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How It All Began—Did It “Just Happen”?

PEOPLE have different ideas as to how humans and other living things that exist today began. Likely, you were taught some of these in school. When Darwin published his book The Origin of Species 150 years ago, life seemed simple. Scientists thought that the cell was so simple that it might just spontaneously bubble up from sea mud. But since then, science has discovered that cells are enormously complex, much more complex than the machinery of our 21st-century world. That functional complexity bespeaks purposeful design.However, his theory of evolution and its modern variations have recently come under attack from those who believe that the marvelously fine-tuned architecture of living organisms indicates purposeful design. Even a number of scientists with solid credentials do not accept the idea that evolution accounts for the array of species we see on earth. Some such scientists offer a counterargument—known as intelligent design, or ID—asserting that design in creation is firmly supported by biology, mathematics, and common sense. They seek to include discussion of this idea in the science curriculum in schools. The so-called evolution wars are raging mainly in the United States, but similar trends are reported in England, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Serbia, and Turkey. Would accepting the existence of a superhuman designer hamper scientific and intellectual progress? Is an intelligent designer called for only when no other explanation is offered? And does it really make sense to infer from the design that there is a designer?

Public Comments

1. There is no designer. Random mutations and natural selection have directed evolution into what we see today... If there were an intelligent designer then would he be made obsolete when we develop life on our own?
2. Science is supposed to search for facts and the truth, - unbiased as to where ever it might lead. But some scientist consider that breaching the natural realm and recognizing the super-natural realm will diminish all their natural claims to-date. It's a handicap of these types of people. They're rowing the boat with one oar.
3. Science is the search for facts and we cannot live without facts. If the nonreligious approaches to cosmic reality presume to challenge the certainty of faith on the grounds of its unproved status, then the spirit experiencer can likewise resort to the dogmatic challenge of the facts of science and the beliefs of philosophy on the grounds that they are likewise unproved; they are likewise experiences in the consciousness of the scientist or the philosopher. Science is the source of facts, and mind cannot operate without facts. They are the building blocks in the construction of wisdom which are cemented together by life experience. Man can find the love of God without facts, and man can discover the laws of God without love, but man can never begin to appreciate the infinite symmetry, the supernal harmony, the exquisite repleteness of the all-inclusive nature of the First Source and Center until he has found divine law and divine love and has experientially unified these in his own evolving cosmic philosophy.
4. I think the final interview in "Expelled" makes a really good point. If the earth was seeded by aliens... we would be remiss to not look into Intelligent Design theories. Right? I just cannot accept evolution myself, ever since I first heard about it in 7th grade. It doesn't work, the more I learn the worse it gets.
5. "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth." (Genesis 1:1)
6. "Scientists thought that the cell was so simple that it might just spontaneously bubble up from sea mud." Bull. You just made that up. Besides... 1 - The fact that life is so complex argues AGAINST an intentional designer, not for one. Life is, in fact, far too complex to have been the product of intentional design processes. As we now see, simple nonintentional processes are capable of producing complex results where intentionality fails. 2 - The "intentional design" claim begs the question. It doesn't explain anything at all, obviously, since the question simply becomes "how did the designer come about?". Your post is probably cut-and-pasted from somewhere. The author is simply not very bright or very honest.
7. "an intelligent designer called for only when no other explanation " No. If there is no other explanation, you say "We dont know, still working on it" Saying GodDidIt, is not an answer. You would need a little something called evidence, else it is no more credible an answer than scooby doo did it. "make sense to infer from the design that there is a designer" NO, first off, now you must explain the "designer". Where did it come from? When did it come into existance? Who "Designed" it? What is it? As you see you have answered nothing. Infact, since such a designer would be EXTEMELY complex, you have just imploded your argument.
8. This was recently argued in a court of law.In a court of law,the scientific value of ID was found to be so insufficient,so morally bankrupt,that schools were not to even give it the dignity of the sticker they were reduced to crying for.A sticker that read "evolution is only a theory"The evidence has been presented,in a court of law,and found to be nil.There is no designer,there is no ID theory,just basically a hodgepodge of perceived flaws in TOE,nothing at all to support their theory.It has been decided,and rightly so
9. I don't know if it'll hamper progress all that much actually. Intelligent design should be considered a lot sooner though, not as a last resort. To me, it makes prefect sense that things like cells, nature, and humans are all created by intelligent design.
10. No one knows what happened at the first instant of time and space. Physicists have discovered the most likely scenario and are able to describe the universe as it existed a few milliseconds after creation, or the Big Bang, but no one knows precisely how the universe began. And therein lies religion. Religion of one sort or another has always been the explanation of the unexplainable. Unfortunately, religion is so habitual, or perhaps geneticly ingrained in mankind, that it is hard to let go of even when facts show it to be incorrect or untrue. Such is the case with Creationism. Contrary to your second paragraph, few legitimate scientists believe in Biblical Creationism, that God created the universe ("Intelligent Design" is simply a euphemism created by evangelicals to make it sound scientific and like a legitimate field of study). Any scientist would be laughed out of his career if he published a paper that attempted to present a proof for a God-created universe, or an Earth that was created according to anything even remotely resembling the story in Genesis. The same is true for any "scientific" paper that purported to offer a proof that the universe was "designed" by a "supreme intelligence," or God, or any other supernatural entity. Of course that does not mean that God does not exist, or that He did not initiate the Big Bang. But if so, that is an unproven and unprovable fact and is therefore outside the realm of science. "Intelligent design" (ie, creationism) is not "an alternative theory," in the scientific sense, as evangelicals would have us believe. One cannot choose their own version of the truth. Creationism is no more an "alternative theory" as to the beginning of the universe, Earth, or mankind, than Astrology or "stellar spheres" is an alternative theory to astronomy, or faith healing is an alternative theory to medical science. None of these pseudo-sciences has a place in a legitimate science class.