Evolution v/s Intelligent Design
by Paras ChopraThis is a battle, not a battle between two groups but a battle between a purely scientific theory and a theory which is purely based on the hypothesis which says that complexity needs some intelligent designer. Since I am religiously dedicated to my god which is evolution, expect the article to be biased towards logic and correctness instead of intuition and baselessness.
To comprehend why this conflict between evolution and intelligent design arises, you need to consider the complexity of biology. The nature, today, is full of all sorts of creative things. The topmost being our own intelligence (which incidentally powers the people who support intelligent design). The other wonderful inventions of nature include multicellularity, eyesight, photosynthesis, etc. See http://www.newscientist.com/popuparticle.ns?id=in80 for more details.
All people would agree that these inventions by nature are indeed complex and creative, but a few among them can’t digest the idea that these were evolved, instead of being designed. They have a theory that all the life of earth has been designed by some intelligent being. They don’t know who he is or even how was he himself created but just that the life was designed by someone. They try to use seemingly scientific terminology such as “irreducible complexity”, which is nothing but way to say that since things work in collaboration, there could be no way the evolution could have made them simultaneously.
Why can’t processes evolve simultaneously? Does the argument involving “irreducible complexity” worthy enough of attention? See http://www.physorg.com/news64046019.html for more details. Scientists have evolved (in silico) a molecular system involving two processes working in tandem with each other. This neatly proves that “irreducible complexity” is nothing but a buzzword.
People usually underestimate the power of evolution. From crude carbon-compounds to the intelligent beings known as Homo sapiens, evolution has done an incredible job. The engineers and scientists are realizing that the nature is full of surprises and inspirations. Even if there were an intelligent designer, how could he manage to stay out of the evolution process itself? An intelligent designer would have perished under such a huge selective pressure to create diverse bunch of species, each perfectly made for its niche.
In conclusion, I say that evolution is not such a lowly theory to be compared with such unintelligent theories such as intelligent design. It is much higher of any of these theories. Evolution is one great theory which is pure as ever and holds great respect from the ones who matter.
More to read:
1. http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html
2. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/evolution.html
3. http://www.ideacenter.org/
June 2006, Jeev
http://www.dce.edu/jeev
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.