A couple months ago, the campus newspaper reported that about 80% students believed that human beings were the result of evolution. However, when I asked the editor for more details about the results, I was informed that about 40% students agreed that evolution was guided by God (or some supernatural beings), in addition to the 20% students believed God single-handedly made the universe. Something was fishy there. In fact, one national Gallop survey also showed similar pattern. In other words, more than 60% American believe that somehow God was involved in creating this world.

Given these numbers, it was not surprising that states such as Kansas revived the old trick to mandate schools to inform students that Darwin’s evolution theory is not free of problems. There are other evolution theories such as intelligent design (ID). It seems fair enough to let students judge by themselves which theory is more reasonable, and hopefully they will find ID theories are better.

Recently, the ID theories are getting popular thanking to news media and numerous pseudoscientific reports launched from the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute.Because there is no scientific merit in ID, those ID believers work extremely hard at political side to make their theories into student’s textbooks. They even almost made it into law. The senate overwhelmingly approved “No Child Left Behind Act” with ID-friendly sentences (the sentences were later dropped in the law). It is no wonder that so many college students believed theories like ID.

A recent New Yorker article explained why ID was wrong (H. Allen Orr, the New Yorker, June, 2005). Basically, ID asserts that living organisms are too complicated to be explained by natural selection. Small random steps just can’t make sophisticated stuff. A frequent example is the watch-making. It is so complicated that somebody must have designed it. Conversely, evolutionary biologists pointed out that natural selection operates on the survival of organism genes. Any small changes which can improve survival will be kept, and step-by-step complicate things can evolve.

ID people also cite recent advancement in molecular biology. They state that nature is impossible to grow specialized and complicated cells through small random steps. Every protein in cells is essential–leaving any one out will kill the cells. However, proteins in cells or parts in body may just be a little advantageous at the beginning and later turn into essential because subsequent proteins and parts are built onto it. In addition, one protein may originally be developed for other functions and later was adapted to the current function. Retrospectively, one only discovers that all components are necessary in performing specialized functions.

When it comes to protein, one may also wonder how evolution can create so many proteins. Modern genetics have already showed that all proteins belong to some family (homologue). Similar proteins may well be from the same genes. Small changes in genes will produce slightly different proteins which may have beneficial (or detrimental) effects on organisms. In fact, geneticists can sometimes tell which protein is the first of its family.

The ID mathematician William Dembski fights against Darwin’s evolution differently. He reasoned that specialized and complicated organisms was just mathematically impossible. Take typing for an example. Random typing on a typewriter can’t produce meaningful sentences such as “call me Ishmael.” Drawing the analogy between computer searching algorithm and evolution in which both try to find an optimal solution to problems such as adapting a new disease or environment, he concluded that the guided searching is no better than randomly searching. Because random process can hardly produce any meaningful things (as in the example of randomly typing), one has to believe that there are some intelligent beings who have designed the evolution process.

Dembski’s sophistication in mathematics won much admiration from ID followers. However, he made a seriously wrong assumption–assuming there is a goal in evolution. On the contrary, evolution has no goal. The life itself doesn’t know where to go.The only criteria for development is whether the function will increase the number of offspring. In fact, we have seen many examples which support the aimless evolution process. Some animals have developed legs over time. When they return to ocean, they lost their legs because they are useless in water. If evolution has goals, it completely wastes resource to do so.

Furthermore, the analogy between evolution and searching algorithm is not appropriate. All living beings evolve together with others (co-evolution). The interactions among them and between living organisms and environment significantly improve the evolution process.

It is interesting to note that the ID people claim that they are not teaching religion or biblical beliefs. They are science too. Ironically, there are many gross inconsistencies within ID theories but it seems no ID people are willing to unify them. Most importantly, scientific community largely ignores them. No serious scientific discovery has been based on ID theories, while every biological discovery supports Darwin’s theory.

Furthermore, it seems to me that intelligent design is closer to deism–believing God exists and created the universe but then abandoned the world. Religiously speaking, deism is as dangerous as atheism. The central credo of Christianity is that God never abandons his children. He loves people so much that he has sent his son to the earth and sacrificed him to save us.The only purpose of worshiping God is to redeem postmortem and to live happily in the heaven. However, it is those religious groups who are supporting ID. They are willing to give up their religious beliefs to endorse the heretical ID.It is evident that ID is the paw of those hypocritical religious groups.

Given recent abnormal pro-life movement and religious outcries in the White House, one should always keep alarmed to politicians with a Bible in hands.