EDY19 wrote ...

The lowest recorded growth rate we have for Western Europe is 0.377%. Let us imagine that mankind (Homo sapien) has been around for say, 50,000 years; a figure that is just a fraction of the time evolutionists claim. Using this 0.377% figure, after 50,000 years the world would be a staggering 10^82

wrote ...
"Intelligent Design" Is about Religion versus Reason

By Keith Lockitch

In his Dec. 2 Op-Ed, "Atheists can't prove it, either," Robert Camp
criticized my Nov. 17 lecture in Irvine on "intelligent design"
creationism, though without mentioning me by name.

Camp was unhappy that, in addition to discussing the flaws of
"intelligent design," I also criticized religion in general. The
creationism controversy, he feels, is a "scientific and pedagogical
issue," not a clash between reason and religion.

But the view that "intelligent design" is a scientific position, to be
answered with scientific arguments, is--as I explained in my
talk--precisely the view its promoters are desperate to convey. Though
they have no data supporting their claims, their arguments are
carefully calculated to appear scientific and non-religious. Why? In
hope of skirting the constitutional ban on religion in public schools.
This is why the title of my lecture (which Camp also failed to
mention) was "Creationism in Camouflage: the 'Intelligent Design'
Deception."

What makes "intelligent design" an inherently religious viewpoint is
its appeal to a supernatural "designer." This appeal brings it
directly into conflict with reason, because the very notion of the
supernatural--of something "beyond" nature that defies natural
laws--is a contradiction. As I argued in my lecture, one cannot
properly oppose the efforts of "intelligent design" creationists
without rejecting their attempt to make the "supernatural" part of
science.

Although Camp, himself, claims to be "intellectually opposed to
supernatural ideas," he finds it troubling that I would dare to
proclaim in a public lecture that the idea of the "supernatural"
provably contradicts the facts of reality. Ssshhh! Don't let the
religious folks hear you!

Especially troubling to Camp, was my rejection of the belief that
supernaturalism is necessary for morality--the belief that without God
there can be no absolute standards of right and wrong. "The last thing
we need," he explains, "is a bunch of people who believe they have no
internal moral compass to be running around without their external
one."

What he ignores, however, is the possibility of a scientific, provable
code of ethics--a moral philosophy based neither on subjective,
"internal" feelings nor on "external" religious dogmas. A particularly
telling omission was Camp's failure to mention that my lecture was
sponsored by The Ayn Rand Institute (my employer). This is relevant
because Ayn Rand's ethic of rational egoism provides precisely the
alternative moral system that Camp ignores in his critique.

Rand locates absolute standards of right and wrong in the objective
requirements of human life. In her view, morality arises from the fact
that we, like all living beings, must pursue values in order to
survive. Unlike the lower animals, however, we are not pre-programmed
for survival. To define our values and guide our choices in life, we
need a code of moral principles--principles based on the unalterable
facts of human nature and of man's long-range survival needs.

Rand's ethical system--and, more generally, her philosophy of
Objectivism--comprises the positive message underlying the ideas in my
talk. But apparently, it is the very advancement of a positive system
of philosophy that Camp really objects to. He finds it "reasonable" to
be an atheist, but not to defend the view that atheism, or any other
idea in philosophy, is a provably rational viewpoint. "I think they're
wrong, too," he says, "but there is no, nor can there be, proof of
it." Strangely, he seems to think it is "unreasonable" to defend the
importance of reason.

What his viewpoint dismisses is the essential difference between
reason and faith. In reason, one accepts only conclusions one can
prove to be true--conclusions based on sensory evidence and logical
inference from such evidence. Faith, on the other hand, is belief
unsupported by facts or logic--the blind embrace of ideas despite an
absence of evidence or proof.

The only ideas that are reasonable to believe are those you know to be
true by means of reason. And when you know them to be true, it is
perfectly reasonable to argue in their defense and fight against false
ideas, like creationism, that stand opposed to them.