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April 10, 2005
Unlocking Mysteries
Today T and I finally got around to watching the video Unlocking the Mystery of Life, a video about Intelligent Design (yes, this is the one I made mention to back in January.
What I found, was that this video tried very hard to come off a scientific. They had interviews with various scientists and university faculty members, had detailed scientific explanations of cellular interactions, and lots of computer generated illustrations. It also had a straw-man argument against evolution: Darwinian theory on natural selection can't account for the complexities of sub-cellular interactions or the origin of life, therefore life is a result of ID.
It disappointed me that the only opposing arguments presented were quotes taken directly from Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) (read in an exaggerated old-British-man's accent), and not from modern-day evolutionary scientists. It also disappointed me that the cornerstone of their argument seemed to be, anything too complex to understand must be designed.
I felt the video purposely misused the term "natural selection" (implying it applies to non-living phenomena), overused used terms like "machines" (when describing cell functions), and made abundant references to computers (even using a Bill Gates quote to imply DNA, like a computer program, requires design).
This video didn't change my mind about ID, but after talking to T, I did change my mind about ID and public schools. Topics like this, since they have such support in the US, could be introduced in a social studies class. However, just because it is an opposing view to scientific theory, does not make it science, and thus does not belong in science class.
Comments
I came across the following link last week and found it wholy entertaining:
http://www.answers.org/apologetics/contradictions.html
There are some very interesting arguments on both sides out there; however it is unfortunate that the "Internet Age" has allowed for the propogation of such tripe.
Posted by: mark at April 11, 2005 6:20 AM