Mark Hartwig, "Whose Comfortable Myth?" (2002)

--Bertrand Russell, Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1952

Sound familiar? Not the quotation, but the underlying message: Christians are weak-minded folks who prefer "comfortable myths" to reality.

If you're like me, you've probably heard this message more times than you can countin books, movies, news reports, everywhere.

But things haven't always been this way. As early as the fourth century A.D., the intellectual elite of the Roman world were Christians. And Christianity retained its dominant position in the West until the 1800s, when secular thinkers, aided by Darwin's theory of evolution, gained the upper hand.

Since then, secularists have dismissed Christianity as a serious intellectual option.

That may soon change. Christian thinkers, such as mathematician and philosopher William Dembski of Baylor University, have seen "promising signs that the intellectual vitality is shifting back to the Christians."

This is particularly true in the area of biology. For decades, Darwin's theory of evolution has ruled supreme. But its reign is now threatened by a growing band of scholars promoting an alternative view called "intelligent design." Despite vigorous opposition, they are gaining groundand panicking Darwin's defenders.

Seeing is believing--or not
> For example, take the cell. In Darwin's time, scientists thought cells were just blobs of protoplasm. Now we know better. <p>

According to cell biologist Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, "The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines."

Alberts' description is no idle metaphor. Even the simplest cells are bristling with high-tech machinery. On the outside, their surfaces are studded with sensors, gates, pumps and identification markers. Some bacteria even sport rotary outboard motors.

Inside, cells are jam-packed with power plants, automated workshops and recycling units. Miniature monorails whisk materials from one location to another.

Such sophistication has led even hardened atheists to acknowledge the apparent design in living organisms, not that it changes their minds about evolution. Francis Crick, a Nobel laureate and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, warns, "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed but rather evolved."

Proponents of intelligent design contend that living organisms appear designed because they are designed--they exhibit a feature that natural processes cannot mimic.

That feature is specified complexity, a concept developed by William Dembski to explain how people distinguish accidents from things that happen "on purpose."

Although the term sounds like a mouthful, the basic idea is quite simple: An object displays specified complexity when it has lots of parts (is complex) and yet fits a recognizable pattern (is specified).

For example, the article you're now reading has thousands of characters, which could have been arranged in zillions of ways. Yet it fits a recognizable pattern: It's not just a jumble of letters, but a magazine article written in English. Any rational person would conclude that it was designed.

The effectiveness of such thinking is confirmed by experience, Dembski says. "In every instance where we find specified complexity, and where [its] history is known, it turns out that design actually is present."

Thus, if we could fully trace the creation of a book, our investigation eventually would lead us to the author.

Intelligent design advocates have made important gains in intellectual circles and the culture at large.

Just how far they have progressed can be seen in media reports that have sprung up across the country. Many reporters still fall back on the traditional science vs. fundamentalism stereotypes. But some are looking deeper. The result has been better coverage, including front-page stories last year in The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. The latter story came not from the religion desk, as has been the case in many news stories, but the science desk.

Other media are following suit. In February, when evolutionists released scientific findings that allegedly "bolsters evolution theory," ABCNews.com turned to two intelligent design proponents, biologists Jonathan Wells of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and David DeWitt of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., for scientific criticisms.

Intelligent design is also intriguing some mainline thinkers. In April 2000, Baylor University hosted an intelligent design conference that was attended not only by design advocates but a host of eminent scholarsincluding two Nobel laureates and several members of the National Academy of Sciences. Though no one switched sides, almost all the "big guns" deemed the conference worthwhile.

Refusing to see
> Darwinists dismiss the reasoning behind the intelligent-design movement, contending that living organisms were produced by the mindless processes of random mutation and natural selection. But advances in molecular biology are shredding that claim. <p>

For example, consider the little outboard motor that bacteria such as E. coli use to navigate their environment. This water-cooled contraption, called a flagellum, comes equipped with a reversible engine, drive shaft, U-joint and long whip-like propeller. It hums along at 17,000 rpm.

Its complexity is enormous. According to microbiologist Scott Minnich of the University of Idaho, you need about 50 genes to create a working flagellum. Each of those genes is as complex as a sentence with hundreds of letters. What's more, the requirements for a working flagellum are extremely tight.

"Mutations in any single gene knock out function or in lesser cases diminish function," Minnich says. "So, to swim you have to have the full complement of genes. There are no intermediate steps."

The same is true of many other systems. For example, the relatively simple process of blood clotting requires a cascade of finely tuned chemical reactions. If any of the proteins involved is missing, the clot may not form, may form in the wrong place, may not stop growing or may fail to dissolve at the right time.

Such systems simply defy Darwinist explanations.

Hysteria
> Philosopher Paul Nelson, a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, noted that Christianity is largely deemed a matter of &quot;faith&quot; rather than &quot;knowledge.&quot; But intelligent design challenges that dichotomy. <p>

"It says we can know objectively, as a matter of science, that there was an intelligence behind life," he says.

That implication has Darwinists alarmed. And their opposition to intelligent design has taken on a desperate tone. In 1999, for example, Darwinists launched a vicious campaign of threats and ridicule when the Kansas State Board of Education refused to require that Darwinism be taught as the sole explanation for life's diversity. (They did not ban the teaching of evolution, as the media widely misreported.)

Typical of that response was a column by Scientific American editor John Rennie, which urged college admissions officers to "make it clear . . . that in light of the newly lowered educational standards in Kansas, the qualifications of any students applying from that state . . . will have to be considered very carefully."

Sadly, those tactics paid off the following year, when state elections shifted the board's membership enough to reimpose the old orthodoxy.

Last year, the Darwinist community erupted again. The cause was a nonbinding amendment added by the U.S. Senate to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act Authorization bill. Sponsored by Sen. Rick Santorum and approved by a vote of 98-1, the amendment urged teachers to help students "distinguish the data or testable theories of science from philosophical or religious claims" and become "informed participants in discussions regarding [biological origins]."

Opponents responded with a letter to Congress signed by the heads of 80 scientific and evolution-advocacy groups. The signers brazenly reminded legislators about what happened in Kansas and warned that the "apparently innocuous statements in this resolution mask an anti-evolution agenda that repeatedly has been rejected by the courts."

Despite the letter, the amendment remained in the legislative package with only minor changes. Not only that, but the idea is spreading. In Ohio, the state legislature is considering a measure much like the Santorum Amendment, while some members of the state board of education are pushing for a revised science curriculum that teaches evolution as "an assumption, not fact."

As of this writing, Darwinist rhetoric is already white-hot. A statement distributed by Ohio Citizens for Science, a pro-evolutionist organization, accused intelligent-design advocates of "legalized church terrorism" and branded them as "our local Ohio Taliban."

Even the smallest "infraction" can trigger a Darwinist backlash. Biology teacher Rodney LeVake of Faribault High School in Minnesota was reassigned to teach general science because he didn't want to tell his students that evolution is an undisputed fact. He challenged the decision in federal court, but lost at both the district and appellate level. The U.S. Supreme Court denied his appeal early this year.

Although intelligent design opponents were relieved by LeVake's loss, their relief may be short-lived. The Santorum Amendment, though nonbinding, could shift the balance of future court cases.

Additionally, the Darwinists' struggle to exempt evolution from critical scrutiny is making it clear that their views are based, not on science, but on shaky assumptions. And signs are that the public is catching on. It may not be long before the jig is up.

---

> <b>Dispelling Myths<b>

The myths of evolution are sincerely believed by many people only because they've never been taught otherwise. Most students are taught only a superficial view of biology when it comes to evolution, never hearing that a good deal of scientific evidence contradicts the Darwinian explanation of origins.

Now, however, you can have some ammunition to counter such problems. Two new videos by the Discovery Institute, Icons of Evolution and Unlocking the Mystery of Life, provide information to help parents and students carefully discern the claims of evolution and weed out fact from fiction.

Icons of Evolution presents evolutionary theories--the icons of some scientists' faith, as it were--and discusses the major flaws in Darwinian thinking.

Unlocking the Mystery of Life uses stunning computer animation to show the intricacy of such things as the living cell, showing that the Darwinian explanation of slow, gradual change cannot account for cell complexity.

These videos are designed to be shown in many forums, including public schools. The Education Act signed by President George W. Bush in 2001 contains language that mandates the teaching of all views on a topic in public classrooms, making these videos ideal for countering Darwinian dogma in many schools.

To learn more about intelligent design and the flaws of Darwinian theory, request the Icons of Evolution and Unlocking the Mystery of Life set at our online resource center.

Mark Hartwig works in Focus on the Family's Public Policy department and specializes in issues pertaining to education, evolution and intelligent design.
> <br> This article appeared in Focus on the Family magazine.
> Copyright &copy; 2002 Focus on the Family. <br> All rights reserved. International copyright secured.