Evolution, intelligent design and science education

Table Of Content

• C.S. Lewis on Evolution and Intelligent Design
• Are there social consequences to this philosophy of naturalism or materialism that you describe?
• Why do you think some people do not accept evolution?
• Science X
• The History of Intelligent Design
• What’s all the fuss about? Evolution, intelligent design and science education
• # Lewis's Critique of Naturalism

In practice, this standard can be difficult to apply to organisms isolated by distance or terrain or to plants (and, of course, fossils do not breed). Biologists therefore usually use organisms' physical and behavioral traits as clues to their species membership. Moreover, molecular biology has discovered mechanisms for genetic change that go beyond point mutations, and these expand the ways in which new traits can appear. Functional modules within genes can be spliced together in novel ways. Whole genes can be accidentally duplicated in an organism's DNA, and the duplicates are free to mutate into genes for new, complex features. Comparisons of the DNA from a wide variety of organisms indicate that this is how the globin family of blood proteins evolved over millions of years.

C.S. Lewis on Evolution and Intelligent Design

It is wrong to insinuate that the field of explanations consists only of random processes or designing intelligences. Researchers into nonlinear systems and cellular automata at the Santa Fe Institute and elsewhere have demonstrated that simple, undirected processes can yield extraordinarily complex patterns. Some of the complexity seen in organisms may therefore emerge through natural phenomena that we as yet barely understand. But that is far different from saying that the complexity could not have arisen naturally. Complexity of a different kind—“specified complexity”—is the cornerstone of the intelligent-design arguments of author William A. Dembski in his books The Design Inference and No Free Lunch.

Are there social consequences to this philosophy of naturalism or materialism that you describe?

Darwinian evolution works by the chance appearance of a favorable mutation in the genetic makeup of an animal. The favorable mutation enhances the animal’s chances for survival by making the animal a bit stronger, faster, or less susceptible to disease, etc. Therefore, the animal with the favorable mutation will probably live to reproduce the next generation, and this mutation will become incorporated into the species gene pool. The accumulation of many favorable mutations over many generations brings about large changes in the animal, eventually leading to an entirely new species. Behe’s proposed proof that the cell could not have formed through Darwinian evolution, generated enormous interest (reported in Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, New York Times, Commentary, National Review and many other periodicals). Elsewhere Lewis speaks of “nebulae” coming into being in the early history of the cosmos; therefore he knew something about cosmology and astronomy.

Why do you think some people do not accept evolution?

However, the modern theory of intelligent design emerged in the 1980s as a response to the growing scientific consensus around evolution and natural selection. Furthermore, since Lewis affirms that “all truth is God’s truth, wherever it may be found,” he refuses to surrender the scientific truths of Evolution to Naturalism.4 One reason for this is that he believes that the facts are what they are and must be accepted when properly established. This allowed Lewis to see evolutionary science as revealing fascinating details about how God’s physical creation has developed and continues to function.

However, their genes are largely copies of the genes that the queen carries, since the workers are her sisters. The key is that the flagellum's component structures, which Behe suggests have no value apart from their role in propulsion, can serve multiple functions that would have helped favor their evolution. The final evolution of the flagellum might then have involved only the novel recombination of sophisticated parts that initially evolved for other purposes. Similarly, the blood-clotting system seems to involve the modification and elaboration of proteins that were originally used in digestion, according to studies by Russell F. Doolittle of the University of California, San Diego. So some of the complexity that Behe calls proof of intelligent design is not irreducible at all. Today's intelligent-design advocates are more sophisticated than their predecessors, but their arguments and goals are not fundamentally different.

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Scientists look to the laws of nature, and not to supernatural entities, for the explanation of the physical phenomena that they observe. The Cambrian explosion refers to a period in Earth's history 530 million years ago when new species of unprecedented complexity--like the predatory Anomalocaris depicted above--appeared in the fossil record within a relatively short time span. The lineages of nearly all of today's living organisms can be traced back to this flowering of life. "It's a three-billion-year-old 'slow fuse,' and we have the fossil record that shows this," Occidental College's Prothero said. In addition, "we now have fossils of all sorts of soft-bodied and microscopic things from before the Cambrian, and you can see very clearly how from simpler things you can get more complex things." Are life and the universe a mindless accident — the blind outworking of laws governing cosmic, chemical, and biological evolution?

The History of Intelligent Design

Ronald Reagan’s Deeply Personal Argument for ID - Discovery Institute

Ronald Reagan’s Deeply Personal Argument for ID.

Posted: Mon, 29 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

The ability to learn is not itself something that needs to be designed – it is an inevitable product of random variation and selection when acting on connections. The above approach was not limited to the study of the universe. It was believed that all fundamental questions could be answered by logical deduction and pure reason. Since medieval theologians believed that God exists, they naturally assumed that His existence must be susceptible to rigorous proof.

What’s all the fuss about? Evolution, intelligent design and science education

The Case for Intelligent Design, With Stephen Meyer - Daily Signal

The Case for Intelligent Design, With Stephen Meyer.

Posted: Wed, 16 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Evolution without a plan is also the reason why the birds and the bats and the bees have developed separate techniques for flying. Evolution has, by the way, given birds lungs that are far better constructed than the lungs of bats and other mammals. The birds have lungs consisting of long tubes running straight through their bodies, keeping all parts of the lungs well oxygenated.

Produced as a companion to the seven-part television series Evolution, this site is an enjoyable guide to evolutionary science. The accompanying book, Evolution, by Carl Zimmer (HarperCollins, 2001), is also useful for explaining evolution to doubters. Actually, paleontologists know of many detailed examples of fossils intermediate in form between various taxonomic groups. One of the most famous fossils of all time is Archaeopteryx, which combines feathers and skeletal structures peculiar to birds with features of dinosaurs. A flock's worth of other feathered fossil species, some more avian and some less, has also been found. A sequence of fossils spans the evolution of modern horses from the tiny Eohippus.

This surprisingly common argument reflects several levels of ignorance about evolution. The first mistake is that evolution does not teach that humans descended from monkeys; it states that both have a common ancestor. “Survival of the fittest” is a conversational way to describe natural selection, but a more technical description speaks of differential rates of survival and reproduction. That is, rather than labeling species as more or less fit, one can describe how many offspring they are likely to leave under given circumstances.

Such changes alter the building blocks available to future evolution. If past selection has shaped these building blocks well, it can make solving new problems look easy – easy enough to solve with incremental improvement. For example, if limb lengths have evolved to change independently, evolving increased height will require multiple changes (affecting each limb) and intermediate stages may be worse off. But if changes are correlated, individual changes might be beneficial.

Professor Glenn-Peter Sætre does not waste time annoying himself about the theory of ID, which is still a marginal phenomenon in Norway and in most other European countries. Professor Glenn-Peter Sætre does not think it is a good idea to use resources to teach ID in the school system. On the contrary, biology has catalogued many traits produced by point mutations (changes at precise positions in an organism's DNA)—bacterial resistance to antibiotics, for example. Mutations are essential to evolution theory, but mutations can only eliminate traits.