church book group once and asked us how we reconcile science and religion. She was either a new Christian or interested in becoming one (I suspect the former) and she said it bothered her when Christians shrug evolution off as if it's not a compelling thing to consider. I don't see why we should shrug it off... my problem comes when we shrug I.D. off. It just seems so logical to me. And before you think that it's logical to me because I was raised believing it... I was raised believing a lot of things, and I've come to question them all at one time or another.
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