Intelligent Design?

I read in the Tucson Weekly an article entitled, “Evolution Revolution,” by Deidre Pike. What I got out of the article was there is yet another challenge to evolution and the Christian fundamentalist would like to have this idea of intelligent design taught as part of a school’s science curriculum.

When I read the article, my first thought was, what is the difference between this idea of the universe being created by an intelligent designer and it being created by the biblical God? From what I understand as the difference, the intelligent design idea, as Dembski expressed, “[Is that] the search for a designer goes deeper than science-and involves the way humans view the world.”

Ok, sort of, but do all humans on the planet view the world as being created by a God or an intelligent designer? I think not, but again, this type of myopic thinking could be cultural arrogance or ignorance. But with my very limited knowledge, let me try examining this even further. When one studies evolution there is no “search” as Dembski theorized for phenomenon, and science has not suggested that the earth, and its inhabitants, “human beings, have any real significance in the universe. So does it really matter how “humans see the world?” But just open your eyes and the universe is laid before you. One sees trees, rocks, clouds, stars, major galaxies, millions of phenomena with a plethora of proof the natural world exists, but not one single piece of proof, except in the minds of humans, that some intelligent designer created it.

If I were a person who needed to subdue and control Nature like some on the planet think they must do, then I think I would be more apt to think in terms of an “intelligent designer.” If Nature is the force and process that produce and control all the phenomena of the material world, and I would add “spiritual world,” as a human being who thrived on power, dominance and resource control, I would feel powerless in the wake of Nature because I couldn’t see myself in control. I would just be an actor with these unknown natural forces directing me. I find myself fearing there is no “logical” human order to phenomena, but needing an escapegoat for my destructive behavior towards Nature. What better scapegoat then using this intelligent designer?

How do I overcome this feeling of powerlessness? I make the director-designer a thinking entity. Then within the world view of those particular destructive humans, order and logic would be restored. There is now a point of reference. Since we know humans are able to do what we define as thinking, then this Creator, director or designer, must have human qualities. If this designer has human qualities than perhaps one day humans with a certain world view can be a director or a designer, with no bounds. This world view would allow those who believe in a thinking, logical, intelligent designer, feel more comfortable because they are not at the mercy of forces they know nothing about or can’t control.

Karl Marx once said that religion is the opium of the masses. I would say religion is just a tool to explain why the masses must be controlled. The masses can understand a thinking creator or designer, but would feel hopeless in a destructive world such as ours with only natural forces as their guide. After all who can trust Nature? Contrarily, if the masses could understand that these natural forces have always been their guide, even before the advent of religion, then the theocracy and their explanations would be useless. Again enter the intelligent designer.

Christian fundamentalist ideology has a deep seeded need to express itself, even in a limited manner. Their ideology must be accepted or it has grave social and psychological implications for those who "believe." Since the biblical story is now pretty much ineffective, intelligent design lets them keep what they consider power and legitimacy, it becomes their viable alternative. I can think of no better creation story then one that most humans can share some common ground with, yet still have no requirement for truth. That's the intelligent design theory. There’s not one human on the planet that couldn't understand a thinking and creating designer. But how does our insignificant position in the universe justify that thoughts through design or whatever, as perceived and expressed by humans, must lead to some intelligent designer creatating the universe?

From The Talk.Origins Archives: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cosmo.html
“Evolutionists have successfully refuted the usual argument for design that is grounded on the intricacy of biological life. They have convincingly demonstrated, to any rational person, that complexity sufficient for life could readily have emerged naturally in the primeval chemical stew. However, the processes of biological evolution on earth still depended on the pre-existence, billions of years ago, of the particles and "laws" of physics.
For example, consider the calculation by astronomer Fred Hoyle, often referred to by creationists, that the odds against DNA assembling by chance are 1040,000 to one (Hoyle, 1981). This is true, but highly misleading. DNA did not assemble purely by chance. It assembled by a combination of chance and the laws of physics.
Without the laws of physics as we know them, life on earth as we know it would not have evolved in the short span of six billion years. The nuclear force was needed to bind protons and neutrons in the nuclei of atoms; electromagnetism was needed to keep atoms and molecules together; and gravity was needed to keep the resulting ingredients for life stuck to the surface of the earth.
These forces must have been in operation within seconds of the start of the big bang, 10-15 billion years ago, to allow for the formation of protons and neutrons out of quarks and their storage in stable hydrogen and deuterium atoms. Free neutrons disintegrate in minutes. To be able to hang around for billions of years so that they could later join with protons in making chemical elements in stars, neutrons had to be bound in deuterons and other light nuclei where energetics prevented their decay.
Gravity was needed to gather atoms together into stars and to compress stellar cores, raising the core temperatures to tens of millions of degrees. These high temperatures made nuclear reactions possible, and over billions of years the elements of the chemical periodic table were synthesized as the by-product.”

I’m sure the intelligent design theory is just another smoke screen for biblical creationism. To the evolutionist I say, what if what we see (universe) has always been, no beginning and no end? After all isn't time a human construct? What if the universe is being "recycled" through contraction (gravity) and expansion (nuclear force-big band)? Circularity and evolutionary. What if to understand creation humans must transfer it into human thought as needing a creator or an intelligent designer? Wouldn't that make humans the intelligent designer?