I can understand why people believe in creation. It’s all they know. They’ve been taught that God created the Earth and they were given a specific timeframe for which it happened. So when scientific evidence is uncovered that proved their belief system to be factually incorrect, they don’t want to believe. The people that believe in creation, or intelligent design (ID), are people who were taught the same thing from birth. Whenever anyone who believes one thing from the time they can remember, they have a hard time ever not believing, even if confronted with scientific evidence to the contrary of their beliefs.

Currently, there are several localized debates over whether or not creation should be taught in public schools alongside evolution as “both sides” of the issue. Proponents of ID feel that evolution is just one of multiple possibilities and should not be taught as science. This is despite enormous amounts of evidence that point to evolution being the correct theory.

The problem with teaching ID alongside of evolution is not the potential flaws in the evolution theory. It is the complete lack of any scientific basis or factual evidence that supports intelligent design. “Because the Bible says so” is not sufficient evidence. Evolution is a theory backed by years of research and factual data. Intelligent design is a theory based on a book, written when the earth was believed to be flat. The idea that the world is only a few thousand years old is laughable. Unfortunately, creationists refuse to objectively look at the data. There are some creationists who see things so skewed that they believe the Bible to be a literal translation of historical events and the universe’s history. This includes the age of the earth and the dinosaurs not having roamed the planet. Their idea that the Grand Canyon was formed by one flood and that the dinosaurs were placed in the ground by God for humans to find, deserves not to be dignified.

So, I will not try to dignify any arguments based entirely on a literal translation of the Bible. I can understand why people have faith in their religion, but when faith is put ahead of science, I can not stand by idly. It is provable, beyond all doubts that the world is billions of years old. If you understand that a light year is how far light can travel in one year, and something can be seen that is five billion light years away, the correct deduction from that is that what you are seeing existed five billion years ago, and the light it shines is just now reaching earth. It is not a difficult concept.

There are certain things in this world that are irrefutable facts. These are the things that should be taught in our schools. They way that science works is that hypothesis and theories are proposed and data is gathered. Scientists then try to disprove the theory. When it is shown that the theory can not be disproved, it becomes scientific fact.

The theory of evolution was proposed initially in Charles Darwin’s On The Origin Of Species and has been in a continuous state of evolution, so to speak, trying to be proved or disproved. So far everything points to some type of evolution, but as yet, no perfect science on the issue has been concluded. Being technically a theory does not by itself make it just an idea with no basis. But proponents of ID will tell you that it is a theory that is losing momentum in the scientific community. That is simply not true.

Intelligent design, on the other hand, is the type of theory that its own theorist would themselves say has no scientific merit. But since they hold such low regard for evolution, they believe that the two should be taught side by side. But ID is the same thing that they think they oppose- an unsubstantiated idea, that can not be proven to be true.

One of the biggest problems I have with intelligent design, aside from the lack of factual backing, is the inconsistency with the idea. Every time science proves that something not in line with creation is true, the basis of their argument changes. When it was said that the earth was 5000 years old and astronomers proved that they were probably off by a few billion years, the idea of ID changed. Then they said that the timeframe in the Bible wasn’t literal, but God still did all of the work. When the idea of the Big Bang became quite popular and accepted in most science circles, religionists said, okay, but God must have made that happen. One of the biggest problems in religion is the church’s reluctance to accept reason and science in a timely manner. What we know to be true today by those with rational minds, will not be accepted for years and years by the church, inhibiting debate and teaching in the meantime. But the church’s handcuffs on its people and society in general is another discussion altogether.

This is not an attempt to criticize everyone who is religious, as most religious people I know have a fairly satisfactory balance of faith and fact. For those who are religious who say that evolution is true, the earth is in fact old and the Big Bang happened, but it’s all God’s work, I’m fine with that. I may not agree with you, but I can understand the basis for the belief. For those who say that what we are learning through science is not true only because their belief system doesn’t make room for it, I don’t understand, and frankly, I don’t respect.

The problem with the people who want ID taught next to evolution is that they refuse to look at the facts. They have a set of beliefs that are so strong that nothing you could ever show them in terms of evidence will make them change those beliefs. Often, I would say that anyone who believes in something so strongly should be commended, but when you look logic in the eye and say it doesn’t make sense, you forfeit your right to opine on the subject. Most issues have only two options- right or wrong. While you may say that evolution hasn’t fully entered the world of right, intelligent design is unequivocally in the world of wrong.

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