Intelligent design is the idea that a complete explanation of the universe requires an intelligent designer. Every cell, every microbe, every being is autonomous and autopoietic, self – organized and free, dynamic and evolving. From ancient times, observers of living organisms had noted that living things display organized structures that give the appearance of having been deliberately arranged or designed for a purpose, for example, the elegant form and protective covering of the coiled nautilus, the interdependent parts of the eye, the interlocking bones, muscles, and feathers of a bird wing. For the most part, observers took these appearances of design as genuine. As Newton wrote in his masterpiece The Opticks: “How came the Bodies of Animals to be contrived with so much Art, and for what ends were their several parts? Was the Eye contrived without Skill in Opticks, and the Ear without Knowledge of Sounds? …
The human body contains a variety of complex systems and organs that together allow us to breathe involuntarily; our hearts beat autonomously pumping blood throughout our circulatory system. Our brain and nervous system are more powerful and complex than any computer made by man, and yet one of the most impressive organs in the human body and a sure sign for design is the human eye. The anatomy and inner-machinations of the eye’s functions are extremely complicated and require a vast system of chemical reactions and interaction with the nervous system in order to produce the spectrum of colour we see and how we perceive the world around us. More specifically, it is even more astounding at how our brain works in tandem with our eyes in order for humans to comprehend the information that our eyes gather. The human body is comprised of an amalgamation of different systems that together make a complex organism that exhibits symmetry and order.
Ryan Whitwam writes in his article “Simulating 1 second of human brain activity takes 82,944 processors” that “It took 40 minutes with the combined muscle of 82,944 processors in K computer to get just 1 second of biological brain processing time. While running, the simulation ate up about 1PB of system memory as each synapse was modelled individually.” (Whitwam) In this article, Whitwam examines the complexities of the human brain and how despite all of the innovation, the human mind could not create an object that could exhibit the powers of the human brain. This point helps support the idea that the human brain and other parts of the body have a designer that is capable of feats that are unfathomable to humans.
For Dembski – one of the leaders of intelligent design, irreducible complexity is a specific case of a more general understanding of how to detect intelligent, as opposed to mere natural, cause: whenever we infer design, we must establish 3 things: contingency, complexity and specification. Contingency ensures that the objecting question is not the result of an automatic and therefore unintelligent process that had no choice in its production.Complexity ensures that the object is not so simple that it can readily be explained by chance. Finally, specification ensures that the object exhibits the type of pattern characteristic of intelligence.
In a recent book, martin Rees, the Royal astronomer of England, identifies 6 numbers that are a recipe for universe. N, for example represents the strength of the forces that hold atoms together divided by the force of gravity between them, this and the other 5 numbers have an unusual property: they are precisely tuned for our universe to be. If any of them were the teeniest bit different, the universe could not have existed and the observers would not be here to talk about them.
The main difference between Education and Indoctrination is that Education is the way of teaching where the mind is free to imagine, to think, to question; whereas, Indoctrination is the way of teaching in which, our minds are forced to believe things or a set of rules without questioning them. Education opens the doors of opportunity, knowledge, and wisdom. On the other hand, Indoctrination puts an end to our thought process and stops us from gaining the knowledge or wisdom.Educating Young Minds is teaching young people to think critically, fighting misinformation and coercive control
According to the theory of evolution blind chance was the design engine that somehow brought about the synthesis of living protein molecules. And then through a long series of fortuitous accidents these protein molecules learned to combine to form more and more complex organisms. After several billion years of trial and error and the survival of the fittest combination of atoms, molecules and cells, human beings emerged as the crowning jewel of this awesome random process.
Intelligent design theory on the other hand states that life at all levels is so unfathomably complex that an intelligent cause is the better explanation of how life came about rather than random mutation and natural selection or evolution. Under both theories the question of design is not the central issue but which creative engine seems more plausible – blind chance or blinding intelligence.
It’s also intellectually dishonest to tell young students that evolution is a scientific fact when there are hundreds of scientists around the world today that believe evolution is impossible and that intelligent design theory makes more intellectual sense. I might add that it is also intellectually dishonest to not inform young people that many of the greatest scientists during the past 500 years such as Newton, Boyle, Kepler, Faraday, Kelvin, Maxwell and Dalton strongly believed in a universe that was designed by an intelligent cause which they called God.
(Author is a lecturer in education department with M.sc in Zoology and M.A in Philosophy
