"Expelled" Movie Comments (Part 3: What is ID?)

by Bernie Dehler, 5-7-08

One of the biggest points of the movie is that those who have an alternate theory to evolution are being "expelled." What is this alternative to evolution? It is called ID, for Intelligent Design. What is Intelligent Design? The movie essentially defines it as the "hypothesis" that “some things” are intelligently designed and did not come from natural processes.

Does the promoter of ID, the Discovery Institute, want ID taught in schools? Surprisingly, NO! Why is that? I guess because they have no theory to teach. They have no textbook. So instead, what they want to do is "teach the controversy" about evolution. However, please keep in mind that disproving evolution does not equate to proving ID... it only equates to disproving evolution. If you want to prove a competing theory, you have to define it and test it-- which the Discovery Institute hasn't yet done for ID.

For example, did man evolve from an ape-like creature, or was man made from "an intelligent designer?" Some of the founders of Intelligent Design debate it. Michael Behe is one of the founders/fellows of ID and he would argue for the common ancestry. Do you now see how ID is not even defined? As for evolution, it is the ONLY scientific hypothesis that is spelled-out. It essentially says that everything complex is derived from something similar... that goes from the elements (staring with hydrogen), to stars, planets, and all biology.

Intelligent Design simply isn't ready for the classroom. If it was, there would be a textbook (high school or college). At one time, there was a textbook supported by those in Intelligent Design called "Of Pandas and People" but the Discovery Institute no longer suggests it (I was told this personally by Casey Luskin who is at the Discovery Institute; and they don’t list it at their online store with their other materials). Therefore, I have no sympathy for the Intelligent Design movement for being "expelled" since they have no hypothesis to test.

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Series on the movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"
Website: http://www.expelledthemovie.com/

Comments

[Erik John Bertel]

Good point and I posed this very same question to one of the creationists.
What I am looking for is an ID predictive model that describes the functionality and modeling of an ecosystem? Remember, you can't use competition and evolution to describe the changing ecosystem or fluctuating species populations. I bet ya you can't. Yet using the horrible Darwinist and evolutionist's theories we can model the environment and I ask you to reference the classic Wilson & Bossert's Island Biogeography and its modeling of species equilibrium.

What would ID have to say? Wow, this is ecosystem is so complex, forget about understanding this, this had to be an intelligent designer at work. And that's fine but it's not science and you can't do anything with it.

To all of the ID fanboys, do you think this is all esoteric science mumble-jumble and has no relevance in your day to day life? Well, think again when you have that flu shot this fall as scientists playing guessing games regarding the mutating influenza strains that originate from China.

Erik John Bertel
Author of Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot and the MillenniumWriting.com Blog

[Bernie of FreeGoodNews.com]

Erik said: "Good point and I posed this very same question to one of the creationists. What I am looking for is an ID predictive model that describes the functionality and modeling of an ecosystem?"

The only problem with your suggestion is that ID doesn't think the ecosystem is intelligently designed... they probably agree with evolutionists on that. I think for now, ID is just targeting the complexity of microbiology (such as the form and structure of DNA and its code). However, as I wrote above, ID is not clear on exactly what their hypothesis is. "A designer did it." I ask, did what, exactly???

...Bernie