Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Talk about begging the question...

Many biologists, seduced by this example, persist in believing that the complexity of whole-organism evolution can be similarly understood. It was Darwin himself who started us down this garden path by acknowledging that his ignorance about the mechanism of inheritance left a gap in the theory of natural selection. Into the breach swarmed evolutionists, convinced that the key to evolution was the mechanism of inheritance, genetics.

The principles governing gene function may rule within their limited domain, but they cannot be extrapolated to the level of whole-organism form and function, nor to the interaction of organism and environment. These are governed by other rules discernible only through direct study.

The principles governing gene function may rule within their limited domain, but they cannot be extrapolated to the level of whole-organism form and function, nor to the interaction of organism and environment. These are governed by other rules discernible only through direct study.

The long inferential chain

It is very hard to work out the implications of the effects of processes of local variation on large-scale ones. If gene frequency changes in local populations are the foundation for all evolution, it still may not be evident that a new species will arise, that there will be some trends in evolution, or that the patterns of life at any one time will reflect a process of speciation and retention of novelties in large groups.

In part, this is because the chain of inference from population-level genetics to macroevolution is a very long one. Even if genes determined everything about species, we would not be able to generalize and elaborate these facts with any clarity or detail. We are limited in our ability to take all these things into account and lack the time and skills to work it all out fully.

Reconciling the conservative character of genetic transmission with the tremendous potential for evolutionary change that is inherent in the genetic variation among individuals is particularly hard for those who lack a full appreciation of the way genes recombine and affect the development of organisms. This is especially true of secondary and post-secondary students and the general populace.


The allele-frequency definition, if adequate, would leave us unsatisfied that evolution really had been explained. Geneticists have observed in small scale a general resistance of the molecular components of the genome to change from the "norm" or "wild type". For this reason, if any biologist were to be anti-evolutionist, it would typically be one who works at the molecular level, such as a molecular geneticist or biochemist.

A senior investigator at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, and National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, Eugene Koonin, has published two peer reviewed papers on the current status of the “modern evolutionary synthesis,” wherein he states, “The edifice of the modern synthesis has crumbled, apparently, beyond repair. There is no consistent tendency of evolution towards increased genomic complexity, and when complexity increases, this appears to be a non adaptive consequence of evolution under weak purifying selection rather than an adaptation.”

Allen MacNeill [teaching biology at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY] writes on his blog: “Kimura, Ohta, Jukes, and Crow dropped a monkey wrench into the “engine” at the heart of the modern synthesis — natural selection — and then Gould and Lewontin finished the job with their famous paper on The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm.”

“Unless the discourse around evolution is opened up to scientific perspectives beyond Darwinism, the education of generations to come is at risk of being sacrificed for the benefit of a dying theory.” – Stuart Newman ( professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College in Valhalla, NY). Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education in the US, and others the term “expanded synthesis,” is being promoted with the assurance that neo-Darwinian mechanisms are still being brought into the picture, although in a subordinate way, in order to ease their transition into what is not only a change in thinking about life, but a change in how to think about life in a non-mechanistic, dynamic, and holistic way, e.g. Complexity Philosophy.’

Symbiogeneticist Lynn Margulis, who was awarded the US Presidential Medal for Science in 1999, has pronounced neo-Darwinism “dead”, since there’s no adequate evidence in the literature that random mutations result in new species.

Allen MacNeil, professor of biology and evolution at Cornell University says, "Will Provine and I have been saying that “the modern evolutionary synthesis is dead” for years. The concept of natural selection as the foundation of evolutionary change has been largely superseded.... iconoclasts like Lynn Margulis, Eva Jablonka, Marian Lamb, Mary Jane West-Eberhard, and David Sloan Wilson are rapidly overturning our understanding of how evolutionary change happens at all levels, and how it is inherited."

As I have said many times before, when ID supporters set their sights on “neo-Darwinism” as a target for criticism, they set their sights on a model that has been all but abandoned. The carnival has moved on and ID supporters are fighting battles that evolutionary biologists left behind a half century and more ago.

Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education in the US, and others the term “expanded synthesis,” is being promoted with the assurance that neo-Darwinian mechanisms are still being brought into the picture, although in a subordinate way, in order to ease their transition into what is not only a change in thinking about life, but a change in how to think about life in a non-mechanistic, dynamic, and holistic way, e.g. Complexity Philosophy.’

You like these guys who qe call "Accidental Creationists" because their honsty in phrases can be quote mined so nicely.

you guys are required to "force fit " a super meddling intelligence into an environment that can be compared to the response of breaking balls on a pool table

Lots of things have transpired since the 1950"s

Not sure what you're even talking about, Farmer. If "you guys" is supposed to mean IDer's and if "environment" is supposed to be confined to geological forces at work, I don't see where your comment is either accurate or relevant.

... their "direct approach" at making it sound like ID is a valid scientific discipline has been nicely debunked in the literature and in the courts.

give me one piece of evidence that ID has forwarded that has not been debunked??

You can quote mine Eugenie Scott and dig up Gould but you will see that the concept of neutralism has been a " storm in a batter bowl".

“Unless the discourse around evolution is opened up to scientific perspectives beyond Darwinism, the education of generations to come is at risk of being sacrificed for the benefit of a dying theory.” – Stuart Newman ( professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College in Valhalla, NY).

Hand-waving assertions by dogmatic neo-Darwinists who insist that any suggestion of teleology in evolution is prima facie beyond the bounds of legitimate inquiry aint workin no more, sorry, Farmer.