It’s been a couple of days now since the controversial and oh-so-dangerous (“harming us with pseudoscience,” to quote Ben Wells) conference on Darwinism vs. Design hosted by the machiavellian Discovery Institute at the invitation of Dedman Law School’s Christian Legal Society. As an educated lay person (though not a biologist or anthropologist), I would like to respond to the hue and cry over the trampled rights and freedoms of materialists, agnostics and atheists everywhere.
Newsflash: Mainstream science has chosen, a priori, to ignore massive evidence (evidence, I said, not proof) of a designer, or creator, if you will. Arguments from design go at least as far back as Plato, predating Christian arguments by centuries (see “Teleological Argument” in Wikipedia, for example, for a helpful summary). To make the leap from “I accept no evidence that would point to a designer” to “Everything can be explained without invoking a designer” requires one to have one’s head in the sand, or in some other location that does not receive much sunshine. I, for one, am weary of this arrogant stranglehold on knowledge, and science so-called, as if there were a single scientist or philosopher anywhere in the world who was there when it all happened (evolution, creation, the Big Bang) and saw God not do it!
This is not to dismiss evolution as an elegant and powerful theory, nor any other theory based on observation alone. It is only to call for a little humility in interpreting the evidence. And it is not my intention here to champion the Discovery Institute, per se, other than to say, “Thank God someone is stepping up to provide a little balance.” One of its nefarious goals is to “drive a wedge” into “scientific materialism”? (To quote Ben Wells in Friday’s Daily Campus, and the six “brave friends” in Tuesday’s edition). It’s about time. Bring it on. Scientific materialists have been force-feeding me their one-sided perspective on reality for way too long.
Point: If there is no creator, or if he (or she) set the universe in motion, then took a long vacation, what we observe around us is the best and only evidence we have for the origin of the Universe, the origins of species, etc. Counterpoint: If there is a Creator, then what we see around us is at best the debris of the creation event, whatever form it may have taken. Would you put much confidence in a Theory of French Cuisine based only on an analysis of the egg and flour spillage on the countertop and floor?
“Unlike any other force in our world, science has the power to save or destroy humanity,” says Ben Wells. Give me a major break, Ben. Science is a wonderful, exciting, powerful tool. Yes, it is now abundantly clear that technology has the power to destroy humanity. I see absolutely no evidence that it has the power to save us. While I recognize your concerns about injecting one’s religious beliefs into science, this is precisely what scientific materialism has done and is doing! By deciding a priori, in the face of much evidence, that God is irrelevant, you have already made a religious, or if you prefer, metaphysical, determination. Enough already! Let’s hear the other side of the story for a change. No, Intelligent Design may not yet be a mature theory. Darwinism has a 150-year head start! But at least it’s a promising alternative (in the view of many). And although the Discovery Institute has a clear Christian agenda, no one has forbidden Jews, Muslims, Buddhists or Jains from weighing in on the issue.
Roger Parks is a Spanish lecturer at SMU. He can be reached at [email protected].
