Letter: Critics miss point of intelligent design

Monday, Nov. 28, 2005 | 8:41 a.m.

Intelligent design theory has provided a refreshing challenge to stale evolutionist dogma, and attempts by critics in recent letters to discredit the movement have been less than convincing.

Mark Chambers (Nov. 21) condenses intelligent design theory into one nifty statement: "We can't explain it, so God must have done it." This is a gross oversimplification of the issue.

The truth is that the modern scientific establishment will not allow for a theistic explanation for the complexity and order in nature because they have a prior commitment to the philosophy of scientific materialism.

This demands a naturalistic explanation for everything from the origin of life and the universe to human behavior and psychology. This commitment must be "absolute," Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin writes, "for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door."

All the available evidence pleads for the existence of a designer, but that conclusion is ruled out by default. One Kansas State University professor says, "even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not materialistic."

"Evolution" is a euphemism for this materialist philosophy, which according to pugnacious evolutionist Michael Ruse "is more than mere science. Evolution came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity."

He goes on to admit, "Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today."

Contrary to Mr. Chambers' claims, intelligent design theory is a legitimate scientific theory that is supported particularly by modern discoveries in molecular biology and DNA research that reveal an astonishing complexity in living organisms.

Even staunch materialist Richard Dawkins admits, "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." Science isn't able to explain it, and beginning with a materialist premise, will never be able to.

Intelligent design theorists are merely drawing the obvious conclusion.

Matthew Bernard

Las Vegas