Not so Intelligent Educator supports ID

Seems my newspaper column on Intelligent design (ID) struck a nerve with a "Doctor of Education". In that column, as in others on the subject, I acknowledge that we are the product of the design of a supreme creator – "Evolution is self-evident in all aspects of life. Only the origin of the first burst of energy requires, and factually mandates the definition of a deity. After the "Big-Bang", all else flows naturally."

In the beginning, a deity designed all things that would ever exist – the "Big-Bang" implementation of that design included, for life forms, evolution. My critic asserted that my "errors in describing Intelligent Design (ID) were so egregious as to require a response."

ID proponents reject the idea of a perfect supreme deity who is capable of setting in motion a self-perpetuating, self-modifying, evolutionary process. The example of birds was used, by my critic, as evidence of a designer – a point not in dispute, except for insistence the designer must have custom design each complex entity; as opposed to designing a system which would self-design each entity.

Given insistence of unique construction of each entity, one must wonder at the logical inconsistency of his challenge to a statement a virus which, in accordance with that ID precepts, obviously was designed as specifically lethal to birds could not evolve into a trans-species virus lethal to humans.

If one argues "Evolution Theory" is invalid, it follows that it cannot be applied as an explanation to an occurrence within the theory asserting that lack of validity – thus, avian flu could not, under ID precepts, be anything but the product of a malevolent designer targeting humanity.

Where is the "egregious" error? Either there is, or is not, evolution. As an ID proponent, Professor Michael Behe of Lehigh University, asserted, we can ignore Darwin’s Theory, but in its place we must ensure development of critical facilities for the examination of alternatives.

Behe also asserts "Intelligent Design becomes apparent when you see a system that has a number of parts and you see the parts are interacting to perform a function."

However, critical facilities include ensuring the internal logical consistency of proposals objectively determined. As the premise is that evolution is wrong, and unsupported, it follows that follows that it cannot be utilized to explain designer absence from transmutation of animal virus strains.

My regular readers are aware that I am reasonably thorough in researching my columns, and usually have a three week lead time. My critic expressed the antiquity of ID by citing "De Natura Deorum", a work by Cicero (103-43 BC), a Roman lawyer, which was critical of ID style creation and related divine concepts.

Cicero asked, "What method of engineering was employed?" ID does not address that question, but evolution does. ID does not describe a process; it only asserts an interventionist entity as designer.

Hippocrates, the father of medicine, who predates Cicero by 250 years, asserted, "To really know is science; to merely believe you know is ignorance." We know DNA, both in its permeations and its rate of mutation – both are perfectly consistent with evolution and totally inconsistent with ID.

That is the crux of the evolutionary pro and con – is it more important to understand the design, or identify the designer? ID rejects the Creator of Genesis 1:1, substituting a malevolent non-deity.