Patricia Princehouse of the Department of Biology at Case Western Reserve University has issued a challenge to any and all Intelligent Design advocates to debate “the ‘science’ of ID” in “Cleveland the first week in January” 2006. She writes that “calls go out every day [for ID advocates] to present scientific data at scientific conferences” and then claims that “the designists are always busy that decade.” She ends her letter to the editor to USA Today for ID advocates to “Put up or shut up.”[1]
That’s what I like to see. Someone who’s willing to put their claims on the line for everyone to see and hear, something evolutionists are unwilling to do in a non-controlled environment. Why hold the debate at Western Case Reserve? Since I’m not in the ID scientific community, I don’t know if Princehouse is being truthful about these daily invitations to IDers. I wrote to Princehouse and told her I that I am willing to take up the challenge at our Worldview Conference in May 2006. American Vision will have someone there to debate. Will she?
In the same letter, Princehouse claims that “the scientific data supporting evolution continue to pour in on a daily basis and produce spinoff applications that create new medicine, more productive crops, cleaner water and better living for billions of people worldwide.” If this is true, then I would like her to “put up or shut up.” If evolution is so clear in these “spinoff applications,” then let us see them. The debate between evolution and ID is first about origins. How did the universe come into existence? Using the scientific method, an evolutionist cannot prove the evolution of the cosmos because no one was there to see it happen.
Using her examples, scientists are using the stuff of pre-existing matter to “create new medicine, more productive crops, and cleaner water.” The crops and water were here before the scientists started experimenting with them. When evolutionists are able to turn water (H2O) into gasoline (C8H18), then they would have evidence for the possibility of evolution except for two problems: They can’t account for the origin of water or the non-interference factor required for evolution to take place. Remember, there was no intelligence directing the evolutionary process. It was random and blind. Science is neither random nor blind.
When Princehouse claims that evolution is taking place everyday, she unwittingly is supporting arguments backed by Intelligent Design advocates. Scientists are making water cleaner. Scientists are developing more productive crops. Scientists are creating new medicines. They are designers using something that already exists and they can’t account for scientifically!
Breeding dogs for desirable traits is not evolution, since the result is still a dog. An evolutionist can’t scientifically account for the origin of dogs and their complex design. We need to see from the evolutionists something akin to John Candy’s character in Spaceballs, Barf the Mog—half-man, half-dog. This would have to take place without the interference of humans. Until then, put up or shut up!
Footnote:
[1]. www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-12-06-letters-common-ground_x.htm