The Evolution of Unintelligent Design

I finished Molly Ivin's Shrub this morning. The late Molly Ivin's was a Texan who saw Texas the way most non-Texans do. As in confoundingly ridiculous a lot of the time.

Apparently the Texas education system has improved, somewhat, from the bad shape it was in a couple decade's ago. Back then Texans were fond of saying they were thankful for Mississippi, because without Mississippi, Texas would be dead last, rather than the 49th worst state in the education area. And several other areas.

Molly Ivin's details how the RWCF (Right-Wing Christian Fruitcakes) took over the Republican party during the 1990s. And then they took over the Texas school boards. The RWCF would like to have what they call Intelligent Design taught alongside Evolution.

Prior to cancelling my subscription to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram there had been a series of letters to the editor on both sides of the teaching Evolution issue. You'd have informed voices of reason and then the RWCF spouting their ill-informed, ignorant nonsense. Which they totally believe to be true.

Which is to me yet one more example of what happens when your state has the 49th worst education system in the nation.

I'm still reading the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Letters to the Editor via the paper's online edition. This morning's had a particularly amusing example of one of the RWCF's letters on the all-important Intelligent Design Evolution issue....

Why is Genesis account feared?

I continue to be amazed that many people assume that “science” pertains to facts, while “faith” relates to myth, or fables, or unsubstantiated beliefs. They seem to imagine that facts of science support evolution, over billions of years, from a supposed “big bang” explosion at the beginning of time. Then they further suppose that Biblical or Christian beliefs rest on unscientific ideas, fanciful dogmas, that even contradict the basics of science.

Harold Jacobs’ Dec. 1 letter is filled with this sort of erroneous thinking. Jacobs says that some believe that the six days of creation may be millions or billions of years. This cannot be, since evolutionists say that the heavenly bodies were formed in the beginning and vegetation came ages later.

But in the Bible, vegetation was created on the third day and the sun and stars were not created until the fourth day. If the day was a billion years long, the vegetation could not have existed without sunlight that long.

The basic fallacy in Jacobs’ reasoning, however, is that he assumes that science supports vast ages of time, that every living thing came from nonliving chemicals and that matter is either eternal or was self-created (since he doesn’t believe God created it).

Those who believe in intelligent design rightly point out the utter impossibility of explaining creation without reference to an intelligent designer — a Creator. Creationists would go beyond this, offering scientific evidences for creation in the relatively recent past, and strongly affirm that all life forms arose from earlier life forms, not from nonlife.

All living things—animals, birds, fish, insects—were created according to certain “kinds” and there has been evolution from “primitive” forms to more “advanced” forms of life. The blasphemy of Greg McKinney in the same issue is not worth refuting. His referring to “the Flying Spaghetti Monster” as Creator is an offense against all believers in God.

Why do McKinney and the two Jacobs refuse to allow students to see the evidence of science? Is this really true science? Why are they afraid of the evidences of creation?

Do they fear that acknowledging creation will mean that they must acknowledge the Creator?

— Richard Hollerman, Fort Worth