Intelligent Design is not Creationism

Intelligent Design is pure science and evolution is an excercise of faith. What in the world went wrong?

James L. Butler 4874 NW Skycrest PKWY Portland, OR 97229 503 439 1942

Intelligent Design? We Are The Cylons

I was watching an episode of the excellent space drama, Battlestar Galactica, a few weeks ago when an unexpected and shocking revelation about the theory of Intelligent Design hit me. In this show, the enemy is a machine. But the machine is organic, has emotions, makes mistakes, bleeds, eats and thinks. It is as close to human as something can get without being human. It was during a scene where the emotional similarities were being explored that it hit me. The only significant difference between the humans and the Cylons was that humans designed the first Cylons. The Cylons are a product of Intelligent Design. So if we are a product of Intelligent Design, are we not the machines? And if we are not products of Intelligent Design, then are we not natural beings evolving either by pure chance or under some unknown guidance we might call faith?

So, you are thinking I am some kind of sci-fi nut or atheist out to kill religion or something? Not at all. I am just a regular person that goes about life without getting much involved in debates like Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. But this revelation shocked me. It initially made no sense. How did we get to a point where faith based theory on creation is using a purely scientific concept that someone or something intelligent drew us up on a drafting board, produced us and popped us out on Earth? And the scientific crowd is promoting a concept that requires a certain level of, if not outright full belief in faith that we evolved from lower life forms through natural selection, survival of the fittest and pure luck.

I have pondered on this for weeks and think the creation debate world got turned upside-down by an epidemic of oversimplification. This debate started while I was growing up and originally pitted the new theory of evolution against the traditional faith based belief that God just decided we should be here and thus, here we are. The faith based theory at that point went no further. They did not imply, suggest or even consider saying we were ¡°designed¡±. And why would they? Cars are designed. Ships are designed. Robots are designed. Who in the world would consider anything ¡®designed¡¯ to be remotely human? But over the years as scientific knowledge has grown and its impact on everyday life has become more pervasive, it seems the proponents of faith based creation felt they needed to come up with a sound byte that was more appealing to a technology oriented population. And it could not be more than 2 words long so it would be easy to get in the headlines.

Well, they came up with one using flawed logic. God is intelligent. God created us. Creating is the same as designing. We are creatures of Intelligent Design. Instant slogan. If that is truly the ¡®new¡¯ position of faith based creation, that we were designed, then at what level were we designed? Did our designer first put bits of matter into patterns to make quarks, polarize them and match them up in atoms in such a way that molecules would form, organize molecules so the right chemical reactions would take place to allow life to work, build the DNA strands that would guide the growth of each living thing, etc. etc. etc.? That would certainly be a high intelligence¡¡.building an immensely complicated machine using intelligent design. But would it be¡human? Sorry, but I would call it a Cylon. A machine.

So where does that leave me? Well, I certainly do not believe I am a Cylon. But I find it hard to believe we humans ended up as the dominant species on Earth without some help, guidance and input from a greater intelligence. I believe we are Natural Life Forms, intelligent or otherwise, and anything created through Intelligent Design is an Engineered Life Form, intelligent or otherwise, even if the only distinguishable difference ends up being how the two life forms came into existence.

Do you think you are an ELF or a NLF? Do you think it is an important question? Consider this. We are engineering new life forms right now. We are making ELFs. They are the product of Intelligent Design. Does the level of intelligence make any difference? Are we the Cylons?