Melanie Phillips Takes a Wrong Turn on 'Intelligent Design' Creationism
Science | Sun, May 3, 2009 at 2:11:56 pm PDT
Melanie Phillips has done good work exposing the danger of Islamic militancy in Britain, and I’ve linked many of her articles on the subject here at LGF. She’s also taken a principled stand against Eurofascist groups such as the BNP, who try to gain legitimacy by claiming to be “anti-jihad.”
But she’s simply wrong in this article. Way wrong: Creating An Insult To Intelligence.
She claims that “intelligent design” is: 1) based on science, not religion, and 2) not related to creationism.
Wrong, and wrong again.
If “intelligent design” is really based on science, why have their advocates failed to produce any scientific evidence for that claim, despite millions of dollars worth of funding and years in which to do it? Instead, “intelligent design” proponents spend all their time on public relations. Where are the peer reviewed studies? Where are the experimental proofs that can be duplicated by other scientists? Answer: nonexistent.
As for her claim that “intelligent design” is not based on religion, this is incredibly easy to refute. All we have to do is read the very words of the people who promote ID, starting with the man considered the father of the movement, Phillip E. Johnson:
This [the intelligent design movement] isn’t really, and never has been, a debate about science, it’s about religion and philosophy.
And that’s not the only time Johnson has specifically explained the religious nature of ID. Another quote:
The Intelligent Design movement starts with the recognition that “In the beginning was the Word,” and “In the beginning God created.” Establishing that point isn’t enough, but it is absolutely essential to the rest of the gospel message.
Another ID proponent, William Dembski, also makes the religious intent of “intelligent design” crystal clear in this quote:
Thus, in its relation to Christianity, intelligent design should be viewed as a ground-clearing operation that gets rid of the intellectual rubbish that for generations has kept Christianity from receiving serious consideration.
So there can be absolutely no doubt that Phillips is completely incorrect when she claims there is no religious basis to the ID movement.
Her second claim, that “intelligent design” is not related to creationism, is even more ridiculous. In the Dover trial (which she derides by saying “the court was simply wrong” and biologist Ken Miller’s testimony was “muddled”) the creationist origin of ID was proven, again beyond a shadow of a doubt.
In that trial, the National Center for Science Education obtained a sequential series of drafts for the primary ID textbook titled Of Pandas and People, and discovered that the book had begun its existence as a work of pure young earth creationism. Here’s a video presentation by the NCSE documenting their exposé of this textbook:
I hope that Melanie Phillips is simply uninformed on these subjects, and has been misled by the deceptive propaganda that pours relentlessly out of the anti-evolution Discovery Institute — because I don’t really want to believe she’s being deliberately dishonest.
