Intelligent design …”seeks to wedge religious and moral concepts of a teleological and foundationalist nature into the social sciences and humanities. The goal is to undermine the materialist-humanist notion that it is human beings (in their interaction with the natural environment) that are the sole designers of the human-historical world.”
- Clark, Foster and York in “The critique of intelligent design: Epicurus, Marx, Darwin, Freud and the materialist defense of science.” , 2007
So-called “Intelligent Design” is a not very intelligent attempt to dress up religious fundamentalism and biblical literalism in a bogus dressing of science. Every claim these people make has been taken apart and shown to be factually incorrect. They are lousy “scientists” , well, not scientists as such at all. Were they to concentrate on how the very first microscopic life-form on Earth emerged from the slime maybe they would attract some respectable support. Did it appear by accident or was it the deliberate act of an intelligent designer? They might have some doubters wavering. After all, the chances of life appearing are in the order of a billion to one, or something in that order.
The problem the intelligent design people have is the Old Testament and what it says about the creation of the world, otherwise they might take up your idea of a designer designing the first life on earth and presumably leaving it to Darwinism and natural selection to produce the thousands of adapted species we currently have. The Old Testament says that all life appeared in the course of seven days about 6000 years ago. If the intelligent design crowd concentrated on the first life on earth, as you suggest, it would cut across their whole secret agenda – – the Old Testament, they believe, is the literal word of God, every part of it, brutal and nasty as it is. Have they ever read the old testament, I wonder?
Darwin is just a theory. There are all sorts of problems with it, like the date of fossils.
You are mis-using the word “theory”, Charlie. You start with a hypothesis, which is challenged and tested, challenged and tested. The gaps in knowledge are addressed and consensus is reached over time until there is sufficient hard evidence and it is elevated into a “theory”.
People who do not understand science or cannot explain natural phenomena always resort to the supernatural for an explanation. The problem faced by the fundamentalists is that more and more is known every day about the Universe, and the ignorant and superstitious have to retreat further and further. One day there will be no dark space in which they can hide themselves, and they will be forced to admit their whole approach to Nature is a hoax perpetrated by priests..