Thursday, October 30, 2008

The "Constitutionality" of Intelligent Design


We recently watched a new movie called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" that was made in documentary style. It was hosted by Ben Stein, the "dry eyes, clear eyes" guy, and was a very interesting movie about the freedoms that we are losing. The vehicle that he used to demonstrate his point was that of the supposed debate between the theory of evolution and that of intelligent design, and how this supposed debate is being handled.

As he goes through the process of making the movie, he speaks with 5 or 6 people who have been fired, or expelled, for saying that it is possible that the creation of life and its progression was through intelligent design. He also speaks with several others who are strong supporters of "Darwinism" and the theory of evolution.

The first thing that I wanted to say about this subject is, "Doesn't Darwinism deny the natural laws of science"? Most scientists would disagree with me on this, and there's a great probability that I'm wrong. I do only have a high school diploma of course, so I'm no where near as educated as these scientists. But I seemed to be under the impression that the second law of thermodynamics says that the entropy of an isolated system which is not in equilibrium will intend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium. What that means in laymans terms is that things left alone in nature turn to chaos.

Take a gallon of water and a little bottle of food coloring for example: The water, when left alone, is at an equilibrium. When the food coloring is added, there is no more equilibrium because all of the food coloring is in one spot. Through diffusion, the food coloring mixes with the water until it reaches equilibrium, and at that point, the entropy is at its maximum for that system. Now that may not seem like chaos, but if we were to look at it from the molecular level, it absolutely is. The molecules of the food coloring will spread out as far as they can from one another to the point that if the system were large enough, you wouldn't see the food coloring at all. The smaller the system, the more apparent the food coloring. This is because each molecule has its own energy and wants to get away from the other molecules that are the same as it is. This is very chaotic.

Does that apply to evolution and the claim of the "Darwinists" that say that there's no possibility of intelligent design? I believe, and of course I could be wrong, that it does. When asked about how life began, many will say "the big bang." Others have other ideas, but the point is that if there were no intelligent design, it would lead to chaos. Let's take the big bang theory for example, we've all heard it in our indoctrinating text books at school: All the matter in the universe was crammed into this tiny space that was possibly smaller than the period on this page and blah blah blah. All of a sudden, the matter expanded and viola, here's the universe. Okay, so somehow, all the land and water on this earth was organized, not to mention other planets, stars, and entire solar systems as well, all somehow in perfect order. That's strange to me. How did they end up in order? According to the laws of science that we can observe, things tend to chaos, to disorder, until the entropy is maxed and equilibrium is reached. So how do we have this perfectly organized universe from a huge explosion?

Let's take that one step further and assume that this really is what happened. How did land seperate from water? Why is it just water, and not hydrochloric acid that fills our oceans? Why is it that we have salt water in the oceans, but somehow, in all of this chaos of creation, we have fresh water in the streams, rivers, and lakes? Shouldn't these elements, atoms, and molocules all have diffused equally and given us some soup of atoms? That's what it was before apparently. How, if things tend toward chaos, did it become so organized? Any homemaker knows that without effort, control, and work, something so small as her house will tend to disorder. Why is the universe different?

I bring this all up to show how impossible these theories really are. And these are just the theories of how the universe came to be, not even mentioning the theories of how LIFE came to be. Think about that, how did it go from completely inorganic material, to organic material? Ben Stein sure got some interesting answers when he asked that in his movie. He was told by one man who was an avid "Darwinist", very well acclaimed, that life somehow started by piggybacking on the back of crystals.... Really? On the back of crystals? At first I thought that he was joking, but then he kept a straight face. How ridiculous? I think that Lex Luther is more correct about his theory of crystals in "Superman Returns"! What makes me really laugh is that he actually said that on screen. Wow. Another "Darwinist" claimed that we were seeded here by some other civilization who had become much more advanced, through evolution of course, than we are, and then we have evolved from a single cell. Interesting. He claims that intelligent design is absurd, and then goes on to say that we were seeded from a different intelligence... hmmm. Am I the idiot here? Why does it seem to me that he just said that the source of creation was from an intelligent.... non-intelligence?

Anyway, it would be unfair for me to say that these are the only theories out there, because I'm sure there are others. Here's what bothers me, and this is the point of Ben Stein's movie, the theory of evolution is taught as truth and fact. As is the theory of the big bang. The simple fact is that they are not facts, because there's no way to prove them. Nevertheless, these are the only things taught in public schools and colleges. In fact, the supreme court declared it unconstitutional to teach creationism in schools, claiming it to be in violation of the first amendment. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GqNxAzaWBo. They say that teaching creationism is against seperation of church and state. Well where does it say that in the first amendment. "Seperation of church and state" wasn't a term until Thomas Jefferson used it to explain to a baptist clergy that the United States was not to have an official religion, hence the "seperation of church and state." The problem is that the theory of evolution is just as much a "religious belief" as any mainstream judeo-christian belief. Incidentally, every other religion that I'm aware of has their own "creation story." So creationism is really not uncostitutional.

The point made in this film is that we are not free to search out answers to science unless it's in the field of evolution, at least not in the curriculum of public schools. As I went through school, that was definitely the case, so unless things have changed, he's absolutely right. The man who said that life was seeded here from another civilization is Richard Dawkins. He wrote a book called "the God Delusion." In this book, he consistently states that it is illogical, unwise, and foolish to believe in God, or any form of a Supreme Being. He says, as do many evolutionists, that it is liberating to deny the existence of a Supreme Being. It's amazing how similar his words are to those spoken by many in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Over thousands of years, their arguments have not gotten any more complex or sophisticated.

The debate is clearly out of one thing, pride. Scientifically, logically, it is much more likely that there is some governing power that created this universe. People seem to deny this out of pride and that is why we get such absurd theories as proteins and such piggybacking on the backs of crystals, or that we were seeded by an alien life form or civilization. These people try to justify their anger and pride, etc, by coming up with these theories. Unfortunately, these are the theories taught to impressionable children, without the understanding that they are not completely accurate. And even worse, it's been declared UNCONSTITUTIONAL to teach anything else.

Anyway, I'm interested in hearing other people's opinions about these topics. Let me know what sort of thoughts you have please. Thanks.


1 comment:

Cheryl Huntington said...

Alex: You are blooming into "the politician" of our family. I appreciate your intelligence and your ability to clearly explain, argue, and debate this issue from various perspectives.

May I suggest that you create two blog sites: one dedicated to subject matters of the political, scientific, and religious; and the other dedicated to family pictures and daily life. I would like to see both.

I am proud of you for your commitment to that which is right and true. I commend you for all that you do and are, and I love you!

Mom
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