Evolution Group Think

The American academic environment has degenerated into an atmosphere of totalitarian atheist group think where all heresies against the prevailing Darwinist religion are being ruthlessly suppressed.

The excellent video documentary (produced several years ago) “Expelled: No intelligence allowed” contains a great expose of the totalitarian group think among the university evolution fundamentalists. It also exposes the connection between evolutionary theories and Nazi genocide:
“… educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired for the crime of merely believing that there might be evidence of design in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance.”

These same leftist professors who persecute their colleagues who express any heretical ideas against the Darwinist religion are often also virulent enemies of Israel. Evolution is atheist junk science that can in no way explain the origin of life, nor can it explain the origin of a speaking being with intellect such as man. I believe Darwin clearly indicated his motivations for inventing the evolution religion were to minimize the necessity for any supernatural Creator.

For those looking for an antidote to the evolution Kool-Aid, I recommend reading the essays of Dr. Georges Cuvier, a brilliant scientist who is mentioned in the “Drush Or HaChaim” treatise of the Jewish sage Tiferes Yisrael. Unlike today’s dope addled leftist professors who follow the evolution drumbeat like sheep, Dr. Cuvier was a true intellectual with a knowledge of human history and respect for the Bible. Dr. Cuvier’s brilliant discourse provides strong evidence against evolution group think and in favor of an ancient flood, but has been suppressed by the politically Darwinist liberals of recent times.

Evolution is a faith based atheist religion which violates scientific principles (such as the laws of entropy) and for which there is no real evidence in the fossil record. For example, the fossil record clearly shows that species appear suddenly and then later disappear without any significant change. Evolution is at a complete loss to explain the origin of life. Despite numerous experiments, no scientist has ever produced life from non-life in a laboratory.

Most evolution fundamentalists simply gloss over and ignore the massive scientific evidence against Darwinist evolution. The great rabbinic authority Tiferes Yisrael, whose famous “Drush Or HaChaim” sermon argues for an ancient earth, but not evolution, brings opinions of the renowned scientist Dr. Georges Cuvier. Dr. Cuvier firmly opposed evolution and believed that species appeared and disappeared in the fossil record without significant changes.

A very scholarly book released several years ago that powerfully and brilliantly refutes Darwinism is “Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design” by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer.

Intelligent Design is Consistent with Judaism

The modern concept of Intelligent Design seems to be quite consistent with classical Torah concepts. In contrast, Darwinist evolution theories not only require great leaps of faith to explain the evident complexity in the Universe, but Darwinist evolution also removes any meaning or purpose to the Universe.

The concept of reflecting on the wisdom evident in the design of the Universe has strong roots in ancient rabbinic thought. Within various rabbinic writings are some concepts that seem quite consistent with the modern Intelligent Design movement. In the famous medieval (11th Century C.E.) Jewish ethics book Chovos HaLevavos, a whole shaar(gate) is devoted to explaining how Jews should examine the created Universe and thus deduce proofs of the existence and wisdom of the Creator.

“One is obligated to reflect on the created things, and deduce from them proofs of the Creator’s wisdom, by the dictates of reason, Scripture, and rabbinic tradition.”

(Chovos HaLevavos, Shaar HaBechina, Chapter Two)

Chovos HaLevavos also explains that the wisdom evident in the design of the Universe offers proof that the Universe was created with the intention of an Intelligent Agent. Thus Chovos HaLevavos is in direct conflict with Darwinist evolution which can only posit an “appearance” of intelligence in the biological order that lacks any actual purpose.

“It is evident to us that for things which come about without the intent of an intender (i.e. an intelligence who designed it with a purpose) — none of them will display any trace of wisdom or ability. Behold and see, that if a man suddenly pours ink on clean paper, it would be impossible for there to be drawn on it orderly writing and legible lines like it would be with a quill, and if a man brought before us orderly writing from what cannot be written without use of a quill, and he would say that ink was spilled on paper, and the form of the writing happened on its own, we would be quick to call him a liar to his face and tell him that it must have been written without an intelligent person’s intent. And since, in our eyes, this is something impossible for mere symbols (the alphabet) that we have agreed on — how could we entertain the notion for something whose engineering is far more fine, and whose assembly is infinitely more deep and beyond our comprehension, to say that it is without intent of an Intender, and without the wisdom of a wise and powerful Being.”

(Chovos HaLevavos, Shaar HaYichud, Chapter Six)

What is Intelligent Design

A basic definition of “Intelligent Design” might be the concept that we observe various physical and biological features of the Universe whose existence is best explained as due to the actions of an Intelligent Agent rather than due to the effects of undirected natural processes such as natural selection.

In contrast to Neo-Darwinist (evolution) theory, intelligent design philosophers and scientists argue that the best explanation for the origins of life, and the origins of the many biological forms, is an Intelligent Agent.

Intelligent Design (ID) theory postulates that design is empirically detectable in various physical and biological aspects of the Universe. For example-

1. the overwhelming scientific evidence that the Universe had a definite beginning, observed since the 1920s in the red-shift and the expansion of the Universe,
2. the substantial evidence that the physical constants of the Universe have been enormously fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life,
   and
3. the large amounts of functional information present in the DNA of biological organisms.

The three factors mentioned above, among others, all provide convincing evidence that a Superintelligence created the Universe (and continues to maintain its existence), and this Superintelligence must have also created the life forms present on Earth. Materialist scientific theories, citing undirected natural causes, simply cannot provide convincing explanations for the origins of the Universe and the origins and development of life on Earth.

ID theorists may or may not specify that the Intelligent Agent responsible for design in the Universe is God, and ID in general does not attempt to define the exact nature of the Intelligent Agent. ID theorists recognize that our Universe could not have simply popped into existence by itself. ID theory would only be inconsistent with Judaism if it implied a Creator with characteristics contrary to Torah theology. I am not aware that ID does imply any such characteristics. However, its astounding how some Jews can believe that acceptance of atheist Darwinist evolution can be preferable to acceptance of ID.