I welcome Canon Kenyon Wright's recognition (Letters, October 6), contrary to much current opinion, that the existence of an intelligent mind behind all things is both an ancient and an intuitive idea. I also share his commitment to an education system which presents the real case for a Creator. However, I have reservations about his confident comments on the separation of scientific and religious truth.
First, the modern expression of "intelligent design" is actually a highly credible scientific position and not, as he puts it, "synonymous with Creationist fallacies". Intelligent design is not derived from religious authority or sacred texts, but from the application of design theory to natural and living systems. It points, for example, to the highly specific design of living systems and to the existence of real information, in the form of a genetic language, within DNA.
It is most peculiar that in all other areas of human experience the need for prior intelligence to generate design and information is recognised, but that the same notion is unacceptable when applied to nature. Intelligent design ought to be treated as serious science, whatever its philosophical implications might be.
Secondly, it is essentially a scientific position to retain substantial scepticism about the ability of evolutionary theory to explain the "how" and "when" of the development of living things. It is quite a jump from the observed ability of living things to adapt to their environments to providing a secure explanation about how they were assembled in the first place.
This is especially the case at the molecular level, where the sophistication of biochemical systems is truly awesome. A major extrapolation from the evidence is required to conclude that natural selection, acting on random mutations, can generate this level of complexity.
What are sometimes euphemistically dismissed as difficulties in the molecular mechanisms for evolution appear to me more like gaping holes. And it is salutary to remember that, despite the hand-waving, there is also no credible scientific theory about how life emerged in the first place.
In my view, the Neo-Darwinist position in these areas is ultimately sustained on the basis of ideological naturalism - the claim that, despite the obvious difficulties, there cannot be any other explanation but a materialistic one. That, of course, is philosophy, not science, and clearly not a sound basis on which to develop religious insights.
We should be careful about stereotyping the "so-called Creationists" and dismissing them as idiots. While some Creationist positions are undoubtedly controversial, there is a spectrum of informed opinion about how to interpret biblical texts and how these can inform and enrich the scientific debate about origins.
What strikes me as very strange, indeed, is the tendency these days to subject those who hold the view that the universe had a beginning and was, therefore, created, to public derision.
I would have thought, at the very least, that Creation is the most obvious and sensible of the explanations for the origin of things.
Dr Alastair Noble, 4 Lynn Drive, Eaglesham.
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