INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM: PETER KATT
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/intelligent-design-and-human-exceptionalism?f=puball
Two months ago during a regular visit to PJ Media I viewed a very short piece about a scientific study on a species of fish from vastly different locations having an identical complex mechanism that the scientist concluded was yet another proof of Darwinian evolution. The PJ Media author (couldn’t find – only remember the point) countered that the scientist’s evidence, rather than pointing to evolution, logically undercut such a conclusion and in fact was supportive of intelligent design, a theory holding that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process. My light bulb went off. Twenty years ago I read a short book on ID. The logic of the theory and examples were so overwhelming for me that I abruptly switched from agnostic to deist. Then, satisfied I could continue to avoid organized religion without guilt, I went on with my life, until that visit to PJ Media. Why was a political site making snarky with a scientific dispute? To quote Vince Lombardi, I thought “what the hell is going out here?” Well let me tell you….
The scientific community overwhelming views humanity as materialist happenstance, attributing nothing exceptional to humans. The universe, galaxy, solar system, earth and everything on it came into existence by an undirected random process they say. These materialists fancy themselves as slowly but surely answering all the origins of universe and life questions. Believers in the super natural can’t get on their bus. Not only are their gods false, but dangerous to scientific progress.
According to a 2013 survey of National Academy of Science members, 93% were self-described atheists. The Academy is the most prestigious American scientific body with 2,200 elected members. That 7% are not atheists is alarming to Neil de Grasse Tyson, an astrophysicist, popular for hosting PBS’s Cosmos and the public face of science in America. He is a very frequent guest on many pop-culture programs (especially Bill Maher), taking delight in mocking religion and making clear the harm religious belief has on science. The March 2014 reboot of Cosmos had an introduction by Obama that featured Carl Sagan’s “the cosmos is all that is, or ever will be” – materialism through-and-through.
As I delved into the ID story it became apparent that science,the systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and reliably applied, is no longer an accurate explanation. It has become a powerful force in the progressive movement, based on dogma and intolerance to marginalize and mock anything that may be edging toward different conclusions when viewing the same scientific evidence, especially ID theory.
ID, were it to break through the materialists road block, would be an existential threat. Understanding this, the materialists’ obstruct ID by using exclusion (not hiring or green lighting peer reviewed articles), intimidation (harassing and firing), falsities (always referring to it as creationism), ridicule (this isn’t science) and avoidance (few materialists will appear for a discussion on ID). Ben Stein narrated a documentary (Expelled) about the heavy handed treatment ID receives from the materialist community. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5EPymcWp-g.
These materialists receive enormous grant money and are far more monolithic, entrenched and unyielding than the global warming scientific cabal.
I have been on a two month journey to understand this issue. Let’s examine my ID / materialist Cliffs Notes.
1. Both are scientifically based – primarily bio-chemists, molecular biologists, paleontologists, astrophysicists and philosophy of science.
2. They agree on many aspects of Darwinian evolution and the vast majority of astrophysics.
3. However, the fossil record so far doesn’t support the natural progression of all living things. Indeed, the existing fossil record is highly suggestive that entirely new life has just sprung up.
4. There is presently no evidence in the fossil record of one species evolving into another.
5. Cell structures contain an incalculable amount of specifically organized information (code). It is statistically impossible (not improbable) for this to have arisen by an undirected, random process. For just a small portion of a cell’s coding to randomly occur has a 10 to the 177th power probability and this is the conservative figure. Perhaps more realistic is 20 to the 250th power. More seconds than the universe’s 15 billion year existence by a far, far margin.
6. Materialists have no explanation for why the physical laws of the universe are fine tuned for life on earth to arise, other than to assert they aren’t.
7. Kitzmiller v. Dover School District – Big victory for materialism, atheism and ACLU. The Dover School Board issued a statement that district science classes should explain that Darwinian evolution is a theory and there are others. This is the offense that brought the full force of progressivism and their handmaidens, the materialists, down onto them. http://www.conservapedia.com/Kitzmiller_vs._Dover_Area_School_District.
To summarize my understanding of this subject the following are what materialism can’t presently answer and where ID can be inferred.
1. Explanation of pre-Big Bang.
2. Why the laws of physics and positioning of the moon and planets are precisely set to allow for the exact conditions for earth to exist. A slight variation to one of a plethora of factors and there would be no earth.
3. Explaining the origin of first life (first cell).
4. Explaining the sudden appearance of animal phyla (multicellular body plans) within a geological eye-blink having no fossil evidence of precursors.
5. Explaining why there is no fossil evidence of one species becoming another.
6. Explaining how the complex specified coding within cells occurs.
7. Human intelligence – our minds.
Indeed, Dawinism fails according to the standards Darwin himself set.
Most accept ID due to their theistic beliefs, and this is a problem but completely understandable and unavoidable. Even without strong Christian support and identification with ID, materialists would have charged such and made it stick. Christianity is hated and mocked by America’s elites. They are too-cool-for-school, hip, jaunty and the smartest in any room they enter. The only deity allowed in this hopey, changey utopia is a dear leader.
These materialists provide enormous faux intellectual support to the denial of human exceptionalism. That which is self-evident can be denied isn’t the truly bizarre aspect of this. The most baffling part is that the clapping seals have been indoctrinated to feel good about themselves for not being exceptional.
A major manifestation of denying human exceptionalism is, of course, environmentalism. It was intelligently designed into a radical force for justifying control over and destruction of free-market capitalism. The crowning achievement – global cooling / warming / climate change / climate disruptions is the most expensive and destructive hoax ever.
The entire green network slogs ahead from one insanity to another. Every day we hear about another citizen or company threatened, cited and fined off their property or business due to standing rainwater, putting sand on their beach, field mice, salmon, etc.
The most evil transgression done in the name of environmental compassion is the banning of DTT in the 1970s, due to the emotionalism created by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring published in 1962. “Carson’s proselytizing and advocacy raised substantial anxiety about DDT and led to bans in most of the world and to restrictions on other chemical pesticides. But the fears she raised were based on gross misrepresentations and scholarship so atrocious that, if Carson were an academic, she would be guilty of egregious academic misconduct…The legacy of Rachel Carson is that tens of millions of human lives – mostly children in poor, tropical countries – have been traded for the possibility of slightly improved fertility in raptors. This remains one of the monumental human tragedies of the last century.” (http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2012/09/05/rachel-carsons-deadly-fantasies/).
The Audubon created and distributes its prestigious Rachel Carson Award annually. I suppose naming the award for Hitler and Stalin wouldn’t play well. All the major environmental groups remain triumphant over DDT’s ban with Al Gore visiting Rachel Carson’s home, being preserved as a shrine, to heap praise on her legacy. This is what the primacy of dogma over reason produces. Ditto Darwin.
Here are links I believe you will find interesting in understanding that materialists are so controlled by their Darwinian faith that they lose rational perspective of the issues being discussed. Just reading my quick critiques can suffice. (The first three feature ID’s Dr. Stephen C. Meyer. Steve is a rock star, combining a polite demeanor, patience, razor sharp mind and the instincts of a cobra).
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sakmq5L3IiE – Debate in Seattle between Steve Meyer and UW professor, Peter Ward. Ward is the prototypical university tyrant, fooling himself that he is a kindly philosopher-king. When he isn’t dismissive, he is condescending
2. .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKqzQwT3JXk – Radio debate with Charles Marshall, Berkley biologist, focusing on Steve’s book, Darwin’s Doubt (on the missing fossil record). Marshall asserts the missing fossils aren’t necessary because of a theory he seems to make up during the discussion. A point not missed by Meyer.
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpSjMWG8OSY – Radio debate between Steve Meyer and Peter Atkins (proud atheist and professor of evolutionary chemistry). Atkins is as densely stupid as he is pompous and condescending. Steve’s patient assaults on Atkins’ metronomic assertions finally so flummoxed him that he proclaimed that “the simplest explanation is the best” and that the incredibly complex coding in the cells was due to repeated mistakes during undirected, random evolution. This is as hysterical as asserting the works of Shakespeare could be produced by monkeys with writing materials making repeated mistakes until viola – all 37 plays fully bound.
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrwzYOBLUoE – The video is labeled “evolution vs. creationism”, which is not ID, and an example of the pettiness that ID faces in every arena. The debate occurs at Harvard. For ID is Jonathan Wells. The materialist is Stephen Palumbi using two political, emotion drenched arguments in support of evolution. One is that bacteria mutate causing antibiotic treatments to be more expensive. The other is that HIV mutates causing more deaths. These can only be taken as inferring that ID would allow more mutations with higher antibiotic costs and more AIDS deaths. Utter nonsense since ID unequivocally agrees about such mutations. But such is the level of rational debate coming from materialists when confronting ID.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor Peter Katt is a nationally recognized insurance expert who has authored more than 200 columns and articles on various insurance issues.
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