Intelligent Design Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Intelligent Design Philosophy - Essay Example Moreover, the principle of separation of state and the Church has precluded its teaching in schools. Nonetheless, creationism never really disappeared especially for those who remained to abide by the principles of Christian fundamentalism. Today, creationism takes a different shape, a shape that promises to be more scientifically in sync by underscoring empirical evidence rather than the idea of a Divine Being to explain its thesis. The concept of intelligent design emerged in the latter part of the 20th century and was founded by experts in various scientific fields. The arguments underpinning this concept attempt to point out the inability of the Darwinian evolution to explain certain phenomena. The arguments underlying the intelligent design concept are discussed in the preceding paragraphs as well as the counter-arguments of those who opposed them. Background: History of Intelligent Design The intelligent design movement is assailed as being rooted in Christian fundamentalism, a religious movement that originated in the United States and was sparked by the rise of Christian modernism in Europe in the late 19th century. The fundamentalist came out with a series of 12 booklets called collectively The Fundamentals: The Testimony of the Truth that attacked, among others, Darwin’s theory of evolution (Flank 17-21). Darwin’s Origin of Species, which was published in 1859, began to be taught in US schools and the fundamentalists vehemently fought this. Christian fundamentalist, however, declined after the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925 where legal luminary Clarence Darrow acted as counsel in a test case that breached a law prohibiting the teaching of evolution. In this case, the fundamentalists were depicted as â€Å"uneducated hicks and backwoods country bumpkins† (Flank 21-24). In 1987, however, the final blow was dealt to creation science when the US SC itself invalidated an Arkansas law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in the case of Ed wards v Aguillard 482 US 578 (1987) (Young & Edis 2-3). With the death of creation science, intelligent design took its place as a theory that was foist to foil Darwin’s evolution. Conceived in the 1980s, it was the brainchild of some Christian intellectuals such as Phillip Johnson, who wrote Darwin on Trial, Michael Behe, a biochemist, and William Debski, a mathematician and philosopher, among others. Johnson subsequently established the right-wing think tank Center for Science and Culture and published a new book called The Wedge of Truth after the group’s wedge strategy, which has purportedly the overthrow of materialism as its goal. The strategy consists of the publication of books and technical and scientific materials within a span of five years to be incorporated into the public school system as well as to drum up support from their â€Å"natural constituency, namely, Christians† (Young and Edis 3). Intelligent Design: The Concept Intelligence design is a n origin-of-life theory that opposes the natural selection essence of evolution. Thus, this concept subscribes to the idea that there must be a grand ‘designer’ out there who directs the development of life because life and the universe are too complex to have merely come on their own without any entity or being guiding them. This theory directly conflicts with Darwin’