Recently, an American Judge dubbed "Intelligent Design" (ID) as "a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism and not a scientific theory", and hence, not suitable for teaching in schools. This judgment resurrected, though unwittingly, people's clamor for ID once again. People in Europe are, today, "seeking to have Intelligent Design and criticism of Darwinism taught in science lessons."
ID is, of course, not a new concept for it goes back to Descartes and even beyond. In 1802, William Paley—a well-known theologian—proposed an analogy: If a man while walking on a heath, finds a pocket watch, he, looking at the intricate and complex timepiece, is sure to infer that it was a product of a great designer. Taking the lead from it, some have argued that the natural world being more irreducibly complex than the watch, is a product of a designer—God.
However
with Charles Darwin publishing his book—Origin of
Species—people started believing that evolution by
natural selection is the force behind nature's complexity
and diversity. All have, of course, not accepted Darwin's
theory of evolution, for some scientists have averred that
"natural selection can only choose among systems that
are already working" and, hence, believe that Darwinian
mechanisms in no way could have shaped the complex systems
found in the living cells. |
