Intelligent Design vs. Evolution Arguing

Intelligent Design vs. Evolution

Arguing for Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design (ID) is a process that advocates believe explains the features of the universe. In the theory of ID, the features of the universe had to have been created by an intelligent source, "…not [by] an undirected process such as natural selection," according to the Center for Science & Culture. By analyzing the components of a system, a scientist can theorize as to whether the "natural structures" seen in the universe are the product of natural law, pure chance, or intelligent design -- or perhaps a combination of all three. Scientists working with the ID theory are always searching for objects that have similar properties as other objects found that do indeed provide information on their intelligent origins.

Unlike creationism, ID does not claim that "…modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural"; and moreover, the "scientific method" known as intelligent design involves observations, hypothesis, experiments and conclusions, like any other scientific method of research (Discovery Institute).

There can be no argument to negate ID when observing the eye of a snapping turtle for example; the turtle's eye could not have evolved in a "stepwise fashion" because it is made of several interacting parts, and removing one part among the several would "cause the entire system to cease functioning" (Discovery Institute). The eye of the turtle must have been created at one time. As for the Cambrian explosion 530 million years ago, there was a sudden appearance of biological diversity that could not possibly have appeared in a step-by-step process such as Darwin described. For example, the predatory Anomalocaris (a large, aggressive shrimp-like creature) appeared (according to fossil records) in a very short time frame. How can evolutionists explain the sudden appearance of the Anomalocaris?

Arguing for Evolution

First of all, with regard to the eye of the snapping turtle, and other vertebrates, Don Prothero, a paleontologist at Occidental College and an author of books on evolution, claims there have been "multiple, well-documented" empirical research papers that show how "complex structures like the eye can evolve in gradual steps" (National Geographic). It has been shown that from a very simple spot that is an eye -- "barely a light receptor" -- all the way up the evolutionary chain to a human eye's present day sophistication.

As to the argument that the ID advocates make that the during the "Cambrian explosion" there suddenly appeared these species with "unprecedented complexity" -- in point of fact that so-called "explosion" during the Cambrian epoch took three billion years. There are fossil records to prove that the Cambrian epoch was in fact a "slow fuse" and not a sudden eruption of new life on the planet. There are fossils of microscopic, soft-bodied things that have been dated as pre-Cambrian; hence, with the fossils and carbon dating science showing exactly what happened during and before the Cambrian epoch, early life evolves from simpler things to far more complex things, according to Prothero.

Intelligent design advocates argue that bacteria called flagella -- each flagella is composed of dozens of very complex but interconnected protein parts -- is so amazingly complex that gradual evolution would not be possible. But the evolutionary reality is that scientists long ago put together the actual intermediate steps that led to the bacterial flagellum, and this "has been documented at great length" but the ID people ignore the facts, Prothero asserts.