Ben Cook
Matthew Brunson
ENG 101
10 December 2013
Evolution vs. Intelligent Design
“Evolution is a broad, well-tested description of how earth’s present day life-forms arose from common ancestors reaching back to the simplest one celled organisms almost four billion years ago”. (AAAS) The theory of Evolution really became of rapid acceptance when Charles Darwin published a evolutionary theory in his work, “On the Origin of Species”. "Intelligent design" consists of two hypothetical claims about the history of the universe and of life: first, that some structures or processes in nature are "irreducibly complex" and could not have originated through small changes over long periods of time; and second, that some structures or processes in nature are expressions of "complex specified information" that can only be the product of an intelligent agent.” ( AAAS). The intelligent agent or designer referred to in the theory is easily asserted as the God of Christianity. Intelligent design is saying life must have been created, not evolved. While intelligent design is not taught in class rooms, evolution is currently being taught in curriculums across the globe.
My first point I would like to make is that there is no evidence against the contemporary evolutionary theory. The contemporary theory is based of Darwin’s ideas of natural variation and selection, as well Mendel’s model of genetic inheritance. There are still many puzzles of biology about the pathways of evolutionary processes. However, they do not challenge Darwin’s basic theory of descent or invalidate it.
The philosophical implications of evolution and intelligent design tend to be a heated argument. William Provine and Phillip Johnson have a recorded debate over this topic. William Provine is the pro-evolutionist. In Provine’s debate he takes a few philosophical stances.