More than 10 years ago, back in 9th grade, I was in instigator of sorts.
I was raised under the belief that Young Earth Creationism was the way, the truth, and the light. And in biology class I was flustered that my teacher only spent time discussing the theory of evolution.
So, believing that my views were being persecuted by this “evil secularism,” I had voiced my concern to my mom who in turn discussed it with the principal. He in turn spoke with the biology teacher who was asked to carefully explain to the class that we should all keep an open, skeptical mind about all observable phenomenon.
At the time I remember giving her the evil eye and wrote down anything contentious she might say. But to her credit, she was very passionate about teaching the material and was quite accommodating to any questions.
It would take another 4 years before I came around to recognize my own religious-oriented views were short-sighted and just plain wrong and thus, the teacher is certainly one person I’d like to bump into again to discuss my own evolution.
I mention this because the creationist movement recently put together a new film by Ben Stein called Expelled. In watching the preview the audience is left with the impression that there is an evil conspiracy to root academia of religion, deism and alternate creation stories.
Its writers also suggest that there is a huge ideological battle, a methodological rift in the biological sciences — one that natural selection and traditional science is incapable of explaining. Furthermore, Stein et al suggest a super new paradigm called Intelligent Design is more than capable for explaining the natural phenomenon we see today.
While I’ll hold off judgment until I have a chance to see it myself, I would like to point out several germane issues.
First, as the NY Times and millions of blogs noted, the producer of the movie expelled biologist PZ Myers from the public screening of the film, despite the fact that PZ was in the actual movie and had legitimate tickets. Talk about ironic.
Second, as documented by NOVA and heard in the recent Kitzmiller case, intelligent design is nothing more than a repackaged name of creationism. This case allowed the ID movement to showcase its best arguments to the world yet it offers no testable framework and to paraphrase the judge: is religion not science. The 2007 PBS documentary about this issue is concise and to the point, plus it is available for free and can be viewed online: Judgement Day, Intelligent Design on Trial
Third, even the Templeton Foundation, which awards huge monetary awards to researchers to reconcile religion and science has still not received any proposals for actual ID research.
Lastly, several acquaintances refuse to believe transitional fossils exist. So, here are a couple of quick videos showing the various fossils we do know of right now. And if you still aren’t sold on dynamism, the organized church has been around 2000 years — I think it is only fare if we gave paleontologists a few more years to collect more skeletons.
After all, just imagine the early astronomers in the 17th century trying to explain the light-year.
[Note: and as sad as it is to admit, as a teenager I even emphasized that theory of evolution it was "just a theory" -- like it is merely a hunch. That is a dumb argument because the definition of theory in science is different than the way laymen use it. Gravitation is "just" a theory as is pathology and well, every scientific framework. Testability is the key ingredient that evolution has and ID does not.]
See also:
Useless body parts and non-existent designers
How long did it take for the rings to form around Saturn?
Long distance phone calls in outer space
Neo-Creationists Love Neo-Pets
The Other ID: Incompetent Design
Intelligent Falling theory