Jen and I went and saw the Expelled Documentary that focused on Darwinian Science vs. Intelligent Design. Ben Stein, from what he seems to portray through his documentary is new to the Intelligent Design debate, and a somewhat recent adherent to their ideas.
There were a lot of good things regarding what the documentary pointed out. They include:
- A clear difference between creation science and intelligent design
- A clear effort to squelch inquiry regarding scientific viewpoints that include intelligent design
- That intelligent design seems to explain some things in molecular biology that evolutionary theory cannot.
- That many in the anti-intelligent design circle seem to advocate a poistion based on faith and establishment ideas. Despite Stein's repeated efforts, leading enemies of intelligent design were unwilling to give clear rationale why intelligent design should be discounted
- A small quote from Darwin in his later works where Darwin endorsed social darwinism to deal with the mentally retarded and mentally ill.
There were some areas of the movie where I think Stein pressed his issue or fell a little short:
- He needed more communication on the scientific potential for intelligent design. The movie was more about how the scientific world squelches dissent.
- Although I believe that the scientific community underplays the relationship between social darwinism and scientific darwinism, I think Stein overplays the causation of eugenic efforts' relationship to Darwinian science.
Perhaps most interesting was the dialogue that Stein has with leading evolutionary biologists. Their arguments for first cause are almost laughable, and Stein debunks them just with a look of his eyes...as well as the facts.
That..and in a way Richard Dawkins shares the possibility that he may, in an odd way, be a proponent of intelligent design.
If you have any interest in the subject, you should watch the movie.
1 comment:
I have not yet seen the movie but plan to. However, this is also an issue close to my heart since I have a science back ground.
A while back I read Lee Strobel’s book Case For A Creator. This book has single handedly renewed my faith in God. I would like to explain my personal journey for those that are interested.
When I was a freshman in Benton Harbor’s Immanuel Christian School. A section of our Biology class was entitled ‘Creation.’ Our teacher taught us that the Universe was created in literally seven days and the Big Bang theory contradicted the Bible among reasons for evolution being highly improbable. Later, in high school at Constantine, my mother saw a man named Dr Carl Baugh with the creation institute in Glen Rose, Texas on the Kenneth Copeland show. Baugh a Christian paleontologist also supported a literal seven-day creation, going to extraordinary lengths to explain How God created the Universe with ‘Apparent Age.’
As I entered college and the evidence didn’t match Christian propaganda. Carbon-14 dating is relative to age reasonably accurate. We can see 20 Billion light years across the Universe and consequently 20 Billion years into the past. These simple facts coupled with evolution seemingly providing an answer for the old Universe question raised serious doubts about theism. Ockham’s razor basically states taking all relevant information into account the simplest answer is the best answer. Why would a creator make the Earth with fossils already dead in the earth? It seems totally unnecessary and doesn’t fit the evidence. I was instructed to “take the Bible literally if it could be taken literally,” But if I had to believe in a young earth, theism was for me philosophically to large a leap.
This concept coupled with social issues like evangelicals clamoring for War and television preachers out for fame and fortune lead me to atheism. Belief in Christ was almost dead in me. I wanted to believe, to have eternal life, but that does not necessarily mean it’s true. Children want to believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny but that doesn’t make them true. My prayer for some six months now has been “Lord if you’re out there, I need some proof.” After talking with Shawn over the holidays I decided to try to find new theistic scientific philosophy, if I could find fault with the best Christian Creation views that would be the preverbal nail in the coffin for my belief in a deity.
Strobel’s book brought new insight into creation theory. The idea of uncoupling Big Bang theory from evolution never even occurred to me. Atheists have throughout time claimed as Carl Sagan put it, “The Universe is all there has ever was, is or will be.” The Big Bang theory was a major problem for Atheists because it presupposes a beginning. Something didn’t come from nothing. Instead of theists embracing this as evidence for God the idea was rejected by mainstream Christians, because it didn’t fit their doctrine of a literal seven-day creation. God created time and space so 20 Billion years would be nothing to an eternal being. In fact, it is just one more idea to marvel at: God making and waiting 20 Billion years for all creation to be ready for man.
At this point, I am will to interject that the Creation story is written in poetic language and is not to be taken literally in terms of time. Poetic language is prevalent throughout the Bible just as interlinking correlations and beauty are present throughout creation. Nobody takes the beast in Revelation literally. Similarly when Jesus claims ‘he’s coming back soon’ and has been gone 2000 years; ‘soon’ must be on a God timescale of Billions of years. I realize of course that the word day in Genesis chapter one is the same word used to mean a literal day and night elsewhere in the Bible. However this is not an instance in which the Bible can be taken literally. Moses wrote this to early man and God may not have wanted to reveal all of the details. After all the Creation story and its concept ‘of something out of nothing’ was revolutionary at the time and time scales do not detract from the story in the least. Prevailing myths at that time would be something on the order of a giant turtle dieing and its entrails leaking out to form the Earth. I do tend to believe that the ‘Apparent Age’ of organisms being created as adults does seem to fit the fossil record.
There are of course many more little details that irrefutably point toward a creator. Suffices to say God answered my prayer. And the timescale might provide a stumbling block for some and is an issue worth consideration when witnessing to others.
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