Samford hosts lecture, panel discussion on much-debated intelligent design

The international debate about intelligent design (ID) has found its way to Alabama. Samford University students, faculty and staff, along with church leaders and community members, crowded into the school’s chapel Feb. 27 to hear a lecture and panel discussion on the subject.
   
The question is not whether ID is science but whether science can give evidence of intelligent causation, said lecturer John Lennox, a fellow in mathematics and philosophy of science and pastoral adviser at Green College, University of Oxford in England.
   
“ID is the hypothesis that there is an intelligent cause,” he said. “The question is, ‘Is there any scientific evidence for it?’”
   
The lecture, “Science and the Question of God,” was presented by Birmingham-based Fixed Point Foundation and was held despite early opposition from some Samford faculty members.
   
Lennox said many in North America perceive ID as confrontational to science, particularly to evolution and biology. Because of that, he wanted to “set the debate in a much wider context in order that we do not lose our sense of proportion.”
   
“Interestingly enough, the Bible says relatively little about creation,” Lennox said. “Often we fill in  what we think ought to be there and … we create our own ideas, and then we fight about them.”
   
Noting that scientists differ about their belief in God and whether traces of God can be found in the universe, Lennox asked with which worldview science most comfortably fits.
   
“Does science give us any pointers?” he asked. “It will certainly give us no proofs. … You only have proofs in mathematics. In the rest of science, we have evidence and pointers. There are no knockdown proofs either for the existence or the nonexistence of God.”
   
Pointing to the evidence of God’s existence, Lennox noted that the giants of science, including Galileo and Newton, were all believers in God and their faith was the driving force behind their science. “It seems to me there is a powerful precedent from the history of science pointing toward the usefulness of belief in God as grinding the motor of science on the conviction that nature is ordered,” he said.
   
Lennox also noted mounting evidence in the philosophy of science, physics and cosmology to support belief in God and an underlying supernatural plan.
   
“These arguments do not proceed from an ignorance of science,” Lennox said. “They are not saying, ‘we can’t explain it; therefore God did it.’ They are saying, ‘we are beginning to understand it, and it is pointing towards a super intelligence being involved.’”
   
He said science asks questions. “The situation is not quite as clear cut as we were told,” Lennox said, noting that some aspects of evolution are widely accepted.
   
“There are two worldviews,” he said. “One says in the beginning, were the particles and everything else including the human mind and information is derivative. 
   
“The other one says in the beginning, was the Word and the Word was God — all things were made by Him. I think science points to the second worldview.”
   
Wilton Bunch, professor of ethics at Samford’s Beeson Divinity School and part of a panel responding to Lennox’s lecture, called the lecture a first-class introduction to the concepts of ID and said the purpose of this lecture was to stimulate thought.
   
“When I think about intelligent design, I still run into some difficulties,” he said, noting that ID “wishes to be taken as science.”
   
“Science consists of observing, thinking about the observations and forming hypotheses, then testing these hypotheses,” Bunch said. “If you cannot construct a hypothesis and test it, you are not doing science. Anything else would be like playing baseball with 11 players. It might be an interesting game but it’s not baseball. 
   
“Intelligent design is a very profound philosophical critique, particularly of the theory of evolution, but it’s really not science. 
   
“If ID is to become part of the sciences, it should use the rules of sciences to get in,” Bunch said, noting the lecture was held in the chapel and not the science building.
   
“We have gathered in the place where we gather regularly to talk about God and the place where we come to worship God, and I think that says it all,” he said.
   
Another panel member, Kurt Kristensen, teacher of biology and ecology at The Altamont School in Birmingham, admitted uncertainty in determining whether ID is a science or philosophy.
   
“Simple lack of evidence is not an argument for the supernatural,” he said. “Evolution is the basis of modern biology. Evolution answers how things are the way they are, not why.”
   
Tim Ritchie, president and CEO of the McWane Science Center in Birmingham, also responded to Lennox’s address and encouraged those in attendance to be “fearless about facing up to the facts about the material world.”
   
“I speak to you as a deeply committed Christian and as a person who is utterly untroubled by an evolutionary explanation of the material universe,” Ritchie said. “It does not offend me at all to think that I evolved from a primordial soup and that I am created in the image of God … . Any attempt to explain away things that are obviously true ruins our credibility as people and ruins our witness as Christians.”
   
He presented the thought that if God stands outside of time, then there is ample room for Him to let the universe evolve and stay involved Himself.
   
“Is it so far-fetched to say that we evolved … that God had deemed to touch us with the god-like power to choose good over evil, right over wrong, self-sacrifice over cruelty, faithfulness over selfishness?” Ritchie asked. “If it turns out that the material universe can be explained through evolutionary material terms, that does not … omit the belief in God.”
   
Lennox — who believes “in the Creator” — suggested further study on the topic.
   
Prior to the event, some Samford faculty members voiced opposition to the lecture. After a round of faculty e-mails, the opposition was reported to The Birmingham News, and an article appeared Dec. 8, 2005, voicing their concerns.
   
According to the News, a resolution was introduced in the college of arts and sciences’ faculty senate describing ID as a political movement instead of a science. The resolution questioned Samford’s decision to deal with the subject that some believe is injecting religion into science education in the public schools. No action was taken on the resolution.
   
Samford President Tom Corts told the News that because the topic was being widely discussed, it was appropriate to have a discussion. “This is a university and you are supposed to talk about ideas.”