Nuff said.

If you are open minded enough, there is no need to pit the two against each other. Who is to say evolution is not the process the "designer" chose to use in creating life? I don't find most religious texts i've read to be very specific on the how's of creation, just that we didn't get here by accident and some sort of diety or intelligence made it happen. I don't see why intelligent design couldn't be touched on as a popular theory, but in reality it will always be a matter of faith and as such I don't feel it has any place being taught as fact in a public school science class.

Posted by Trixi If you are open minded enough, there is no need to pit the two against each other. Who is to say evolution is not the process the "designer" chose to use in creating life? I don't find most religious texts i've read to be very specific on the how's of creation, just that we didn't get here by accident and some sort of diety or intelligence made it happen. I don't see why intelligent design couldn't be touched on as a popular theory, but in reality it will always be a matter of faith and as such I don't feel it has any place being taught as fact in a public school science class.

Wow. I didn't even have to say anything! That's what I believe as well, right on the dime. Thanks?

Yep, that about covers it. Thanks Trixi. I'll just add that I am a firm believer in evolution, though I can't discount that evolution is the means of designing life as we know it. However, if I had kids that were being taught ID in science class, I'd yank them out of that school so fast, (insert comedic analogy here).

While I agree that I.D. should not be taught in school (go figure that a Christian would say that) I would argue that there should be a class devoted to the different major theories of the development of life. School should be a place of enlightenment where there are opportunities for students to question the status quo and learn how to make decisions on their own.

Posted by Curious_George While I agree that I.D. should not be taught in school (go figure that a Christian would say that) I would argue that there should be a class devoted to the different major theories of the development of life. School should be a place of enlightenment where there are opportunities for students to question the status quo and learn how to make decisions on their own.

Is I.D. a bona fide theory, or a set of beliefs based on the 2500 year old writings of religious zealots and mystics?

Posted by Curious_George While I agree that I.D. should not be taught in school (go figure that a Christian would say that) I would argue that there should be a class devoted to the different major theories of the development of life. School should be a place of enlightenment where there are opportunities for students to question the status quo and learn how to make decisions on their own.

I agree, but the class should be called "theology", and not be confined to Judeo-Christian teachings. I definitely woulda taken a theology class were it offered at my high school as an elective...Well current me would, not sure that high school me would have had the sense to do so.

Posted by KublaKhan Is I.D. a bona fide theory, or a set of beliefs based on the 2500 year old writings of religious zealots and mystics?

The idea of intelligent design has been around far longer than 2500 years and has been fundamental to nearly every culture and religious tradition. The proponents of ID across time have generally agreed that "there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence." (Dembski. The Design Revolution)

Some of the "zealots and mystics" who have argued for the theory include Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas and (surprise!) Charles Darwin.

Why pit the two against each other? This may sound strange coming from a Christian, but yes I do think that evolution played a part in the formation of the world and all the creatures that now occupy it, however there must have been some force guiding it, hence Intelligent design. The Bible lays out that God created the heavens and the Earth. It does say six days, but that's a modern translation, a direct translation, in reality the term 'days' actually meant periods of time. Old Earth Creationism, is the official term.

So now, God created the Earth, I don't care how he did it, but science does show that all life have evolved over time, so both must be right. Intelligent Evolutionary Design. Do I belive man came from apes...nope, there's no link between the two, and the fact that everything shares common building blocks only continue to prove intelligent design...why re-invent the wheel?

Posted by Axle Do I belive man came from apes...nope, there's no link between the two, and the fact that everything shares common building blocks only continue to prove intelligent design...why re-invent the wheel?

Only the fact that human and chimpanzees DNA are 98.4% (and possibly 99.5%) identical, that human and gorilla DNA is 97.7% identical, with the same percentage for human orangutan.¹
And common building blocks, assuming you are talking about DNA--> RNA--> protein etc, is hardly proof for intelligent design. It only shows that nature is lazy, and will stick to a solution that works, selecting out those that work less efficiently. Besides, no one can prove intelligent design, as religion is based on faith. If religion were based on cold hard fact and proven scientific theory(I use the term, but in no means do I mean to say that ID is a scientific theory), then, by definition, it would no longer be religion.


1. Goodman M et al. "Primate Phylogeny and Classification Elucidated at the Molecular Level," Evolutionary Theory and Practice: Modern Perspectives 193, 207 (S.P. Wasser ed., Kluwer Academic Publishers 1999).

I agree with the direction you are going in, that evolution and intelligent design should not be directly pinned against each other. However, I believe that our evolution, all the way from micro-organisms, came before any intelligent design. Over billions of years, we did develop into ape-like creatures, however, it was intelligent design that ultimately led to our becoming what we are today.

I do not believe that intelligent design came from any 'god' such like the ones described in the various religions; it was some other form of life that recognized the potential of our ancestors and gave us the gift of conscious thought, the one thing that distinguishes us from other animals. Clearly, there must be something else out there that would be capable of giving us this gift; I have never heard a piece of evidence that would lead me to believe otherwise. And just as humans develop our technologies and begin to explore more distant regions of space, so did whatever gave us our conciousness. So it may be that one day, humans will spark the beginning of another civilization on another planet, and we will begin to be regarded as gods.

That is how I explain the missing link of evolution and where intelligent design fits in

Posted by ~pandora~ I do not believe that intelligent design came from any 'god' such like the ones described in the various religions; it was some other form of life that recognized the potential of our ancestors and gave us the gift of conscious thought, the one thing that distinguishes us from other animals.

Are you sure about that?

Posted by KublaKhan Are you sure about that?

Agreed. If you feel that humans are the only ones with conscious thought, and a sense of self, you desperately need to read the book "Drawing the Line," By Steven M. Wise. The author is an animal rights lawyer looking at the case for animals rights from a scientific point of view. Granted, no (known) animal has thought processes on par with ours, but to say that it's an "all or nothing" arrangement is terribly arrogant.*

*Not calling you arrogant, but the human race, and it's anthropocentric dogma in general.

Posted by Noah Vale Agreed. If you feel that humans are the only ones with conscious thought, and a sense of self, you desperately need to read the book "Drawing the Line," By Steven M. Wise. The author is an animal rights lawyer looking at the case for animals rights from a scientific point of view. Granted, no (known) animal has thought processes on par with ours, but to say that it's an "all or nothing" arrangement is terribly arrogant.* *Not calling you arrogant, but the human race, and it's anthropocentric dogma in general.

You are my new Best Friend.

I completely did not mean that animals do not think. I have been around animals my whole life and am as good a person as any to argue that animals are fully capable of communication, thought process etc. What I suppose I mean by 'conscious thought' is that humans are able to take what we are taught, process it, question it, and develop systems by which to advance this knowledge. I may not be explaining this in the best way, but you should be able to see my point. If you do not agree with the way that I am trying to describe the difference between other animals and humans, then please feel free to describe your view.

What I was trying to say in my original point was that the intelligent design part of evolution was humans being given the abilities that we have that distinguish us from other life on earth.

Posted by ~pandora~ I completely did not mean that animals do not think. I have been around animals my whole life and am as good a person as any to argue that animals are fully capable of communication, thought process etc. What I suppose I mean by 'conscious thought' is that humans are able to take what we are taught, process it, question it, and develop systems by which to advance this knowledge. I may not be explaining this in the best way, but you should be able to see my point. If you do not agree with the way that I am trying to describe the difference between other animals and humans, then please feel free to describe your view. What I was trying to say in my original point was that the intelligent design part of evolution was humans being given the abilities that we have that distinguish us from other life on earth.

I follow what you're saying here. It's the humans being given the abilities that we have that distinguish us from other life on earth bit that throws me off.

Given? By whom? Or by what?

Posted by KublaKhan I follow what you're saying here. It's the humans being given the abilities that we have that distinguish us from other life on earth bit that throws me off. Given? By whom? Or by what?

haha, if only I could give a correct answer. Given, blessed with, experimented upon; I don't know. But like I said before, I have never been given any evidence that would suggest that we are alone in this universe. I have also never been given enough evidence to believe that evolution is the only force that put humans in the position we are in today (there is that 'missing link'). So, although I obviously can't provide any 100% answers, I can say that it follows my logic that there must have been something that pushed us along the evolutionary pathway into what we are today.

I think that the being defined by religions as god was whatever *creature/alien/being* that filled that missing link in the theory of evolution. I don't know how, possibly through some sort of enlightenment or experimentation. That's completely beyond me.

I know that last part especially sounds kind of like science-fiction or something, but if someone can directly point out the impossibility of it, please do. Think about it like this: as humans further advance our technology, will we not also begin to explore other places, giving us the power to spark a civilization (be it from scratch or from whatever existing life that we find)?

Posted by ~pandora~ Think about it like this: as humans further advance our technology, will we not ...[have] the power to spark a civilization (be it from scratch or from whatever existing life that we find)?

Cathedrals and steamships and rockets and patent leather shoes...just like that?
That's a pretty giant leap from creating some single-celled amoeba. An entire civilization...?

i wouldn't call billions of years 'just like that'...

Posted by Noah Valehuman and chimpanzees DNA are 98.4% (and possibly 99.5%) identical, that human and gorilla DNA is 97.7% identical, with the same percentage for human orangutan.

Quote anything you want, but I wouldn't believe that I came from a monkey if I were the last person on earth to feel that way.
I believe that God created monkeys, and he created humans, and my life experience affirms this.