Chapter 16
Just when ID thought it was safe to go back in the water, here’s part two of the Handy-Dandy Intelligent Design Refuter.
“What If We Just Don’t Recognize Good Design When We See It?”
When confronted with evidence of bad design, ID promoters usually hedge, and simply say that we human beings don’t necessarily understand what the Designer is trying to do, so what appears to be bad design to us may actually be good design, but we aren’t knowledgeable enough to understand it. This boils down to the old philosophy that it isn’t given to us to know what God’s plan is, or put more simply, “God works in mysterious ways.”
Unfortunately for ID promoters, as soon as they bring up this idea, they lose. Why? Because as soon as they say that, they’re talking about religion. Even if they substitute the words “the Designer” for “God,” it is still admitting that by definition, you can’t make testable predictions based on this idea. If you can’t make testable predictions based on it, then as science, it’s nonexistent. As a religious argument, it may satisfy some people, but it’s not science. Once again, they are insisting that acceptance of ID requires a leap of faith.
“This Is About Academic Freedom”
The phrase “academic freedom” means the freedom of college professors to teach subject material in the way that they think best, even if it is controversial. However, the ID lobby pretends that teachers in American public elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools have academic freedom, which they don’t. Academic freedom is something that public school teachers don’t have, and have never had. They are required to teach what the school board tells them to teach, using the textbooks that the school board picks out for them. This is why people spend so much time arguing over which textbooks to use, and about who sits on the school board, and what decisions they make. So in arguing that public school teachers must be able to teach ID in order to protect their academic freedom, ID proponents are, as usual, arguing about something that doesn’t exist.
Even college professors do not have the freedom to teach anything they want any way that they want. When I am teaching human anatomy and physiology, I am expected to cover specific topics, and I am expected to give scientifically valid information. I cannot simply decide to teach anything I want. For instance, I cannot simply decide to teach the works of Mark Twain instead of human anatomy and physiology in my anatomy and physiology course. If I did, I could lose my job. Not only is Mark Twain not on the anatomy and physiology course description, much of Twain’s work is fiction, and I teach science. In the same way, college professors are not free to teach ID in a science course, because it is fiction.
I can also be fired for stating things that are verifiably untrue. So although I may be allowed to state controversial opinions about facts, I have to stick to known facts. So, for instance, I cannot expect to keep my job if I state in class that the sun revolves around the earth, because that is contrary to known facts. ID is contrary to known facts.
“Academic freedom” also does not mean freedom from the need to provide solid evidence in science. It also does not mean freedom from criticism, and does not mean that scientists aren’t allowed to reject ID because it is both silly and is lacking in solid evidence.
However, the ID lobby tries to change the subject to academic freedom whenever they can, hoping to cover up for the fact that there is no experimental evidence in favor of ID.
“This Is About ‘Critical Thinking’”
Lots of anti-evolution laws masquerade as big-hearted attempts to teach school children “critical thinking” skills.
However, teaching kids to “weigh the evidence” puts kids in the position of being expected to believe that there is legitimate evidence on both sides, even when there’s not. It also tends to frame the argument as the issue having exactly two sides, even though there are as many creation myths as there are world religions, and there are over 4,200 of those.49
Since there is no scientific evidence for ID, pretending that there is is nothing more than a bald attempt on the part of the ID lobby to gain legitimacy.
In addition, teaching kids to weigh evidence and decide for themselves is rarely done in elementary or middle school, and only sometimes in high school. Yet these anti-evolution laws want to start kids “weighing the evidence” as early as possible.
Isn’t it interesting how these “critical thinking” statutes generally only apply to evolution, and occasionally to global warming, but rarely to anything else? I haven’t heard of any “critical thinking” laws being proposed to require the examination, of, say, quantum theory in physics. Or whether or not the planets actually go around the sun. Or whether or not cutting taxes actually boosts the economy. Or whether or not owning guns actually makes people safer.
There is far better evidence for evolution by natural selection than there is for supply-side economics, yet schoolchildren are expected only to concern themselves with the “evidence” against evolution. In other words, the people pushing these statutes don’t really care about critical thinking at all. They only care about getting their religious ideas pushed into the classroom any way that they can.
“It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect to Be DESIGNED”
Some ID promoters argue that something doesn’t have to be perfect to be designed. However, something doesn’t have to be perfect to be evolved, either, and all the scientific evidence is in favor of evolution.
What’s more, as soon as ID promoters make that argument, they have gone out of the realm of anything that’s testable.
I say that anybody powerful enough to create all the biological organisms on earth certainly ought to have done better than this Designer seems to have done. We’re not talking rocket science, here. We’re talking about things that are really stupid and easily avoidable. For instance, having the two tubes of the throat intersect is criminally bad design, and completely preventable.
The fact that I show other species that got better body parts kills ID all by itself. It means that the Designer would have to be unaware of his own work, yet somehow aware enough to have created all the species on earth. Evolution, by contrast, is an unconscious process. This naturally leads to a wide variety of body parts that may be good, bad, or indifferent.
What’s more, there has been plenty of time for improvement, but obvious fixes have not been done. Even the Young Earth creationists will allow that the earth has been around for at least six thousand years, yet these bad designs have been allowed to persist, rather than being re-engineered in some simple and obvious ways. Even Microsoft could iron out some flaws in six thousand years.
And finally, perfection is the only way to prove design. ID promoters can talk about the design inference all they like, but the rank imperfections in human and other bodies is evidence to the contrary.
Intelligent Design’s Self-Refutation
Intelligent design also has a way of refuting itself. Since it really doesn’t have any idea how the suggested Creator actually works, it has problems with basic coherence. Here are a few of its many problems.
Intelligent Design’s Problem with Extinction
More than 90 percent of all the species that have ever lived on earth are extinct. Why did the Designer make so many forms during the Cambrian period, for instance, only to have them go extinct? Why were they replaced with later forms? Why have mass extinctions taken place repeatedly throughout history? The most famous one is the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, which is the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, as well as many other plants and animals at that time, but it is only one of many. If this Designer is truly intelligent, it is not clear why he would waste all this time and effort. It is also not clear why he would have so much trouble making things work.
Or is the Designer like a kid with a sand castle, who just builds organisms up in order to kick them down and start over?
Intelligent Design’s Problem with New Organisms
Throughout history, both following periods of mass extinction, but at other times as well, new types of organisms have come into being. Does this mean that the Designer shows up on a regular basis, waves his magic wand, and plunks some new organisms down among us? Do ID promoters know his timetable? When do they expect to see him next?
For instance, plants with flowers. They didn’t always exist. In fact, they first started showing up during the Cretaceous period, about 130 million years ago. Before that time, you had ferns, and other plants without flowers. Then flowers came into existence, and many new species developed. Why were flowers invented then, and not sooner? Were flowers added later by the Designer, sort of like cruise control on a car?
What’s more, it’s not all in the ancient past. Every new infectious disease is caused by a new disease-causing organism. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a good example of a new organism. It causes AIDS.
Intelligent Design’s Problem with Transitional Species
Throughout history, there have been organisms that were midway between an earlier species, that had one set of characteristics, and later species that had different ones. Classic examples include Archeopterix, a reptile with teeth, but that had wings like a bird’s wings and feathers, and Tiktaalik, a walking fish that lived about 375 million years ago, and is an intermediate form between fish and amphibians. It even has wrist bones and simple fingers, which are not usual for fish.
How do ID promoters know when something is a new species? What distinguishes it from old species that look a lot like it and appear to be its ancestors? How can they tell newly created species from slight variations in old ones? When is a new feature considered to be a new feature, and when is it just a modification of an earlier feature?
Intelligent Design’s Problem with Being a Theory
A real theory of ID would address and predict how often the Designer creates new species. It would address both mass extinctions and the extinctions of individual species. It would address what a new species is, and how it can be distinguished from species that appear to be its ancestors. It would address what we should expect the Creator to do next. ID promoters have done none of these things. They simply claim that something other than evolution took place, but they won’t say what it is.
Intelligent Design’s Problem with Product Recalls
If the Designer shows up on a regular basis, why doesn’t he do product recalls? We could have been given internal testicles, since they’ve been made compatible with warm body temperature in birds. We could have been given a better birthing system, since the fatality numbers for the current one are so irresponsibly high. We now know that there are better ways of designing all these systems, so why haven’t our old, clearly problematic features been redesigned? Why haven’t we gotten something better? Even Detroit does recalls. Why can’t God?
Intelligent Design’s Answers are Religious Answers
What predictions for the future would ID theory make? When should we next expect to see the Creator, and what would be on his to-do list? And why are our testicles, eyes, and other features so poorly designed, even when there are easy ways to make them better?
The answer most often heard from ID promoters is simple. They say that we cannot know what the Creator has in mind, so no predictions can be made. They also say that we cannot know whether or not our seemingly poorly designed features are somehow better, in some way that we are not equipped to understand. Unfortunately for their claims to being science, this is a religious argument. It boils down to the old saw that “God moves in mysterious ways.”
As a religious argument, this may satisfy some people, at some times. But as a scientific argument, it’s nonexistent. There is no way you could ever make a prediction based on that argument, so it’s not science, plain and simple. As soon as you hear an ID promoter making this argument, remember—they just lost.
49. Kenneth Shouler, The Everything World’s Religions Book: Discover the Beliefs, Traditions, and Cultures of Ancient and Modern Religions, 2nd ed. (Avon MA: Adams Media, 2010), 3.