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Intelligent Design should be taught in science classrooms

Patrick Briney, Ph.D., President, LTIA

Let there be no mistaken notion that speaking about a supernatural creation is not appropriate for the science classroom. It is appropriate. There is empirical evidence that our universe, first life, and even species are the products of intelligent design. This evidence needs to be examined and taught in our science classrooms. Evolution is seriously flawed and insufficient to account for origins. An intelligent design (ID) model for origins is an intelligent alternative to evolution.

 In our science classrooms, students should be encouraged to discuss and examine scientific evidence, discoveries, and the reasonableness of conclusions. It is appropriate to test and debate proposals and theories. It is important for students to develop reasoning skills by examining all questions and claims. The problem with our science classrooms today, with regard to origins, is that evolution proponents have monopolized our education system. They control the information fed to students by censoring evidence favoring competing models and censoring evidence that contradicts evolution.

 I know this from personal experience. While earning my Ph.D. in microbiology, I was called to several meetings for interrogation. In the first meeting, the head of the department told me that the faculty was very disturbed about my articles in the school paper promoting creation as a model for origins. After failing to answer my questions for specific objections to the creation model other than the ad hominem accusations, I told him it appeared that he did not have an understanding of the creation model. He accused me of not knowing what evolution was and dismissed me. Several other meetings with all the faculty involved discussions about what science could and could not claim. At the last meeting, six months before completing my degree work, the faculty voted on my fate in the department. My mentoring professor explained: first, the vote to retain me in the department was not unanimous, but the majority agreed that my position on creation would not affect my research in immunology. Second, I was required to fulfill two additional conditions in order to earn my degree: 1) I had to stop writing articles and giving interviews to media on creation (censorship), and 2) I had to take another class in evolution. This class turned out to be a one on one course between the professor and myself. There are many who are subjected to this kind of intimidation and censorship as a result of the monopolizing strangle-hold that evolutionists have on academia. This is neither good science nor is it good for science.

 The mantra of evolution proponents in education and in the court rooms is that “Intelligent design models are religion, and religion does not belong in the science classroom.” At a meeting in St Louis, the AAAS president Gilbert Omenn issued a statement strongly condemning the ID movement saying, "Such veiled attempts to wedge religion … into science classrooms is a disservice to students, parents, teachers and taxpayers."

 The ACLU, the People for American Way, the American Humanists, and other organizations with the help of the liberal media and activist judges have successfully created a powerful semantic aversion both socially and legally to the false notion of separation of church and state. This plays out in their favor. But there is an implied statement in this mantra that is often accepted without challenge, namely that Intelligent Design is accepted by blind faith, and that apart from self-proclaimed revelation, there is no scientific evidence to support it.

 This thinking is absolutely false. There is more credible, scientific evidence for an intelligent designer than there is for Al Gore’s hype about the cause and solutions for global warming.

 Let us review the evidence: 

1. Evidence one: First law of thermodynamics
   1. The first law of thermodynamics explains that energy cannot be created nor destroyed by natural means.
   2. Intelligent Design proponents argue that a supernatural origin of the universe therefore is most reasonable and consistent with a known law of science.
   3. Evolutionists insist that energy must have been created by natural means in spite of the first law of thermodynamics.
   4. Which is more credible: theories in contradiction or theories consistent with scientific laws of today?
2. Evidence two: Second law of thermodynamics
   1. The second law of thermodynamics explains that energy does not increase in complexity and order in a closed system by natural means.
   2. Intelligent Design proponents argue that a supernatural origin of the universe therefore is most reasonable and consistent with a known law of science.
   3. Which is more credible: theories in contradiction or theories consistent with scientific laws of today?
3. Evidence three: Law of biogenesis
   1. The law of biogenesis explains that all living cells come from preexisting living cells by natural means.
   2. Intelligent Design proponents argue that a supernatural origin of the first living cell therefore is most reasonable and consistent with a known law of science.
   3. Which is more credible: theories in contradiction or theories consistent with scientific laws of today?
4. Evidence four: Law of probabilities
   1. The law of probabilities shows that the random chance formation of a living cell from lifeless molecules will not happen by natural means. [e.g., 1:10^340,000,000  (Harold Morowitz, Energy Flow in Biology, 1968.)]
   2. Intelligent Design proponents argue that a supernatural origin of the first living cell therefore is most reasonable and consistent with a known law of science.
   3. Long time and well known atheist Antony Flew converted to theism stating: “It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism.” DNA studies have “shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved.”
   4. Which is more credible: theories in contradiction or theories consistent with scientific laws of today?
5. Evidence five: limited change within species
   1. All laboratory evidence up to today suggests that change is limited within each kind of organism by natural means.
   2. Intelligent Design proponents argue that a supernatural origin of the first living cell therefore is most reasonable and consistent with a known law of science.
   3. To accommodate lack of fossil evidence for unlimited change, Punctuated Equilibrium has been proposed.
   4. Which is more credible: theories in contradiction or theories consistent with scientific laws of today?
6. These laws are supported by other findings suggesting design. Michael Behe and William Dembski are two ID scientists who are documenting design and irreducible complexity evidence. Correct models should have multiple lines of evidence converging to the same conclusion.

 Answers to Evolutionists’ criticisms of the ID model: 

1. ID uses God as an excuse for absence of evidence. Not true. ID is based on what is known—not what is not known.
2. ID attacks evolution rather than offer support in favor of ID. Not true. Evolution is collateral damage in light of the evidence supporting ID.
3. ID is not scientific because science cannot test the supernatural. ID conclusions do not need to test for the identity or for the nature of an intelligent designer in order to recognize evidence for an intelligently designed product.
4. Science requires that only natural explanations be offered. Not true. Science requires that explanations be based on empirical evidence and subject to tests of logic. Requiring only natural explanations involves censorship, bias, and forced conclusions in spite of evidence.
5. ID cannot be falsified. Not true. Scientific laws favoring ID and the rational for its conclusions are tested everyday.
6. ID is religion. Not true. What is religious about the laws of science?
7. ID supports the Bible. So what? Science supports everything in the Bible from the appearance of the sun in the east and its setting in the west, to selecting for genetic traits, many of the differences between men and women, currents in the oceans, everything wears out, etc.

 The hypocrisy of evolution criticism:

1. Evolutionists are searching for intelligent design evidence in their search for life in outer space.
2. Evolution’s search for extraterrestrial life supports beliefs in extraterrestrial life.
3. Evolution supports the religious belief in atheism. There are many who believe in a god and evolution, but atheism demands it.

 Conclusion

 ID is the best explanation for origin of universe, life, and species because it is consistent with the laws of science and empirical evidence that is known today. Students of all ages should be educated in the scientific merits of ID in the science classrooms and be encouraged to endeavor in the rigors of free inquiry and critical thinking skills by questioning the claims and evidences submitted in support of evolution.