Intelligent in Design - ignorant in application

A Pennsylvania School district has selected a policy of teaching in science classes that life on Earth so complex that an intelligent creator must be responsible for life as we know it.

I must object to the attempt to teach intelligent design in a science course because intelligent design is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the facts of natural selection.

The principal of natural selection relies on three critical facts:
1) Living individuals within a community have differences in their physical makeup
Hair color, pigmentation, any biological difference (it is undisputed that individuals differ).
2) These differences (at least some) are heritable (genetic)
Differences between individuals are inhereted from their parents (an undisputed fact)
3) Individuals within the community can produce more offspring than the community can support to survive
The familiar survival of the fittest argument

Application of these principals leads us to the logical conclusion that those individuals whose traits provide them with the greatest survival advantages (or more importantly, the greatest advantage in reproducing, i.e., passing on one's genes) will pass on those advantages traits (through their genes) to subsequent generations to a greater extent than will individuals whose genetic makeup leaves them with a survival (or reproductive) disadvantage.


Intelligent design mistakenly argues that the process of evolution is random. While a mutation in the genetic code may be random (e.g., the mere change from an "A" to a "T" or a "G" to a "C"), natural selection is not a random process. Natural selection is based on what traits provide the greatest advantage in survival and reproduction.

Example: A gazelle is a fast runner. This ability benefits them in their ability to avoid predators. If a gazelle has a genetic makeup that gives them greater speed than all other gazelles, that gazelle will have an easier time avoiding predators. That gazelle is likely to survive longer and reproduce more (say 10 babies). Its progeny, if that genetic make-up is inhereted, will also enjoy a greater ability to avoid predators and will pass those genes on as well (say each of those will produce 10 more babies). Over many generations more and more gazelles with this genetic makeup will fill the population of that community. Those gazelles with another genetic makeup that does not provide them this advantage will become the most susceptible to predation and will reproduce less.

This would result in one group becoming relatively more productive, more "fit" (the faster gazelles) while the others become comparatively less "fit" (the slower gazelles). Eventually, over many many generations, most of the population will be comprised of those with the genes for greater speed. Thus the species has evolved.

It is a simple and uncontriversial matter. It is only when beliefs arising from outside science are injected into the issue that any objection to the principal of natural selection arises.