The Intelligent Design vs. Materialism debate is perhaps one that will never go away. The debate involves more than data as preliminary assumptions and prior biases become vitally important in determining how a person interprets the data and ultimately forms it into some sort of a working worldview that influences their life.
Many scientists are very committed to a materialistic framework. This commitment to a materialistic worldview was clearly demonstrated by Professor Richard Lewontin, a Harvard geneticist, when he said,
“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”
However, when searching for causes in science (especially when dealing in origin science as opposed to operational science) confining the answers to “material causes” from the beginning has the effect of predetermining the end result. If the objective of the search is to find materialistic causes, then perhaps a scientist operating under this paradigm has won, for no other result will be found. If the objective is a true determination of a “cause” responsible for an “effect” then the scientist may have lost - just as those who provided the funding and depended on the result may have lost.
While our world is stressed with present day problems (violence, war, poverty and more) on a grander scale it’s a beautiful place! I hope you will take a look at the attached PDF file. Within the beauty of our universe and planet there is a message, if we just take the time to look, listen, and consider what we are being told.
As the presentation demonstrates, effects have causes, and the causes must exist in time prior to the effect. Just as I don’t see my son being the cause of my father, you too may find it hard to see how Professor Richard Lewontin’s “materialism” can explain the formation of the universe and the materialistic forces he now likes to study. (Or stated in a stronger manner, just as my son can’t be the cause of his grandfather, material forces can’t go back in time and create themselves or anything else before they existed.)
Since we live in a world where the cause comes before the effect, the origin of the universe and origin of life become very interesting topics with meaningful implications.
