A friend emailed me on Friday telling me to go see the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed which had just opened. It sounded interesting so I made a plan to go and see it during the "city day" that honeypot and I had planned and it worked out well because the only theater this movie was playing in the Bay Area was in SF.
We saw the movie and I fell asleep during part of it. That's not to say the content wasn't interesting, and it did actually bring up a couple really good points. Before I continue with the details of the movie, let me ask you a couple questions. First, do you believe in Darwin's theory of evolution? (I do.) Second, do you believe in intelligent design?
The main point of the movie is to show how highly respected scientists who firmly believe in evolution, but merely mention intelligent design are being ostracized by their scientific communities, as if they had stated their belief in creationism. Why is this so ridiculous, well let me explain:
Darwin's theory of evolution begins after the first cell exists on Earth. The theory of evolution is the process of change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. This is how a single cell organism evolved to be you!
The theory of evolution does not deal with how that first cell got there in the first place. Intelligent design is one theory to answer that question. Intelligent design is the idea that something specifically put that first cell on Earth. That could be some smarter (or dumber depending on how you look at the human race on earth currently) life form from another place who used Earth as a big petri dish to see what would happen, or that could be some higher power like God (I know, it's the scary G word), or some other source that doesn't involve randomness.
The prevailing Darwinian scientist's theory as to where that first cell came from are something along the lines of this: somehow some crystal formations caused the first cell to come into existence, or the mud puddle theory (right place, right substances, right conditions created that first cell.) Um, ..crystals, .. or .. um.. mud puddle .. hmmm... There aren't many good origination options here.
Do you see how being an evolutionist and an intelligent design supporter aren't exclusive to each other? You can be both, and I think I am actually both. I really like the alien idea and earth being a big petri dish and of course I believe we evolved from apes.
So the movie demonstrates that there's this ridiculous backlash against anybody that whispers the words intelligent design in a scientific setting. And it's pretty fierce, and not very scientific of people, to shut out this one theory, especially when the "prevailing" origination theories are pretty far fetched, in my opinion.
I'd like to take this moment to point out that creationism is the idea that God created us in our likeness right now. In the theory of creationism, humans didn't evolve from gorillas; this is exactly how God made us. This has no relationship to the movie or intelligent design, but I think many people get Intelligent Design and Creationism confused. They are not really related except that intelligent design and creationism might agree that God created that first cell. That's where the similarities end.
So, to all my scientist friends out there that might want to keep working in science - I would convince yourself that you believe in the crystal formation, or mud pie theory for the origination of that first cell, never mention intelligent design, and you'll be safely employed for the rest of your days. (Or you could buck the system - and come and stay with me in our guest room.)
The movie is worth watching. It's not as amazingly eye opening as some other movies designed to shed light on some issues, but it's well researched and demonstrates how unscientific the scientific community is about this one theory of where that first cell came from.
Thanks Steve! See you at your wedding (w/ my honeypot!)
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4 comments:
I haven't seen the movie, and I fashion myself a scientist, so...
It is true that intelligent design seems innocent enough. It is even somewhat beautiful, but it can't be taken at face value. It is just a cover for pressing religion in science class. From a scientific point of view, it has no merit... You can't prove the existence of God, so you can't begin to prove intelligent design. If it can't be proven, then it has nothing to do with science or science class. Then what does it have to do with? Faith. So keep it out of the schools my tax dollars pay for!
Further, it is a completely unnecessary theory. If you believe in an omnipotent God, then why couldn't God create the laws of physics such that life can form in a mud puddle?
I can't speak for all scientists, but that is why I feel so strongly against intelligent design. It all comes down to keeping religion out of science education.
wooooooow! (I wish you could have heard that, it was a really good one.) Well, alright. What if aliens really did "save themselves" by using earth as a petri dish? It still doesn't seem that far off - especially when you consider the path that us humans are taking. We might get to the point of sending rockets "out there" to give us humans a chance somewhere else. The ultimate in "preserving our species."
The funny thing about this movie was that they made a good point: ID strictly defined does not imply god. But then they interviewed ID advocates, and in my opion they all had some element of belief in something other than science. The movie also did a good job of finding anti-ID scientists that sounded a bit foolish. And Ben Stein was super dry as always.
To counter Billstron somewhat, there is one way that ID could be proven: if a signature was left and we find it. I was talking to Yar about how to save ourselves from impending doom (global warming, the singularity, etc.) and we figured that we should take the shotgun approach and start launching genetic material at all know potentially habitable places, which some other life form my well have done before us. We'd probably send bacteria and other small species to get things started. Maybe a time capsule with some human DNA and others so that we could be recreated Jurassic Park style. To top it off, we might as well splice our names into whatever has the best chance of surviving, and maybe some history about ourselves too if there's room.
The idea that the right conditions existed for the first cells to form might seem far-fetched, but as a mechanism, even genetic evolution could seem pretty far fetched. The idea that all it takes is random mutation, combined with natural selection, to form the wide variety of species on the planet might seem unlikely as well, but we know that it is true.
The idea that the first cells could have come from meteor in space is not intelligent design. You would need another meteor arriving on Earth with some kind of living material to give evidence to that theory, and none has ever been found.
By the way, Intelligent Design implies that there is some other force that created life on Earth and that it was not a random event. They might be trying to downplay that now that there has been such an uproar, but that's what they are presenting. It's being promoted merely to confuse people about the validity of Darwinian evolution. It's not a scientific theory in any way. It has about as much validity as the Flying Spagetti Monster.
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