Comparison of the 3 Basic Biology Position of the 3 Philosophers Darwin, Dembski and Behe - Essay Example

?The Theorists Charles Darwin was an English naturalist who established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry and proposed the scientific theory of evolution called the Natural Selection. He published his theory for evolution in his book entitled On the Origin of Species. The science and the people came to accept his theory and not until the later time that many scientists have come to challenge his theory and proposed another theory called Intelligent Design. William Dembski is known as the promoter of Intelligent Design and concept of specified complexity. He is an American analytic philosopher who wrote a number of books about intelligent design such as The Design Inference, Intelligent Design: The Bridge between Science and Theology, and the Design Revolution. This concept of intelligent designed promoted by Dembski involves an argument that an overarching intelligence is responsible for the complexity of life that can be detected empirically. His concept of intelligent design is seen by the scientific community as a modern form of creationism, drawn from a traditional Christian set of religious belief attempting to portray itself as a science. . Michael Behe is also an advocate of intelligent design. He is an American biochemist and best known for his argument for irreducible complexity. According to him, some biochemical structures are too complex to be sufficiently explained by known evolutionary mechanisms and thus more of a result of intelligent design. However, his claims about the irreducible complexity of essential cellular structures have been discarded by enormous majority of the scientific community. The Theories Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is called natural selection. The theory stated that different species began from shared ancestors. Adaptations to different environments caused the differences in the organisms. The environment will determine which of the species are best fit to live and the traits of these organisms are passed down to new generations. New species are created out these traits. Decades of studies and observations led to the development of this theory. Intelligent Design is the negative argument of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. According to this theory, the forces of nature or something else are not sufficient to result to aspects of life or species. There must be an existing intelligent designer. According to this theory, the intelligent designer brought life and the natural selection have nothing to do with the appearance of the organisms we find today. According to William Dembski (1998), intelligent design can be formulated as a scientific theory having empirical consequences and devoid of religious commitments. The intelligent design can be discharged as a theory of information. According to him, information is not reducible to natural causes but best sought in intelligent causes (Dembski, 1998). Thus, intelligent design becomes a theory for detecting and measuring information, explaining its origin and tracing its flow (Demski, 1998). Michael Behe on the other hand wrote in his book Darwin’s Black Box that many biological systems are “irreducibly complex.” According to him, in order for these biological systems to evolve, multiple systems would have to arise simultaneously (Robison, 1996). Behe claims that these systems exist in Biology and the existence of “irreducible complexity” argues for an intelligent designer. The basic premise of the book is that "Biochemistry has pushed Darwin's theory to the limit.  It has done so by opening the ultimate black box, the cell, thereby making possible our understanding of how life works” (Ussery, 2010). As Behe claims, life is so complicated, that it must have been created by divine intelligence, or at any rate gradual evolution could not possibly have created such complex systems (Ussery, 2010). Evolution vs. Intelligent Design Creationism and evolution have frequently competed since Darwin first proposed his theories of evolution and natural selection in his book of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Evolution has been dominant theory for the last several decades. Creationism was prohibited from being exclusively taught in public schools before (Adelsberger, 2006). Intelligent design hypothesize that life is too complex to have evolved through Darwinian Evolution and that an intelligent designer must be responsible for the creation (Adelsberger, 2006). The evolutionists find themselves challenged not against traditional creationism but against a more sophisticated idea called the intelligent design theory (Glanz, 2001). Both Behe and Dembski are promoters of the new idea of intelligent design. Dr. Dembski conceded that his interest in alternatives to Darwinian theory was partly brought on by the fact that he is an evangelical Christian (Glanz, 2001). But he said that intelligent design could withstand strict scientific scrutiny even if the religious conviction played a role to his theory. Dr. Behe’s book provided the biochemical basis for Dr. Dembski’s work (Glanz, 2001). He believed that certain intricate structures in cells, involving the cooperative action of many protein molecules were “irreducibly complex,” because removing just one of the proteins could leave those structures unable to function (Glanz, 2001). He believes that something like this could just happen by simple natural laws. Both Behe and Dembski are regarded as two of the intellectual fathers of design theory movement. They both dispute that the idea that natural selection which Darwin suggested drove evolution is enough to explain the complexity of the earth’s plant and animals. The complexity must be a work of an intelligent designer. This designer may be like the Biblical God but they are open to other explanations. They also propose that life was seeded by a meteorite from elsewhere in the cosmos which may possibly involve extraterrestrial intelligence (Glanz, 2001). Darwin’s theory tells us that humans are not the products of special creation and that life has no inherent meaning or purpose. He tells us that life existed for billions of years before us. Intelligent Design however, is a supposition that certain features of the natural world are so intricate and so perfectly tuned for life that a Supreme Being designed it. The two theories can be compared considering the simplicity, explanatory power and predictive success of both the evolution theory and intelligent design. When we speak about the ontological complexity, both theories incorporate the existence if various life forms. However, intelligent design must include the existence of the designer, as well as tools used in the design. In respect to dynamic complexity, both theories appear to accept the capabilities of organisms. Natural selection would imply the existence of biological processes which explain the similarities between offspring and parent organisms; such a thing isn’t too hard to believe because we can observe reproduction in organisms, meaning that something must be functioning within them which allows for such a thing (Roderick, 2008). But Intelligent Design posits the existence of design processes outside of what goes on in reproduction, which have to be more complex because such designing gives rise to not just one type of organism, like a calf, but a multitude of organisms (Roderick, 2008). With regards to explanatory power, the fossil records gaps between species are bridged in the evolutionary theory (Roderick, 2008). Intelligent design cannot account for such transitional fossils and every fossils sheds greater light on the bridges between species and the weakness of the Intelligent Design hypothesis. In the evolutionary theory, fossils indicate a transitional stage from one type of organism to another. When it comes to predictive success, the evolution’s success is incredibly positive. The intelligent design has no predictions. After the initial claims regarding the designing of species, it is quiet regarding the implications of such designs (Roderick, 2008). This means that there is nothing for scientists to test. On the other hand, evolution offers a lot of predictions. In over 150 years, no scientific discoveries were ever found which contradicts such predictions. Darwin’s prediction about the fossil record was confirmed true and modern genetics has newly proven Darwin’s argument of a common ancestry of humans and apes (Roderick, 2008). In fact, every observation and experiment completed, whether in molecular biology or modern genetics, has only established the truth of evolution’s theory and this shows evolution to be an argument with a high degree of predictive success (Roderick, 2008). There are things that both the evolution theory and the intelligent design are similar with each other. But we cannot remove the facts that they are two great opposing theories of all time that until now. This issue is still not settled. The scientific community are still debating on which of the two theories should be taught in school. References: Adelsberger, Eric. Origin of the Species? An Analysis of the Darwin v. Intelligent Design Debate, (2006). Web. 25 April 2011 Dembski, William. Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information, (1998). Web. 24 April 2011 Glanz, James. Darwin vs. Design: Evolutionists' New Battle, (2001). Web. 25 April 2011 Roderick. Intelligent Design vs. Evolutionary Theory: A Brief Comparison, (2008). Web. 26 April 2011 Read More