What bothers me about intelligent design isn’t that it’s the old Watchmaker theory dressed up in new clothes.  Sure, the Watchmaker argument has been so thoroughly discredited that it doesn’t make much sense to me to try to resuscitate it—but, y’know, whatever.  I thought it was dumb when Britney Spears covered Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative” too, but I could just switch off the radio.  No big deal.

And it’s not that proponents of intelligent design are intent on aligning themselves with the scientific establishment.  Well, okay, that does bug me.  What’s wrong with science staying in the classroom and faith staying in the church?  It’s not like scientists go to religious leaders and say “Do you think we can just sort of jump in between the sermon and the hymns so we can show everyone the difference between meiosis and mitosis?”

It strikes me as weird that the faith folks are beating down everyone’s door to be part of the science crowd.  It’s as though they look over at the scientists and say “Hey, they’re having fun over there.  Let’s go be a part of that.” So they go over to the scientists:

- We want to do what you’re doing.

- Okay. Do you use hypothesis to predict the existence of phenomena, or predict qualitatively the results of new observations?

- No.

- Do you do perform experimental tests to verify predictions that are evaluated by several independent experimenters?

- No.

- Um, maybe you should go back over there.

- You guys are mean.  We’re calling the school board.

I don’t understand why this is such an issue.  Scientists, many of whom are religious, are not necessarily anti-faith.  Many of them advocate faith as a means to fill in the gaps in human knowledge with spiritual thought and belief in order to give people richer and more meaningful lives—as long as there’s no riding around on bikes and knocking on people’s doors. But faith can’t replace the scientific method.  (Conversely, the scientific method can’t replace faith, so see?  Everyone should be happy.) You can’t mix them up.  For example, I remember being in high school chemistry and trying to put together various chemicals in order to create a purple flame.  Do catholic priests train in labs so that they get transubstantiation just right?

- So, did it work this time?

- No, and I can’t figure it out.  I followed all the instructions, but the wine just turned into one of those little Jesus-in-a-manger snowflake globes.

- Sorry, that’s another C grade.  But you can make it up by doing extra credit in astronomy—for example, following that yonder star.

That doesn’t stop the faith advocates from attempting to discredit evolution with non-scientific arguments. I was reading a proponent of intelligent design in a mainstream newspaper recently, and he criticized evolution because it made all these suppositions about how history happened but “no one was there to see it so no one really knows for sure.” So all we need to do is trust our eyes?  I once saw Ronald McDonald doing somersaults into a mosh pit full of talking cucumbers, but that doesn’t mean it really happened.  Rather, it taught me to never eat anything that that’s sold in the parking lot before a Grateful Dead show.

None of those problems with intelligent design bothers me all that much.  What bothers me is the theory’s bottom-line implication, that the First Cause of a designed reality somehow equates to the Christian God.  Let’s say for the sake of argument that intelligent design is correct: reality is so complex and intricate that it somehow “proves” a creator.  Where does that lead us to the conclusion that said creator is capital G God? 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not being cynical about the state of life, the universe, and everything.  We have lot of very nice things here.  Rolling mist covering dew-kissed hills in the morning, love, sex, the miracle of birth, TIVO.  But what about the rest of it?  Does it truly reflect a perfect system that sprang from an omniscient being?

Are tailbones intelligent?  Do we need them?  Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t wag at people when I’m happy to see them.

Does anyone need the clavicle? I’m not buying it.

Marshmallow peeps blow up when you put them in a microwave.  Actually, that part is pretty cool.

Continental drift.  Pangea was a sweet piece of real estate, and He just had to go muck it up?

It’s the year 2005 and Donny Osmond just released his 54th album.  I’m surprised people aren’t fleeing organized religion in droves.

If the creator is a watchmaker, he’s making a cheap Rolex knockoff.  He’s no placid dude with a long beard and serene, infinite pools of wisdom.  He’s some laughing, deranged maniac: “The tailbone—that’ll throw those guys a loop.  And then I got this great idea for a mammal that lays eggs!  I’ll call it a platypus!  Man, I really shouldn’t eat the stuff that’s sold in the parking lot before a Grateful Dead show.”

Posted by Greg at 05:02 AM on 08/23/05

(34) Bring It • Link to This