In the July/August 1999 issue of TOUCHSTONE, Nancy Pearcey writes, “Finally, [intelligent] design is a winner with the public because it is a scientific research program that actually makes sense to ordinary people.”
Is it true? Do “ordinary people” need scientific mythology, just as children need Santa Claus? Or, does God hope that “ordinary people” will mature enough to accept known scientific facts, such as the Big Bang, Earth’s age, and Darwinian biological evolution?
The existence of God and historical reality of Jesus and His deity are not dependent on Biblical inerrancy and scientific mythology (modern creationism): YEC, OEC, ID. Wouldn’t it be better, in the long run, to show the compatibility of Christianity with correct science?
It’s always easier to say, “God did it,” in answer to a question than to research why something is the way it is. Why did God do it that way? Well, it was part of his plan. Oh! Allrighty, then!
A great deal of “ordinary people” can’t make sense of how to set their VCR clock, let alone understanding natural selection. Creationism is a very simple, one-answer-fits-all theory.
Giving no “process answer” (a how), but instead just a “who” (let alone an untestable “who”) is always simpler than an process answer (even if it includes a “who”). It’s always ‘easier’ to answer a question with another question, or an unprovable assertion. It just doesn’t get us anywhere.
Economists get this all the time: people want to just claim that human behavior is “irrational” and be done with it. Yeah, well, that’s an EASIER answer (it’s applicable to anything, anywhere, even if it’s already well explained by actual theory): but does it teach us anything substantive about human behavior? Does it help us search for those things we can understand and aren’t simply irrational? No.
The fact is, true knowledge doesn’t need to be a “winner.” It just needs to be true. Whether it’s easy for the public to understand is another matter entirely. Not everyone has the time to understand everything. I don’t understand the Fermat’s last theorem proof, and probably never will, but just because it’s too complex for me to grasp doesn’t make it WRONG. (doesn’t make it right either). In fact, my ability to really know whether it’s right or wrong in a way prevents me from ever really making use of the truth of the proof, intellectually.
Better for whom? Christianity has been somewhat limitted by scientific advancement in the last few hundred years, but it still holds a huge sway over the western world. The Church is nowhere near as powerful, poliically, as it once was, but the vast majority of westerners still believe in God and heaven/hell.
Christianity has made a pretty good peace with science, especially if you look at how things were in the 15th/16th/17th centuries. Taken to it’s logical conclusion, though, science will undermine religion. A true scientist will never stop at the statement: “that’s all we can know, the rest is God.”
Why is intelligent design automatically termed by you as “mythology”. The intelligent design movement was one that grew out of a dissatisfaction with the evolutionary debate, both by the “typical” (for lack of a better word) creationists and the Darwinian evolutionists. The core issue was whether it was possible to have scientific evidence that refuted naturalism. The Intelligent Design movement was based on the assumption that it was. Many neo Darwinians who are not christians have accepted the intelligent design hypotesis, which is not a conclusion, nor is it a scientific project unto itself that I am aware of, but rather is an assumption that it is possible that naturalism can be scientifically proven to be right or wrong.
How is that mythology? The idea is simply that science must search for the truth, wherever the truth lies. To begin with the assumption that naturalism is absolutely correct, without ever considering the possibility that it could be wrong is the opposite of what the scientific method is all about.
I take it that Touchstone is a religious magazine of some sort. Otherwise, how did we get from “the public” and “ordinary people” to “the existence of God” and the historical reality of Jesus"? Is there a link to the article? The quote almost sounds like the writer is talking about a completely different intelligent design movement than the one I am familiar with. If we are talking about two different things, then mea culpa and I apologize for taking up space.
On the contrary: intelligent design starts with the assumption that naturalism is false. It has done nothing to prove, or provide evidence, one way or the other.
As far as I’ve seen, ID is not a scientific theory. It cannot be tested, since we cannot know the IDer. It just pushes the question back into the “unknowable”. How did the IDer come about? What was his/her origin? Do we have to then postulate an infinite number of IDers? I think Occam had something to say about that…