A New Day, Some New Science

Move over, Darwin. Intelligent Design has arrived, and it's time to welcome the new kid to town.

"In the future, everyone will be entitled to 15 minutes of fame." artist Andy Warhol.

Darwinism - the notion that all species of plants and animals evolved from earlier forms, and that a blind process, natural selection, determines which forms survive - has had a grip on intellectual culture for 150 years.

Now advocates of a relatively new way of thinking about the origins of life say it's long past the time for the dead Charles Darwin (and adherents of his dying theory) to realize their 15 minutes are up and welcome a new kid to town. It's called Intelligent Design (ID) - the idea that the intricacies of life are too complex to have merely happened randomly. To coin a bromide - "ID is a theory whose time has finally come."

Indeed, you can tell ID has "arrived" because, in the last couple of years, the theory has made a major splash as state and local school boards have debated whether to allow students to learn about ID and other alternatives to Darwin's theory of evolution.

You can also tell because some top academics are publishing articles in top scientific journals about it.

But perhaps the best sign that ID has "made the big time" - pro-ID videos are being shown on television. Even public television.

Since May, "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" has aired on more than a dozen major PBS affiliates. Publicly funded TV stations in Miami, Baltimore, Cleveland, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, have shown thousands of viewers the Focus on the Family/Illustra Media video, which makes a positive case for Intelligent Design theory.

It's a milestone, according to Dr. Mark Hartwig, worldview analyst at Focus on the Family. It's almost a miracle that the film, which explores the discovery of some of the amazingly intricate complexities that are present in the cell, even made it to public TV.

"Evolution has basically been the official religion of PBS," Hartwig said. "To see them allowing 'heretics' in the 'pulpit' is a remarkable thing."

For Dr. Stephen Meyer, director and senior fellow of the Center for Science and Culture at Seattle's Discovery Institute, the TV airings are signs of a larger trend - the growing acceptance of Intelligent Design as a scientific theory at the same time serious cracks in the edifice of Darwinism are beginning to show up.

"We've been really delighted by this development, because PBS reflects the consensus in the scientific world," Meyer said. "For many, many years, it has aired mainly programs that promote a Darwinian evolutionary point of view."

Added Hartwig: "What I'm hoping is that this is a sign that the people are beginning to take what I call a 'truly liberal attitude' towards ID, and that is: 'If there's a substantive case to be made here (against evolutionism), let's air it.' "

The case against Darwinism - and for ID - is substantive and substantial. Hartwig and Meyer say academic philosophers and scientists are beginning to publish books with major academic publishers and articles in major scientific journals questioning some of the presuppositions of Darwinism.

"The debate about Darwinism - and the debate about Intelligent Design - is being validated at a very high level of academic discourse, and it's getting very difficult to ignore," Meyer said. "Most biologists have defended Darwinism as a 'well-supported theory,' and many of the scientists who are a part of the Intelligent Design movement are challenging that idea, and in fact many who aren't a part of the movement are critiquing various elements of Darwinian theory."

Hartwig and Meyer are reluctant to publicize the names of pro-ID scientists and the academic journals publishing their research, for fear that Darwinists may exert pressure to try to squelch the studies.

There is absolutely no doubt, however, that ID is making inroads in local and state school districts where, Hartwig maintains, it is blowing Darwinism "out of the water."

Credit belongs not only to the openness of school board members, but to the compelling messages contained in "Unlocking the Mystery of Life," and a companion video called "Icons of Evolution."

Jim Fitzgerald, president of Coldwater Media, which produced "Icons" in association with Focus on the Family, said thanks to the passage of the No Child Left Behind education reform law, every state will have an opportunity to reevaluate its science standards over the next four or five years.

• In Ohio, a decision was made last December by a nearly unanimous vote of the Ohio Board of Education to require students to critically analyze key aspects of criticism of Darwinian theory.

"Additionally, though the state board did not mandate the teaching of Intelligent Design, many of the board members made it clear they understood that there was a local option for individual teachers to discuss with their students alternative theories to Darwinism," Meyer said.

• In the Cobb County (Ga.) school district, which encompasses greater Atlanta, the school board passed a "Teach the Controversy" proposal recognizing that there are scientists on both sides of the evolution issue, and students need to know the arguments from both the perspective that favors Darwinism and the critique of it, as well.

"Icons of Evolution," by the way, was broadcast on local commercial TV stations in Ohio before the state school board voted.

"We have also had a number of people approach their local cable companies asking them to show the video," Fitzgerald said. "One (unidentified) gentleman in Georgia got the video into 350,000 homes. And he bought radio advertising time to let people know when it was going to be shown."

What's the science behind ID's momentum? According to Meyer, "New discoveries in fields like palentology and molecular and cell biology are putting Darwinism under such intense pressure, it will not survive."

"In fact, we've learned a lot about biology since the Civil War - that's really how long it's been since the theory came into being," Meyer said. "I don't think much of biology fits with Darwinian theory. We're learning that life is much more complex than people imagined when Darwinian theory was first being formulated. That has created challenges to the Darwinian explanation of where we came from."

Perhaps the best way to understand the complexity argument is to consider DNA, the building block of human life, which ID adherents say could not have simply "developed" randomly.

"Bill Gates, the computer guru behind Microsoft, has compared DNA to a computer program," Meyer said, "only much more complex than anything we've ever created. We ask people to reflect about that. Bill Gates hires computer programmers to design his software. If there is, effectively, software in the cell, that is powerfully suggestive evidence that there must have been a 'programmer' - an intelligent designer of life itself."

In the end, the job is simply to boldly go where no non-Darwinist theory has ever gone before. The idea that their case is finding listeners and people willing to consider the truth about origins - whether from television, academic discussions or in public school classrooms - simply delights ID adherents.

"Darwinism still has sway in some quarters, but that won't always be the case," Hartwig said, "It's basically a new day. It may still be morning, but it's definitely a new day."

FOR MORE INFORMATION
1. The two videos "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" and "Icons of Evolution" are available from Focus on the Family as part of a video set, "The Evolution Set."

2. For information on Intelligent Design, please see the Discovery Institute Web site.

3. The video "Icons of Evolution" is available for placement on local cable TV systems, or local broadcast stations," free of charges - if you meet certain modest restrictions. Jim Fitzgerald, president of Coldwater Media, producer of "Icons of Evolution," said he anyone interested only needs to call (719) 488-8670 to obtain advance permission and let him know of their plans.

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