How can the Ohio Board of Education argue against the intelligent design hypothesis? The second draft of their grade-by-grade revised science standards, released earlier this week, continues to condemn the possibility that life could only be the creation of an intelligent being. The Board remains locked on a conservative, narrow-minded, and inconclusive theory published by Charles Darwin nearly a century and a half past.
The Darwinian model claims evolution occurred by random mutation and selective design. Simply put, the physical and mental characteristics that most benefited creatures in adapting to their environments were genetically passed on in greater numbers than characteristics that failed to provide strength and security to weaker members of the tribe. Darwinians say the combination of these beneficial characteristics through generations of offspring actually changed creatures into entirely different species than their ancestors. They prophesize apes became humans; fish learned to live on land; and single-cell organisms split into dual-cell organisms.
The theory, however, cannot conclusively prove every detail of evolution. Scientists never found a single intermediate fossil between species, or the so-called ‘missing link,’ despite their attempts to classify countless bone fragments with the billions of creatures that lived on Earth. Years of scientific confirmation still fails to explain each unique evolutionary course for thousands of species, including such significant developments as the bombardier beetles’ defense mechanism of firing boiling-hot toxic gases from its posterior or how a lone breed of fish, now extinct, developed the inner-ear canal.
This 150-year-old theory cannot even ascribe the simple origin of microscopic DNA, the molecular code of chemical bases that form the building blocks of life itself. Certainly any worthwhile scientific theory in the 21st century should be able to identify and prove the existence of all life forms during Earth’s four billion years.
Any good scientist will tell you questionable theories like Darwin’s are often enlightened by the most revolutionary hypothesis. The intelligent design hypothesis is so innovative that not a single scientific paper was published on it in a peer-reviewed journal during the 20th century.
The idea that the massively complex balance of food chains, animal hierarchies, gravitational planetary fields, and other cosmic forces in the universe must be the handiwork of an intellectually superior being has only recently come to light. We can only imagine the scientific advancements that would have occurred in biology, not to mention its implications for astronomy and geology as well, if someone had suggested this ‘intelligent being’ concept during the Reformation.
The intelligent design hypothesis simply fills the tremendous gaps in Darwin’s evolutionary theory with a single, open-ended, unifying force.
The progression from single-celled organisms to complex human physical, mental, and social characteristics could have been caused by meteorite particles shed on our planet, manipulation by advanced alien races, a mysterious life-force that entwines all energy and matter, or the benevolent hand of a merciful deity. While intelligent design proponents admit they have no physcial scientific evidence to support these claims, they simply hope Ohio science students will be given the freedom to thoroughly examine all these plausable alternatives in the classroom.
The political agendas of groups such as the National Science Teachers Association and the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, however, continue to crucify the intelligent design curriculum components. Similar groups were successful in converting members of the Kansas Board of Education in recent years, following the brief rejection of national science standards on evolutionary theory. As educated members of society, we should dismiss these liberal agendas of organized labor and right-wing media outlets.
We must follow the example of President George W. Bush, who according to BBC News, proclaimed during the presidential election campaign “on this issue of evolution … the verdict is still out on how God created the Earth.”
How can anyone argue with that kind of scientific logic?
Andronic P. Orosan is a senior in English. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
