Intelligent Design: A Bona Fide Theory Essay

The two-hour special documentary, Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, features the Kitzmiller v. Dover School District case in 2004. It captures the turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pennsylvania in one of the latest battles over teaching evolution in public schools. Some members of the community believed that not only Darwinism, but also a so called theory, Intelligent Design, should be taught in their public high school. It was a battle between the two theories. It forced neighbor against neighbor and friend against friend. The community itself was broken half and half on the controversial issue.

Intelligent Design is the idea that living creatures on Earth are so complex that, they could not possibly have been created through the natural selection. It is the belief that there must be an ?intelligent designer? that created us all. This creator is usually referenced as God. However, it may also be

In the film Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, a small, rural town in Dover, Pennsylvania is being analyzed for its Kitzmiller vs. Dover court case. Dover is a school district in Pennsylvania whose school board argued that their students should be aware of Intelligent Design as an alternative to teaching Darwinism. There are several arguments being discussed throughout this documentary. The most expressed argument is whether not Intelligent Design should be taught in schools. Some other prevailing arguments are the belief that Intelligent Design and creationism are the same thing, the argument that evolution is neutral to religion, and the argument that evolution should not be questioned no matter what. Questions such as these captivate the mind and makes people wonder what the real truth is.

Thesis: It is patently absurd to argue that creationism and / or intelligent design deserve a place in public school textbooks in the "science" chapter or in any way near to the chapter on evolution. The United States Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and freedom of expression, so all faiths and denominations have the absolute right to worship and believe as they

1. The cosmos as we know it demands that there be an intelligent designer behind it.

Case law supporting the absence of the instruction of intelligent design theory from secular, public education cites several main grounds for exclusion, including the unconstitutionality of ?sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement of the sovereign in religious activity? [397 U.S. 664].

Many critics of macroevolution offer an alternative theory to the origins of life, intelligent design, which states that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause not an undirected process such as natural selection. In order to ensure the students of public high schools are learning credible information effectively, we have examined macroevolution and intelligent design and assessed the validity of each.

This means that the system appears impossible to create by the course of naturalistic evolution, that is, many small and gradual steps that eventually form the functioning product. Evolutionary theory proponents have, so far, been unable to satisfactorily address the issue of irreducible complexity in biological systems such as the eye and the blood. Intelligent Design theorists, however, are easily able to explain the phenomenon of irreducible complexity by pointing to the existence of an intelligent being that either guided or created the first forms of life.

The argument has been going on for years and years. Should schools be allowed to teach evolution without teaching creationism? The courts have ruled, the answer is no, the theory of creationism cannot be included in a public school’s academic curriculum. With the court’s decision, it has been made clear there is no place for faith based theories to be taught in our public schools. What if there was a different approach that took God out of the equation? Public high schools should allow a course in intelligent design to be included in the curriculum as a way of teaching both evolution and creationism without violating the separation of church and state. This is certainly easier said than done.

Intelligent design is not an alternative theory to evolution. Intelligent design is the belief that organisms or other things did not evolve, but were created just as they are now. In the video, the science teachers of Dover High School refuse to read a one minute statement to their classes explaining that intelligent design is an alternative theory to Darwin’s theory of evolution. Their refuting argument were as follows,

Though discussion of Intelligent Design (ID) often occurs in modern times, it is not a new theory. This paper is an exploration of the tenets of ID.

Because of the definition of the modern empirical science, no, Intelligent Design theory is not scientific.

Teaching Creationism or Intelligent Design to our youth can be done in a way that is neither opinion based nor completely fact based, but may hold some risk of personal interpretation. The first thing needed to be considered is how can children of the middle school age range grasp such a deep subject and have the capacity to reach their own conclusion. Information found regarding the development of children in this developmental range was found in the book titled "Characteristics of Middle Grade Students,” Caught in the Middle by the Sacramento Department of Education. It was found that students of this age hold a variety of learning attributes that support the belief that children can handle both sides of this controversial issue. Some

Will believers in Intelligent Design be able to embrace the incredibly promising and innovative solutions outlined in Luke Bawazer’s Tedtalk while rejecting Darwin’s theory? No, I do not believe the supporters of Intelligent Design will embrace his solutions. Even though the research is leading to new materials, with electronic functions, that can possibly power our infrastructure while at the same time reduce pollutants in our environment. By accepting the solutions, supporters of Intelligent Design will have to accept Darwin’s theory of evolution if they want to embrace Bawazer’s solutions for creating new biomaterials using DNA.

which we haven't even discovered yet. This world and its life forms are so complex we