Intelligent Design & the Myth of Unified Belief

I found a very interesting website on Intelligent design today. It's a beautiful site that is well organized and written. Unfortunately, like almost all intelligent design "theory", the arguments focus on attacking the “holes” in evolutionary theory and highlighting the back end of bacteria - an approach I find both hilarious and interesting.

First, let's review just what the scientific method is. It’s been a while for me as well so I surfed online and found the simplest, most rational explanation.
Scientific Method
1. Observe some aspect of the universe.
2. Invent a tentative description - called a hypothesis - that is consistent with what you have observed.
3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.
4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.
When consistency is obtained the hypothesis becomes a theory and provides a coherent set of propositions which explain a class of phenomena. A theory is then a framework within which observations are explained and predictions are made.

Okay so that is how a theory is born or, evolves from a hypothesis. Personally I call any wack job idea that pops into my head a theory and am taking responsibility for my part in the evolution of the intelligent design fiasco. What you’ll notice though is that a theory is different from a criticism. In other words, you can’t say “Germs are really demons because the bible tells me so” (no I didn't make that up) and then publish your “Tiny Demon Theory” in scientific journals. There are actual steps involved in the scientific method to follow before you can call your wacky ideas theories.

Not so for intelligent design; which doesn’t exist as an agreeable hypothesis because its own proponents can’t agree on whether the earth is young or old, flat or round, geo or heliocentric, and whether or not minor evolution occurs or God created everything as it is right now. Intelligent designers can only agree that evolution is wrong – that’s it. They wave their bacterial flagellum argument about and somehow have the audacity to put the burden of proof on evolutionists to ‘predict evolution in a species’ in the same breath.

This is insane.

Intelligent designers maintain that “irreducibly complex” systems like eyes or bacterial flagellum could not have evolved since “Half an eye [or flagellum] is useless”. This is reminiscent of the “Homosexuality is not natural” argument that conveniently ignores all of the examples of homosexuality in nature. Half an eye seems to be useful to algae and bacteria that run to or from light to escape predation or search for food and are no more then “lensless, nerveless cluster of pigments and proteins – Finding Darwin’s God, Kenneth R. Miller.”

Secondly, the theological shuriken thrown against evolutionists for their failure to “predict” that evolution occurs is sitting right under the piously closed eyes of the faithful. We (read: medical community) are having a hell of a time with resistant strains of bacteria that have evolved resistance against antibiotics. This is perfect example of natural selection since antibiotics kill all the bacteria susceptible to them and only leave the bacteria that aren’t susceptible alive. Those bacteria left alive then spread their resistant genes to succeeding generations and Shazaam! We’ve got vancomycin resistant enterococcus.

Personally, I think dogmatic Darwinism is just as obnoxious as religious dogma. I think there are phenomena that aren’t replicable in a laboratory and that we have a lot to learn about everything. But I shudder to imagine a future where scientific investigation ends with a “Whoop, there it is!” from intelligent designers in a laboratory that doubles as a revival tent.

Creationists need to put their theological shuriken away and create some proof that God has or is creating new species from thin air. Or, better yet, let us know if the earth is young or old, flat or round, or come up with something vaguely resembling a unified attempt at specificity.