Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong

By James Donahue

October 2005

This relatively new attempt by fundamental Christians to force a new twisted concept of creationism into public school science classes by calling it “intelligent design” should not fool educators.

Yet there the question of whether to put the instruction of intelligent design up alongside evolution as scientific “theories” behind human origins has been debated so strongly, it has been brought back into the public courts for the second time in a century. The case that began in September is still being hotly debated in a U.S. District Court in Dover, Pennsylvania.

There is no valid reason why this issue should be in court at this time, except that it is a politically hot issue, just as abortion and school prayer are hotly pursued by a contingent of fundamental Christian believers who want to ignore the Constitution and its promise of separation of church and state. They believe it is their duty to cram their religious belief system down everybody’s throat, especially the throats of gullible children, because their god instructed them to evangelize.

But scientific theory is exactly that, a theory based upon a lot of scientific proofs that strongly suggest that a theory is a valid solution to a scientific question, even though the theory cannot be proven.

Evolution has long been established as a theory and consequently is taught in the classroom for valid scientific reasons.

Creationism, on the other hand, can never be classified as a theory. It is based solely on a religious belief system and some words in the Bible that claim that a powerful force in the sky created everything out of nothing. No scientific evidence can be found to support this claim. It is a faith-based belief by people who believe that the Bible was written by holy inspiration and therefore must be true.

Intelligent design is no different, except that it is a little more vague as to whom the creator is. And it appears to follow a more flexible course between random evolutionary development of life on Earth and development of all things by the design of a creator. Therefore, under the terms of intelligent design, there seems to be room for some evolution as long as we acknowledge that an external force had a hand in putting everything together to make it work.

There was a time in my life when I would have really liked the intelligent design concept of explaining our origins. The evidence exists in the fossil record that evolution, indeed, occurred and that life of all forms sprang from the bowels of the Earth over a time-span of millions of years.

We also find evidence in the rocks of great extinctions, caused by global calamities, followed by an explosive rekindling of life within a few hundred thousand years.

For these reasons, we can’t dismiss evolution as a theory that must be considered when attempting to explain how we got here. Religious thinkers argue that the speed at which life forms appear in the fossil record prove that an outside force, or god, was busy with “creation” during these periods in history.

Intelligent design cannot stand alone as a theory, unless you add an additional factor. That would be the identification of the creator. If you take this idea to its correct conclusion, and determine that alien contact, namely Lucifer, was part of the intelligence behind the design, we begin to unravel pieces of a puzzle that has perplexed us for a very long time.

The remainder of the solution lies in recognition of the Mother Earth as a sentient being, filled with the pre-biotic chemistry of life. The entire universe is alive. Even space is found to be filled with bacterial cells that are in communication with each other. All things are part of a vast communication system. The proofs to these statements are found everywhere yet are ignored by science because they conflict with Christian dogma.

Acceptance of these two factors as truth is a hard-sell when pitted against the power of religious belief systems. Science appears blinded by religious dogma when anyone suggests the concepts of alien involvement in human origins or turning back to native mythology considering the Mother Earth as a living organism.

Thus we have a problem with teaching intelligent design to children. We believe it cannot be taught with an open mind and the instruction will slide directly into creationism.