Is Intelligent Design Really Intelligent? A paper I had to do for english

I was given the opportunity to do a paper in my English class on Intelligent Design. I only had 2 1/2 hours to write it and this is what I came up with. I had very limited use of the internet and it was NOT a research paper. The professor is (I think) Christian and knows that I am an Atheist. She was very excited to read my paper. I am posting it here because I would like feed back on the arguments I presented. I told her without proper research my ideas might have a few holes in them and she understood completely, again this was for an English paper.

Any help on the ideas I presented would be greatly appreciated :) I hope this is in the right forum.....

Is Intelligent Design Really Intelligent?

Is life on earth the result of intelligent design or did it all happen by chance? Intelligent design (or ID) is the theory that a superior being put the universe into motion. The majority of people who believe in intelligent design also believe it goes further than that, that God has a hand in our every day life. A smaller percentage believe that we are here due to evolution, that everything happened by chance. From my point of view Chance seems more logical. The ideology of Intelligent design does not justify birth defects; it can not be proven in the science lab; and is not an adequate argument for “gaps” in science.

A disturbing problem with the theory of Intelligent design is the overwhelming amount of birth defects, both structural and functional/developmental. Birth defects are caused by defects in our genes as well as environmental hazards. Intelligent design, with the accompanying belief in God, is that humans should be perfect. We were made by God in his image. Perfect. If that were true then our genetic code would not mutate. Hence there would be no birth defects and/or genetic mutations/mishaps. This however is not the case. The Center for Disease Control states that 120,000 babies in the United States are born with birth defects each year. If you look at this situation through the scope of evolution you will see that mutations in genetic code fit very well into the science of evolution.

The way our species has evolved over time has brought us to become a science dependant race. Everything from understanding our place in the solar system, to the atoms and molecules that make up our bodies, to the types of foods we can safely ingest, we got from scientifically testing theories, which is the reason we have the answers to those questions. Intelligent design is not a probable or acceptable theory due to lack of being able to test it which is why the scientific community does not recognize it.

There are some who view science as a great tool of the human race, however they can not let go of the emotion that accompanies Intelligent Design. They see the gaps in science as unexplainable and therefore attribute these unexplainable instances to ID. This is called using the God of Gaps rationalization. Using this argument is not conducive to science because everyday science is understanding more and more about the universe and the world in which we live. At one point in time science thought the earth was flat, but due to exploration, we came to the conclusion that the earth was in fact round. This is the way that science works.

Intelligent design, as fascinating as it might seem to some, is not a theory of scientific measures at this point in time. It simply plays on the emotions, as opposed to the intellect, of humans. So in the words of Christopher Hitchens I leave you with this “Exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.", and Intelligent Design does not give exceptional evidence.

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Permalink Reply by Joli on February 22, 2011 at 6:05pm

@ Elizabeth. The main point I am making with my paper is that ID does not give sufficent evidence. PLEASE NOTE the CLOSING :

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Permalink Reply by Joli on February 22, 2011 at 10:30pm

WOW That's pretty f'n awesome :D Thanks for posting that :D

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Permalink Reply by Elizabeth Johnson on February 22, 2011 at 7:49pm

That kind of sounds like poetic nonsense to me, I certainly wouldn't tell a third world street child that the only reason they exist is so some elite philosopher can feel good about himself, I'd tell them that there is hope in Jesus and maybe a better life too, then I'd give the food and clothes and follow up as much as possible, you know like missionaries do. Maybe you could become a missionary for atheism. At least the kid would have a full belly if nothing else. And I do mean NOTHING!

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Permalink Reply by Reg The Fronkey Farmer on February 22, 2011 at 7:55pm

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Permalink Reply by Skycomet the Fallen Angel on February 23, 2011 at 12:51pm

ROFLMFAO!! Where did you get that piece of genius! XD

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on February 22, 2011 at 8:32pm

How on earth did you get 'you only exist so a philosopher can feel better about themselves' from those quotes? Admittedly, Nietzsche's is a little flowery, but Marcus' is about as clear as you can get.

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Permalink Reply by Elizabeth Johnson on February 22, 2011 at 8:36pm

Ok I didn't see the Marcus one. But even our best is still not good enough for God, enter Jesus.
If you think God is unjust then I agree with you, if he were, we'd all be fried a long time ago.