Creation and evolution; those two words frequently pop up in discussion of Christianity and usually generate more heat than light.
I’ve just returned from the 2011 Intelligent Design Conference, held at the Elim Conference Centre, in beautiful Malvern. The Centre for Intelligent Design has been putting on various study conferences that have sought to network those engaged in relevant sciences. The September conference, ‘Darwin or Design?’, had the sub-heading ‘Allowing the evidence to speak’. That is part of the problem. The evidence does not get a fair hearing in a culture where questioning evolution is about the only thing still considered blasphemous!
Privileged planet
The three main speakers all questioned the state of contemporary science. Dr. Jay Richards, from the Discovery Institute, will be well known to many readers as the philosopher behind The Privileged Planet book and film. His opening paper engaged with the history of science and demonstrated that the definition of science has changed over the centuries. A lot of contemporary science, we can call it scientism, excludes the possibility of intelligent design behind the universe by declaring that it isn’t proper science. This is a neat way of avoiding having to engage with the evidence and arguments. It is also entirely unscientific!
Professor Chris Shaw from Queen’s University, Belfast, endorsed this observation. Those like Richard Dawkins, who promote this blinkered scientism, are being utterly irrational in their attempt to exclude the intelligent design argument from any discussion. Meanwhile, hard working Christian scientists continue to publish peer-reviewed papers and do important research (by the way, what exactly does Richard Dawkins do?).
Reproduction?
Dr. Geoff Barnard, formerly of Cambridge University, provided two papers giving an example of the hard evidence itself. His research in sexual reproduction gives rise to many critical issues for Darwinian natural selection. Asexual reproduction (as found in many plants) is a superior means of increasing genetic diversity and assisting evolutionary processes. In contrast, sexual reproduction (as found in almost all animals) decreases genetic variation and would tend to slow evolutionary change. So why has evolution favoured sexual reproduction? It takes two to tango and sexual reproduction requires two partners with different, but complementary, mechanisms in order to multiply. Barnard described this as another irreducibly complex and profoundly sophisticated system.
A final paper by Jay Richards on The Privileged Planet presented the awe-inspiring list of factors required for a planet to be able to support complex life. There may be many planets in our vast universe but the position of a planet offering the right conditions in a habitable zone of space is a highly unlikely set of circumstances.
Hostile scientists
So the conference demonstrated examples of evidence for an intelligent designer which can be found at both the microbiological level of complex reproductive systems and the vast scale of interstellar space. No wonder there are hostile scientists trying to define these arguments as non-science!
Many of the delegates were teaching and researching in academic posts and I was intrigued to ask as many as I could their opinion on these issues. Many of those attending would prefer not to be identified as association with the Intelligent Design movement could put their positions at risk (have I just woken up in 1940s Stalinist Russia?).There were two things I noticed. The first was that they held to a variety of views on issues like the age of the earth and the interpretation of Genesis. The second thing I noticed was that a significant number were convinced that the type of Darwinism that has dominated science was not set to last. While Darwin’s ideas will continue to offer an explanation of some aspects of creation, they are not the total explanation that some of his acolytes make them out to be. Even professional scientists in secular institutions believe this present generation may witness the unravelling of scientism. In the meantime, we should make the most of our freedom to present clear, sound and compelling cases for the existence of a supernatural intelligence behind the beautiful, intricate and astonishing universe around us.
You can find out more about the Intelligent Design movement at http://www.c4id.org.uk
Chris is a lecturer in Old Testament and Apologetics, as well as being pastor of Alderholt Evangelical Church, New Forest.
