Charles Krauthammer reveals a remarkably twisted worldview. Education and fame often do this to a man's sense of reason, darkening his lamp of common sense ... not to mention the mind warp of an American University education.Krauthammer may not have written the head for his piece but it pretty much says what he says, "'Intelligent Design' Foolishly Pits Evolution Against Faith."
Because every few years this country, in its infinite tolerance, insists on hearing yet another appeal of the Scopes monkey trial, I feel obliged to point out what would otherwise be superfluous: that the two greatest scientists in the history of our species were Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, and they were both religious.What are you suggesting Chuck, that we become intolerant to views you don't agree with? And your ignorance of the subject you write on is evident by the mention of the Scopes trial. And the fact that two great scientists were "religious" by your standard no more makes their religion acceptable to God than your saying whales must be fish because they swim in water.
I can run up and down the runway at LAX, arms out wide, all day but it won't make me an airplane, nor will I achieve liftoff.
Newton's religion was traditional. He was a staunch believer in Christianity and a member of the Church of England. Einstein's was a more diffuse belief in a deity who set the rules for everything that occurs in the universe.Six thousand years of recorded history have shown us that staunch (and intelligent) believers in Christianity can make horrible errors in judgment ... e.g., the Crusades, the Inquisition, pogroms, hollocaust, slavery, etc.
Neither saw science as an enemy of religion. On the contrary. "He believed he was doing God's work," James Gleick wrote in his recent biography of Newton. Einstein saw his entire vocation -- understanding the workings of the universe -- as an attempt to understand the mind of God.Here, my intellectual friend, you are guilty of an ignorant, self-righteous presupposition ... you presuppose that to hold to a view consistent with ID one must be both anti-science and religious. Shame!
Newton's God was not at all so crude. The laws of his universe were so simple, so elegant, so economical and therefore so beautiful that they could only be divine.So you say, Herr Krauthammer!
Which brings us to Dover, Pa., Pat Robertson, the Kansas State Board of Education, and a fight over evolution that is so anachronistic and retrograde as to be a national embarrassment.
Dover distinguished itself this Election Day by throwing out all eight members of its school board who tried to impose "intelligent design" -- today's tarted-up version of creationism -- on the biology curriculum. Pat Robertson then called the wrath of God down upon the good people of Dover for voting "God out of your city." Meanwhile, in Kansas, the school board did a reverse Dover, mandating the teaching of skepticism about evolution and forcing intelligent design into the statewide biology curriculum.Chuck, your snobby-elitism and smug-sophistry are below your natural intellect ... shame on you again.
Let's be clear. Intelligent design may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory" whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God.Let me be clear sir, you once again damage your argument by ignorant and presuppostiional thinking. ID is not promoted as theology; most of the best ID proponents eskew the religious tie and many are themselves not religious but scientists.
It is a "theory" that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species but also says that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today." A "theory" that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution -- or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force" that holds the atom together?The truly religious live by faith and not by knowledge as you do! "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen. ... Without faith it is impossible to please God." [Hebrews 11:1, 6] You, sir, obviously lack eternal hope.
In order to justify the farce that intelligent design is science, Kansas had to corrupt the very definition of science, dropping the phrase "natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us," thus unmistakably implying -- by fiat of definition, no less -- that the supernatural is an integral part of science. This is an insult both to religion and science.Again, your ignorance is apparent. I'm having a hard time labeling someone I respect as ignorant ... but a spade is a spade.
Explain to me, if you will, how the behavioral sciences can be called science, when by your definition it ought not to be. And how is it you do not admit to ID's "natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us," but lament Kansas' decision to drop it?
The school board thinks it is indicting evolution by branding it an "unguided process" with no "discernible direction or goal." This is as ridiculous as indicting Newtonian mechanics for positing an "unguided process" by which Earth is pulled around the sun every year without discernible purpose. What is chemistry if not an "unguided process" of molecular interactions without "purpose"? Or are we to teach children that God is behind every hydrogen atom in electrolysis?Yes, we are ... unless we desire to deny truth!
He may be, of course. But that discussion is the province of religion, not science. The relentless attempt to confuse the two by teaching warmed-over creationism as science can only bring ridicule to religion, gratuitously discrediting a great human endeavor and our deepest source of wisdom precisely about those questions -- arguably, the most important questions in life -- that lie beyond the material.I believe Mr. Krauthammer is unaware of the energy invested in the ID debates by its proponents to not deny science or religion. I believe he is ignorant of the extent to which ID proponents are trying to open dialogue with the scientific community on the subject.
How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too.Snarky, isn't he? Evolution is the enemy of God in its purest form; it denies God as Creator, it denies His sovereignty over all, and it denies the doctrine of biblical inspiration.
And besides, ID is not a biblical theory. It is simple another explanation for the existence of what we experience through our God given senses ... evolution is, on the other hand, terminally flawed and destined for the trash heap of futile human endeavors.
I wish I were better educated, more knowledgeable, and insightful than I am; this has pretty much exhausted me. I know the ID guys could skewer Charles far better than I ... and he deserves it for this blatant attempt to silence debate and dialogue.
HT: One Hand Clapping
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