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Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win


7 Oct 2005


Douglas Kern

To be sure, believers don't need ID to accept modern science. The
Catholic Church, for example, made peace with traditional Darwinist
theory long ago. Many scientists see no contradiction between Darwinism
and their own religious beliefs. Rightly understood, Darwinist theory
doesn't diminish God's glory any more than any other set of rules
governing the world. An omnipotent God can act through scientific media
as well as miraculous interventions.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/100705C.html

Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win

http://www.techcentralstation.com/100705C.html



Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win


7 Oct 2005


Douglas Kern


It doesn't matter if you like it or not. It doesn't matter if you think
it's true or not. Intelligent Design theory is destined to supplant
Darwinism as the primary scientific explanation for the origin of human
life. ID will be taught in public schools as a matter of course. It
will happen in our lifetime. It's happening right now, actually.

1) ID will win because it's a religion-friendly, conservative-friendly,

http://www.techcentralstation.com/100705C.html

Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win

7 Oct 2005

Douglas Kern

It doesn't matter if you like it or not. It doesn't matter if you think
it's true or not. Intelligent Design theory is destined to supplant
Darwinism as the primary scientific explanation for the origin of human
life. ID will be taught in public schools as a matter of course. It
will happen in our lifetime. It's happening right now, actually.

Here's why:

1) ID will win because it's a religion-friendly, conservative-friendly,
red-state kind of theory, and no one will lose money betting on the
success of red-state theories in the next fifty to one hundred years.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: families that reproduce
people tend to reproduce ideas, as well. The most vocal non-scientist
proponents of ID are those delightfully fertile Catholics,
Evangelicals, and similarly right-leaning middle-class college-educated
folk -- the kind whose children will inherit the country. Eventually,
the social right will have the sheer manpower to teach ID wherever they
please.

Despite what angry ID opponents may tell you, the advent of ID won't
hurt American productivity a bit. Belief in ID does nothing to make
believers less capable in science or engineering. No geek in the world
will find his computer mojo diminished because of his opinions on
irreducible complexity. To the contrary: ID might make biology and the
natural sciences more appealing to believers who might otherwise find
science to be too far removed from God's presence. As ID appeals to the
conservative mindset without hurting anyone's skills, why wouldn't the
social right embrace it?

To be sure, believers don't need ID to accept modern science. The
Catholic Church, for example, made peace with traditional Darwinist
theory long ago. Many scientists see no contradiction between Darwinism
and their own religious beliefs. Rightly understood, Darwinist theory
doesn't diminish God's glory any more than any other set of rules
governing the world. An omnipotent God can act through scientific media
as well as miraculous interventions.

But if ID is correct, then the intelligent designer of life must have
lavished astonishing care and attention upon the human race to give it
unique dignity and value -- as well as handicaps and temptations that
only virtue can overcome. The God of Moses and Jesus didn't leave
fingerprints at this scene, but it's His MO all the way. And as
believers are detectives of the Almighty's presence, they're naturally
more inclined to follow the clues revealing that familiar pattern.

2) ID will win because the pro-Darwin crowd is acting like a bunch of
losers.

"Ewww...intelligent design people! They're just buck-toothed
Bible-pushing nincompoops with community-college degrees who're trying
to sell a gussied-up creationism to a cretinous public! No need to
address their concerns or respond to their arguments. They are Not
Science. They are poopy-heads."

There. I just saved you the trouble of reading 90% of the responses to
the ID position. Vitriol, condescension, and endless accusations of bad
faith all characterize far too much of the standard pro-Darwinian
response to criticism. A reasonable observer might note that many ID
advocates appear exceptionally well-educated, reasonable, and
articulate; they might also note that ID advocates have pointed out
many problems with the Darwinist catechism that even pro-Darwin
scientists have been known to concede, when they think the
Jesus-kissing crowd isn't listening. And yet, even in the face of a
sober, thoughtful ID position, the pro-Darwin crowd insists on the same
phooey-to-the-boobgeois shtick that was tiresome in Mencken's day. This
is how losers act just before they lose: arrogant, self-satisfied, too
important to be bothered with substantive refutation, and disdainful of
their own faults. Pride goeth before a fall.

3) ID will win because it can be reconciled with any advance that takes
place in biology, whereas Darwinism cannot yield even an inch of ground
to ID.

So you've discovered the missing link? Proven that viruses distribute
super-complex DNA proteins? Shown that fractals can produce
evolution-friendly three-dimensional shapes? It doesn't matter. To the
ID mind, you're just pushing the question further down the road. How
was the missing link designed? What is the origin of the viruses? Who
designed the fractals? ID has already made its peace with natural
selection and the irrefutable aspects of Darwinism. By contrast,
Darwinism cannot accept even the slightest possibility that it has
failed to explain any significant dimension of evolution. It must
dogmatically insist that it will resolve all of its ambiguities and
shortcomings -- even the ones that have lingered since the beginning of
Darwinism. The entire edifice of Darwinian theory comes crashing down
with even a single credible demonstration of design in any living
thing. Can science really plug a finger into every hole in the
Darwinian ***** for the next fifty years?

4) ID will win because it can piggyback on the growth of information
theory, which will attract the best minds in the world over the next
fifty years.

ID is a proposition about information. It contends that the processes
of life are so specific and carefully ordered that they must reflect
deliberate action. Put simply: a complex message implies an even more
complex sender. Separating ordered but random data from relevant,
purposeful data -- that is, separating noise from messages -- is one of
the key undertakings of the 21st century. In nearly every field, from
statistics to quantum physics to cryptology to computer science, the
smartest people on the planet are struggling to understand and apply
the unfathomable power of information that modern technology has
bequeathed to them. We have only scratched the surface of the
problem-solving power that the Internet and cheap computing power open
to us. As superior intellects strive to understand the metaphysics of
information, they will find the information-oriented arguments of ID
increasingly sensible and appealing. ID will fit nicely into the
emerging worldview of tomorrow's intellectual elite.

This emerging worldview will take a more expansive view of science than
does the current elite. Consider the "meme" meme. We all know what a
meme is: a thought pattern that spreads from person to person and group
to group like a viral infection spreading through a population. Yet
memes cannot be bisected, or examined under a microscope, or
"falsified" via the scientific method. Even so, we can make statements
about memes with varying degrees of objective truthfulness. Is it
possible to speak of a "science" of concepts? Right now, the scientific
establishment says no. This unhelpful understanding of science will
soon be discarded in favor of something more useful in the information
age.

5) ID will win because ID assumes that man will find design in life --
and, as the mind of man is hard-wired to detect design, man will likely
find what he seeks.

The human mind seeks order in everything. The entire body of knowledge
available to mankind reflects our incorrigible desire to analyze,
systemize, hypothesize, and theorize. It may well be that our brains
are physically configured in such a way that we can't help but find
order and design in the world. Don't look so surprised, evolutionists
-- a brain attuned to order and design is a brain more likely to
survive. The ability to detect design is essentially the ability to
detect patterns, and the ability to detect patterns is the key to most
applications of human intelligence. Hammers tend to find nails,
screwdrivers tend to find screws, and the human mind tends to find
design. Of course, the propensity to see designs doesn't mean that the
designs aren't actually there. But the quintessential human perception
is one of design -- and, to the extent that perceptions define reality,
a theory built on the perception of design has a huge advantage over
its competitors.

The only remaining question is whether Darwinism will exit gracefully,
or whether it will go down biting, screaming, censoring, and denouncing
to the bitter end. Rightly or wrongly, the future belongs to ID.
There's nothing irreducibly complex about it.

Douglas Kern is a lawyer and TCS contributor. To see another view of
the debate over ID, read "Descent of Man in Dover" by Sallie Baliunas
on TCS today.

Douglas Kern is a lawyer

Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win

http://www.techcentralstation.com/100705C.html

Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win

7 Oct 2005

Douglas Kern

2) ID will win because the pro-Darwin crowd is acting like a bunch of
losers.

3) ID will win because it can be reconciled with any advance that takes
place in biology, whereas Darwinism cannot yield even an inch of ground
to ID.

4) ID will win because it can piggyback on the growth of information
theory, which will attract the best minds in the world over the next
fifty years.

ID is a proposition about information. It contends that the processes
of life are so specific and carefully ordered that they must reflect
deliberate action. Put simply: a complex message implies an even more
complex sender.

It doesn't matter if you like it or not. It doesn't matter if you think
it's true or not. Intelligent Design theory is destined to supplant
Darwinism as the primary scientific explanation for the origin of human
life. ID will be taught in public schools as a matter of course.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: families that reproduce
people tend to reproduce ideas, as well. The most vocal non-scientist
proponents of ID are those delightfully fertile Catholics,
Evangelicals, and similarly right-leaning middle-class college-educated
folk -- the kind whose children will inherit the country. Eventually,
the social right will have the sheer manpower to teach ID wherever they
please.