In another thread, poster madsen presented the following challenge:
I’m holding out hope that the next post will concern positive evidence for ID rather than more critiques of Darwin.
In mathematics there is a method of proof called “proof by contradiction.” The logic behind this proof is the following: Establish two possible alternatives. Assume that one of the alternatives is true, and prove it to be logically contradictory. A superb example of proof by contradiction is Euclid’s (circa 300 BC) proof that the number of primes is infinite.
Let’s apply the method of proof by contradiction to the chance-and-necessity versus design debate.
Of course, this is not a mathematical model, but there are some very illuminating similarities. There are two options: 1) design (foresight and planning), and 2) the materialistic laws of physics, chemistry, and probability – which are purported to have produced all biological phenomena, from the information-processing machinery of the cell to the human mind.
Option 2) might have been believable in the 19th century, when it was thought that life was fundamentally simple, but it is completely unsupportable in light of modern science. The preponderance of scientific evidence and mathematical analysis weighs overwhelming in support of design, as a proof by contradiction.
Let us not hear about “self-organization.” Sodium chloride forms salt crystals, and water freezes into snowflakes, but salt crystals and snowflakes contain no information (other than that about how the molecules mechanically interact as they coalesce), and they certainly don’t form information-processing machinery.
Of course, there is always the possibility that there is a third option, besides design versus chance and necessity, but I’d like to hear it. In the meantime, logic, evidence, and mathematics weigh heavily on the side of design, as a proof by contradiction.