Claim CI402:
Due to their preconceptions and bias for materialism, evolutionists have
blinded themselves to seeing design.
Response:
- This claim is nothing more than an excuse that design theorists use to
try to explain away their own failure to make their case. When someone
proposes a new scientific theory, it is that person's responsibility to
make a case for it. Scientific theories have, in the past, achieved
wide acceptance despite strong cultural and scientific resistance.
(Evolution itself is an example.) If there is substance to ID theory,
its proponents must make it clear.
- People who study evolution come from a variety of cultural
backgrounds. Many of them are far from committed to materialism. Some
students enter the field hoping to challenge existing dogmas, and
objectively detecting design in life would certainly accomplish that.
If there were anything to ID theory, there should be more than enough
biologists to help the design theorists make their case.
- To all appearances, design theorists have blinded themselves to
seeing flaws in their theories. Their religious motivation is
obvious. Just as important, they do not follow the usual scientific
procedure of testing their ideas.
A scientific theory is tested by subjecting it to a very real chance of
falsification. Scientists make specific predictions based on the
theory, look to see if the predictions pan out, and consider the theory
false if the results cannot fit what was expected. Intelligent design
theorists, unlike evolutionary scientists, do
not put their
ideas to such risks. Apparently, they do not want their ideas at risk.
- Design theory is older than Darwin's theory of evolution. Design
theory has nothing but its own lack of worth to blame for its failure.
created 2003-6-23
