NY Times Reports on Intelligent Design movement

Creation Science made the front page of the New York Times on recently. Oh . . . did I say Creation Science? Actually the article on the front page of the New York Times was about the Intelligent Design Movement.

Many scientists, academics and intellectuals from a variety of religious backgrounds (or no religious background) have seen that the utter complexity of single-celled organisms could not possibly have come into existence by random processes.

They have come to the conclusion that an "intelligent designer" must have brought life into existence.

They came to this conclusion on the basis of scientific inquiry and without reliance on religious teaching. They have chosen the name "Intelligent Design Theory" to describe their position because terms like "creationism" and "creation science" carry obvious religious connotations.

Prominent among the Intelligent Design theorists is Dr. Michael Behe, professor of biological sciences at Lehigh university in Pennsylvania. Dr. Behe wrote a book called "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution."

In this book Dr. Behe shows the irreducible complexity of single-celled life and that every structure of the cell must come into existence simultaneously for the cell to survive. For example, if a cell nucleus somehow forms accidentally it will die because it doesn't have mitochondria or cytoplasm or cell membrane etc.

Dr. Behe maintains that only an intelligent designer could design and build the immensely complex microscopic structure that comprises a living single-celled organism.

Dr. Behe used the illustration of a mousetrap. A mousetrap consists of a small board, a spring, a bar, a lever, a bait holder and bait. If any part is missing it won't function. It won't perform the simple function of catching a mouse.

Now try to imagine a mousetrap forming randomly in nature. By a bizarre coincidence erosion from an iron deposit yields a steel spring attached to a curved steel bar. this naturally formed mechanism somehow, by blind chance becomes attached to a piece of wood.

Another piece of metal washes up and gets attached to it and acts like a lever to hold the spring open but since there's no bait holder or bait the system cannot catch any mice and the whole thing simply rusts away into oblivion.

A cell nucleus, mitochondria, protoplasm and cell wall are far more complex than any mousetrap. Each of these cellular organs with their unfathomable complexity of proteins, RNA, DNA and other biochemicals must form simultaneously and then be assembled immediately.

For any person to teach that this happened randomly goes beyond the absurd to an almost insane stretch of the imagination.The concept of irreducible complexity is not limited to an analysis of single celled organisms.

Any organ system in any living thing can be seen to be irreducibly complex. The wings of an insect, so exquisitely formed as a miniature flying machine with perfect size, surface area and musculature are useless unless all parts are present and fully formed.

The same applies to the retractable fangs, venom bladder and mouth musculature of a rattlesnake.

Partial assembly of any of the organ systems described above would be disadvantageous to the organisms. Therefore a very large number of favorable genetic mutations must occur simultaneously. This is a statistical impossibility.

Early in the 20th century researchers irradiated fruit flies in order to cause genetic mutations and bring evolutionary change. Fruit flies have short life spans and many generations can be observed in a short period. The radiation only produced deformed fruit flies and the experiment was abandoned.

I chuckle when I read of the excitement at NASA over the recent discovery of the evidence that water once existed on Mars. Some secularists even express faith that life could have formed on Mars because water was there.

Knowing what scientists have discovered about the complexity of "simple" living organisms, any speculation that life could have formed randomly in water on Mars is just wishful thinking on the part of those who reject God as creator.

Dr. Behe has shown through his elucidation of irreducible complexity that life could not have formed randomly. The foundation of Darwinian evolution is therefore totally destroyed. This is just one more proof that there is an intelligent designer of life. This intelligent designer is God.

The evolutionists have no adequate answer to the questions raised by Dr. Behe. The evolutionists don't even have a generally accepted theory as to how a single-celled organism could form by means of a random step-by-step process!

Opposition to evolution has now become scientifically respectable. The real academic issue is not the conflict between evolution and religion but rather the conflict between evolution and science.

Seventeenth century scientist, Francis Bacon, one of the founders of modern science is quoted as saying "A little science takes a man away from God, a little more science brings him back."