Unintelligible Design

[kingandy]

This article on a poll regarding what should be taught in schools regarding the origin of man has already been posted elsewhere, but I'm intrigued enough to comment myself.

Over 2,000 participants took part in the survey, and were asked what best described their view of the origin and development of life:

• 22% chose creationism
• 17% opted for intelligent design
• 48% selected evolution theory
• and the rest did not know.

What I found interesting is not that ID is growing in popularity (it's still lower than 17%), but rather that Creationism is a separate thing. I've always assumed it was another word for the same thing.

Alright, so, Creationism is the theory that a omnipotent, pan-dimensional being reached down to Earth and created and every species on it, and they have remained unchanged since then. (Which, on the positive side, would not take long to teach in schools. "Today, the origin of species. God made us. The end, go out and play.")

Evolution is the theory that the random process of genetics produces a generation of creatures with varying characteristics - some of them more likely to survive, such as greater strength or fingers, and others that may be more of a hinderance, like lungs that thrive on ammonia or limbs that fail to work. And that those with unfavourable characteristics are less likely to survive to pass on their genes to the next generation, and therefore, over time, the species on average improves.

So ... what exactly is Intelligent Design? If it doesn't involve either a Creator God or natural selection ... what is it? Does it just say "We came from somewhere, clearly somebody was involved but we're not saying it also created the universe, perhaps it was aliens"? If a teacher is instructed to teach Intelligent Design but not creationism, what, exactly, do they teach?

Is it a hybrid of the two other theories, such that does not deny the existence of God but neither denies the volumes of supporting evidence for evolution? I suppose it could boil down to "God created the Universe and designed evolution into it" or "...and occasionally gave evolution a little nudge in one direction or another". Is it an explanation for the way evolution produces functional organisms? Or, in fact, is Creationism merely a subset of Intelligent Design?

I ask because, with little else to go on, I'm vaguely worried that it might be something I believe in.

Comments

[ubernils.livejournal.com]

What bugs me about the whole Evolution/Creationism/ID debate is that most people seem completely unaware of the fact that Evolution and Creationism do not, in fact, contradict one another. The key point that gets missed is that the creation story in the Bible was never meant to be taken literally. That's not how the Hebrew storytellers and scholars operated. The idea that everything in the Bible is 100% literal historical truth didn't emerge until people began studying it from a Western European, Scientific-thought-based mental paradigm. The real teaching in the Creation story is that God created everything in the universe, that God created us in God's own image, and that the creation was good and holy (again, that's the significance of the seven days timeframe). There's nothing in there about *how* God created life, and you gotta admit, the order given in the story does a surprisingly decent job of mimicing the order different types of life evolved on Earth. So in a nutshell, Creationism is more about why God created Earth, and was never meant to answer specifically how.

ID is annoying because it attempts to scientifically prove the existence of God. Which is, of course, completely silly, as we all know what happens when you prove the existence of God. ("Oh dear, I hadn't thought of that.")

The thing is, with one word, I can make evolution completely open to the idea that a higher power is guiding it without any sort of explicit acknowledgement of the same. Basically, all I have to do is say "apparently random chance." That's it. Now There's no need for ID anymore, because evolution theory leaves the possbility open quite nicely. If someone asks "what do you mean by "apparently" random chance?" "Well, the data suggests mutation by random chance, but whether or not it really is is a personal belief."

Fun random fact: There's an "Evolution Sunday" being organized for Feb. 12th, which involves Churches signing up and then using that day to talk about Evolution and Creationism and why you don't need to choose one instead of the other, why they can coexist and why people pushing for ID in schools are silly. My mom's signed up for it, which is cool.