My cousin writes:
As someone who really loves science (and math), the whole ID issue really irks me. However, I don’t understand why I have never heard anyone simply argue that no one is preventing ID from being taught in churches or at home from those who truly believe it and are “experts” in it. Are the ID proponents saying that what children learn in school is more powerful than what they learn at home and at church? If this is the case, then what does that say about the power of ideas coming from home and church? If ID is so “obvious” and “right”, then why should it have to be taught in school at all? Why can’t the proponents of ID simply tell their children that evolution is just poppycock and that ID is how things really happen? If ID is “the answer”, then such a frank discussion with their children should end the debate right on the spot. Finally, as you point out, it is simply not inconsistent to have evolution and a good foundation of faith — unless, of course, you force yourself to have a quite literal meaning of the bible. Is religion so tenuous that it must rely on such rigidity?
I also don’t understand why no one has brought up the previous arguments about the Earth being the center of the universe and the sun revolving around the Earth that not even ID proponents say is true. How can they be so selective with which facts are “absolute”?
Another line of argument that is a little bit like the “noodly appendage” is the fact that it is certainly quite consistent with all facts for some supernatural being to simply create the universe thousands of years ago (whatever the ID proponents believe is the true age of the universe) and to do so in whatever fashion the bible states and THEN to “start the clock” by setting up everything in the universe as a “snapshot” (i.e. all animals in place, radioactive elements in a certain state of decay, light from distant suns being at certain distances from us, etc.) and to simply go forward from that point with the physical laws that science has since measured. Basically, God is just playing a really big joke on the scientists making it “seem” like the physical laws are immutable when really they are just there so we can have this lovely ID debate!
Yet another line of argument is “The Matrix” line of reasoning where all reality is nothing more than mind control so it’s all arbitrary anyway — another “head fake”.
The irony is that the above arguments could actually be made consistent with whatever science comes up with -- “starting with the desired results and working backward” as Jon Carroll said. Even though this seems quite arbitrary and even stupid, it’s not an argument one can win with someone of faith that believes in ID.Though there isn’t any argument likely to win them over, I think that for consistency anyone who believes, and especially tries to have other people believe, in ID should become like the Amish and get away from using any modern technology since that technology is created by the same scientific principles that created the theory of evolution (that “pesky scientific materialism” as you put it).
