intelligence: the obscured debate
I delight to think that the so called controversy over evolution vs. intelligent design may itself end up being a natural selector in weeding out evolutionarily disadvantaged modes of thinking.
Any states that choose to incorporate “intelligent design” into their public school curriculums may increasingly find their students at a disadvantage in being accepted into respectable secondary learning institutions that are loyal to the rigors of the scientific method. Perhaps these rejects will resort to rampant intermarriage in their exile, resulting in a hemophiliac progeny that withers into oblivion over the generations.
Moreover, will the precarious human need for belief in God itself be eradicated through natural selection in an increasingly intellectually discerning world?
Well, let’s take it from the other side. Perhaps the mother who eschews education (and birth control) will have more time to devote to nourishing her multitude of offspring and cultivating their survivalist, multiplying wiles. Didn’t God tell them to go forth and populate the earth? Is that an evolutionary directive?
As I see it, the question is not if “intelligent design” has any scientific merit, or even if it is relatively sound thinking, but this: does intelligence itself have evolutionary stamina? It has served us well for millions of years, yet all the technological “advances” of the past two centuries continue to threaten our survival as a species – with human induced climate change, the mass extinction of other species, nuclear threat, etc.
Most people you ask will agree that intelligence is a desirable trait, but is it a conceit to impose that belief on a fictional master designer? Yes. What then if intelligence is the mutation that is our Achilles heel? A failed design? A failed designer?
Maybe that’s why some say the intelligent designer is dead. (and no one cares)
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