The Issachar Report<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
1 Chronicles <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />12:32
Dennis A. Wright, DMin
 
"God: The Master Builder"
 
"Bush Remarks On 'Intelligent Design' Theory Fuel Debate," read a front-page headline on Wednesday's Washington Post.  President George W. Bush's comment – "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes" – is treated by the Post "as a singular event, an outlandish aside worthy of front-page scrutiny and implied criticism of his simple Christian views," observes George Neumayr, executive editor of The American Spectator.  Note that the president did not recommend that the teaching of Darwinism be banned in public schools, merely that the theory of intelligent design ought to be taught as well.  Bush said, "I think part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought."
 
The Post permits an unnamed scientist in the story to call Intelligent Design "creationism in a cheap tuxedo" and turns to professional secularist Barry Lynn for his estimate of Bush's scientific knowledge.  Bush, says Lynn, is "irresponsible," shows a "low level of understanding of science," and "doesn't understand that [Intelligent Design] is a religious viewpoint and [evolution] is a scientific viewpoint." 
 
Notorious left-winger Bill Press (a political analyst for MSNBC) called Bush's statement an edict that mandated that "Government-sponsored religion should be taught in all public schools."  He then said, "It's an edict you expect from an ayatollah of Iran."  Press went on to label Intelligent Design a "bogus doctrine," a "ridiculous theory," "simply junk science" and "the latest attempt by the American Taliban to force religion into our public schools." 
 
One wonders if Press has taken a cue from Justice William J. Brennan in the 1987 Supreme Court decision that struck down a 1981 Louisiana law that mandated a balanced treatment in teaching evolution and creation in the public schools.  The Court decided that the intent of the law "was clearly to advance the religious viewpoint that a supernatural being created humankind," and therefore violated the First Amendment's prohibition on a government establishment of religion.  In other words, the Court adopted the atheist position that creation is a religious myth.
 
Justice Brennan wrote: "The legislative history documents that the act's primary purpose was to change the science curriculum of public schools in order to provide an advantage to a particular religious doctrine that rejects the factual basis of evolution in its entirety."
 
Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld suggests that no one bothered to remind the learned justice that some of the world's greatest scientists were and are devout Christians, and that it is atheism that is destroying true science, not religion.  Also, Justice Brennan seemed to be totally unaware that an "establishment of religion" meant a state-sanctioned church, such as the Church of England in Great Britain.  Belief in God is not an establishment of religion.  Belief in a supernatural being who created mankind is not an establishment of religion. 
 
Furthermore, there is no factual basis to key tenets of evolutionary theory.  The fossil record shows no intermediary forms of species development.  No scientist has been able to mate a dog with a donkey and get something in between. 
 
What exactly is the Theory of Evolution (which Justice Brennan called a "fact," thus showing the depth of his ignorance)?  Darwin claimed in The Origin of Species (1859) that the thousands of different species of animals, insects and plants that exist on Earth were not the works of a divine creator who made each specie in its present immutable form, as described in Genesis, but are the products of a very long, natural process of development from a kind of primeval slime in which the first living organisms formed spontaneously out of non-living matter through a random process – by accident.  According to Darwin, species continue to change or "evolve," into more complex organisms through a process of natural selection in which nature's harsh conditions permit only the fittest to survive in more adaptable forms. 
 
Several things are wrong with Darwin's theory.  First of all, Pasteur proved that the theory that non-organic matter can transform itself into organic matter was impossible.  Second, the enormous complexity of organic matter precludes accidental creation.  There had to be a designer.  There is now a whole scientific school devoted to the Design Theory.  William A. Dembski's book, Intelligent Design, published in 1999, is the pioneering work that bridges science with theology.  Dembski writes:
 
Intelligent design is three things: a scientific research program that investigates the effects of intelligent causes; an intellectual movement that challenges Darwinism and its naturalistic legacy; and a way of understanding divine action ... 
 
It was Darwin's expulsion of design from biology that made possible the triumph of naturalism in Western culture.  So, too, it will be intelligent design's restatement of design within biology that will be the undoing of naturalism in Western culture. 
 
Using expert sources to advance their own assertions as usual, the Post declares that, "much of the scientific establishment says that intelligent design is not a tested scientific theory but a cleverly marketed effort to introduce religious – especially Christian – thinking to students.  Opponents say that church groups and other interest groups are pursuing political channels instead of first building support through traditional scientific review."  In other words, Intelligent Design scientists haven't gotten their tickets stamped by Darwinian scientists!
 
David Limbaugh accurately observes that the defensiveness of Darwinists "toward challenges to their dogma is inexplicable unless you understand their attitude as springing from a worldview steeped in strong, secular predispositions that must be guarded with a blind religious fervor."  It appears many Darwinists are guilty of precisely that of which they accuse Intelligent Design proponents: having a set of preconceived assumptions that taint their scientific objectivity.  Consider the words of Darwinist Richard Lewontin of Harvard.  "Our willingness," confessed Lewontin, "to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to understanding the real struggle between science and the supernatural.  We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for the unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism ...  materialism is absolute for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door."
 
"So is God the real bogeyman for some Darwinists?" asks Limbaugh.  "Is that why they fight to suppress any theory, like Intelligent Design, they fear might allow God's 'foot in the door'?"  Is the acknowledgment of the existence of God is too nightmarish for Darwinists to contemplate?
 
Finally, it should be pointed out that Intelligent Design is fundamentally science-based.  The fact that scientific inquiry leads certain scientists toward a conclusion compatible with the Judeo-Christian worldview – that intelligent causes were behind the creation of the universe and life – does not disqualify them as scientists any more than the militant secularism of many Darwinists disqualifies them.  Nor does Intelligent Design's compatibility with the Judeo-Christian worldview require that it be classified as religious rather than scientific. 
 
But no amount of protest and name-calling from the scientific community will change the fact that Intelligent Design proponents are not pseudo-scientists.  When you consider that Intelligent Designer theoreticians have published their findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals, in formidable academic presses such as those of Cambridge University and the University of Chicago, the denunciations of the Darwinists start to sound like a worried defense of status more than a disinterested search for truth.  The fact is that there are over 400 scientists from all disciplines that have signed onto a list of those expressing skepticism "of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life."  And that list is growing, despite the persecution of some signers since they signed it. 
 
As one recent signatory, the prestigious Russian biologist Vladimir L. Voeikov said, "The ideology and philosophy of neo-Darwinism, which is sold by its adepts as a scientific theoretical foundation of biology, seriously hampers the development of science and hides from students the field's real problems."
 
The fool says in his heart, "There is no God"  (Psalm 14:1).
 
 
Dennis A. Wright, DMin, is Founder and President of Understanding The Times Ministries.  An accomplished writer and educator, Wright has spoken in churches and conferences all over America on spiritual counterfeits and Christian Worldview topics.  He can be emailed at [email protected] and his new website can be found at www.UnderstandingTheTimes.org.