Tuesday, September 27, 2005

To Hell with Intelligent Design

Today I came to read a news article, which mentions about a case in court about whether Intelligent Design (ID) theory should be taught in schools or not. To place everything in context let me mention that ID theory is an alternative to the standard "Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection". The basic tenet of this ID theory is that the complexity of life seen on earth is the result of some intelligent designer (which can be called GOD) and is in sharp contrast with the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution maintains that the entire diversity and complexity of life is brought about the process of natural selection which does not have any plan or purpose. To use Dawkins language, the watchmaker is blind.

The theory of evolution has been vindicated many times in past many decades, but in US there seems to be strong aversion towards this theory. People there are so desperate enough to believe in God and his supernatural powers, that many schools have started teaching the ID theory side by side the evolution theory. This is pretty disgusting because the ID theory is no theory at all (there being no testable predictions). I wonder how can a developed country like USA be so irrational enough to allow such stuff in schools. This is sharp contrast to their engineering and technological achievements and it bothers me too much.

The theory of evolution does have some gaps (many theories have this feature, for example Newtonian mechanics was not perfect), but that does not give the ID theory any privilege of being superior to it. To me this whole ID thing looks like another kind of creationism popularized by Bible and other similar literature.

I think that ideas propounded in Bible and other similar literature should be a part of some subject like "Moral Science" or history or pure literature, but in no way should it be included in the curriculum of science. Science is supposed to be based on testable theories and not some arbitrary ideas propounded by religious leaders.

I don't know what the outcome of the case in Pennsylvania will be, but I wish good luck to the parents who have filed the case against teaching of ID theory. To the ID supporters (as there seem to be many in US) I just say, "Go to hell with your ID".

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Read a recent news article about creationism vs evolution here.

7:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Isn't this whole thing the process of natural selection nothing more than an inflated what came first the chicken or the egg. If the chicken came first then there's a god, if the egg comes first then it's natural selection, the egg was originally something else, a dinasour perhaps? If that's true then should'nt we find many, many, many traces of the evolution in fossils, ect.. After all it takes billion's of years to evolve then we should be able to put together some kind of evolutionary chart for every animal, mammal, bug, plant, ect on earth. Most important would be to prove that exibit A, 100billion BC, and exibit B 1000 AD, don't share exactly the same genetic code, with some genes turned on and other's turned off, that would mean the original design had all that it was and will be right at the begining, a sign of intelligent design. Soft tissue would be nice to have, or maybe i'll just pray for and answer.

2:14 PM  

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