Dossier Évolution et créationnisme Creationism and Intelligent Design: a critique

摘要

Growing anti-evolution sentiments from within a sector of the United States population led to the Scopes trial in 1925. The trial, pitting fundamentalism against science, revolved around John Scopes, an itinerant biology teacher, who had used a science text that discussed evolution. Lasting over a week, the trial was somewhat of a fiasco, as the defence asked that Scopes be found guilty (anticipating the opportunity for appeal at a higher court). The appeal was successful (on a technicality), but nonetheless stopped the "anti-evolution movement" in its tracks for almost 80 years. The Creationist movement was relatively quiet over subsequent years, but has recently rejoined the debate, with a new twist - "Intelligent Design" (ID). A key component of Darwinian Evolution through natural selection is that life arose from non-living matter. In contrast, the basis of intelligent design is that life is too complicated to have been created by natural selection and thus must have had a designer. In this repackaging of creationist dogma, ID has also (in part) dispensed with the notion of a "young earth" (vide Archbishop Ussher's 4004BC); further, many ID proponents contend that the nature of the designer is unknown, Le. distancing the argument from any legal challenge (US Federal Law forbids the teaching of divine creation in state-funded schools).