Atheist Age

Intelligent design: scientifically and religiously bankrupt

© Online Opinion, by Michael Zimmerman:

In case you had any doubt, the last nail was just placed in the coffin of intelligent design (ID). And, in case you had any doubt, that last nail joins many others that have been in place for quite some time.

The latest attack appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) and provides conclusive evidence that the design of the human genome is incredibly imperfect, or, in other words, very far from being intelligently structured. As John Avise, a University of California-Irvine biologist, noted in the paper, his focus “is on a relatively neglected category of argument against ID and in favor of evolution: the argument from imperfection, as applied to the human genome.”

The basic concept of intelligent design comes in two parts and is as simple as it is satisfying for those unwilling to think deeply about the natural world, science, or the nature of religion. Part one, stretching way back to the ancient Greeks, notes that nature is so perfectly integrated that it must have been designed just as we see it. Part two, largely attributed to Lehigh University biologist Michael Behe, says that while some aspects of nature might certainly have changed (evolved?) over time, others are so complex that they must always have existed in the form we find them in today. Indeed, he coined the term “irreducibly complex” to explain such structures. Change anything at all in these irreducibly complex structures and they fail to work.

Both parts of ID are spectacularly wrong.

Indeed, demonstrating imperfect design in humans has become something of a fascinating cottage industry. Listen, for example to Abby Hafer, a physiologist at Curry College, discuss five serious flaws, from the blind spot in the human retina to the placement of human testicles, on NPR’s Here & Now. In his PNAS article, Avise simply extends this analysis to the human genome discussing myriad serious problems arising from “gratuitous gene complexities” that no self-respecting designer would tolerate.

As Avise notes, Charles Darwin rebutted the intelligent design argument offered by William Paley in 1802. In chapter 14 of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, Darwin said, “On the view of each organic being and each separate organ having been specially created, how utterly inexplicable it is that parts … should so frequently bear the plain stamp of inutility.”

Full article: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10424

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Tags: Creationism, Education, Evolution, Science