Seeking a bit of intelligent debate

Rob Yardley

I would find the resistance to teaching intelligent design in public

school classrooms amusing if the subject wasn’t so serious. Why such

resistance to such a reasonable hypothesis?

In the May 10 Daily Pilot, Mark Gleason wrote: “Evolution is the

only creation science backed by a massive body of evidence.” Really?

Former evolutionist Colin Patterson, in a speech at the American

Museum of Natural History in New York, said: “Question is: Can you

tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, that is

true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum

of Natural History, and the only answer I got was silence.”

In the May 17 Daily Pilot, Mike Steiner compared belief in

creation to belief in Santa Claus and defined faith as “believing in

something when reason tells you not to.” Unfortunately, that sort of

faith is too common, and that is not the goal of those in the

intelligent design community. Mike Dunn stated that those behind

intelligent design are all Christians. I am a Christian, but would

disagree with what I have read in the writings of Michael Behe,

William Dembski, Michael Denton and other leaders in the intelligent

design community on those rare occasions when they touch on theology.

They may be Christians; they are scientists.

In the May 19 Daily Pilot, Joseph Bell took a swipe at Wendy Leece

and intelligent design (classifying it as pseudo-science/baloney). I

could have predicted that, but it would be like predicting that the

sun will rise tomorrow.

In the May 20 Daily Pilot, former UC Irvine math professor David

Rector, apparently trying to sound like a current science professor,

took a condescending swipe at intelligent design. He says that he has

tried to consider it, but alas, his great intellect cannot allow him

to give the benefit of the doubt to such pitiful stuff. He states

that evolution has been very helpful in modern science. Others would

disagree. Philip Skell, a chemist from Penn State writing to the

state board of education in Kansas said, “I am writing -- as a member

of the National Academy of Sciences -- to voice my strong support for

the idea that students should be able to study scientific criticisms

of the evidence for modern evolutionary theory along with the

evidence favoring the theory.... None of the great discoveries in

biology and medicine over the past century depended on guidance from

Darwinian evolution -- it provided no support.”

Devout Darwinists are terrified at the thought of a challenge to

their theory. They cry for its defense in the holy name “science,”

even though it is not the theory of a scientist, rather the theory of

a former divinity student. Evolutionists have no plausible way to

explain the observable world: They are stumped by the oxygen/waste

transfer between the lungs and the bloodstream, the clotting of

blood, the complexity of the cell and the thousands of irreducibly

complex machines throughout creation. They are baffled by the

“evolution” of flight, even though flight allegedly evolved at least

four times (i.e., in mammals, birds, reptiles and insects).

While a universal negative cannot be proved, it is evolution, not

intelligent design, that requires “believing in something when reason

tells you not to.” The goal of education is to teach facts and posit

reasonable theories. Darwin is long overdue to join Lamarck, Lysenko,

Malthus, abiogenesis (spontaneous generation) and phlebotomy

(bloodletting) on the ash heap of history.

* ROB YARDLEY is a resident of Costa Mesa.