Sanjai Tripathi on ID

One of my favorite blogs about evolution, The Panda's Thumb, had a post about an article by Sanjai Tripathi in the Oregon State Daily Barometer which he titled, "ID for faithful, evolution for scientists."

Sanjai is close to completing an advanced degree in molecular microbiology. He took proponents of intelligent design to task on scientific grounds:

First, their examples of "irreducible complexity" are in fact reducible. The bacterial flagellum is the most frequent example cited by ID proponents.

He goes on to explain how combinations of a lesser number of the 30 proteins which make up these flagella serve several other useful functions, so it is not true that they have to "suddenly appear all at once" as IDer's claim.

He goes on to say:

The second flaw in ID is more fundamental. That is, their basic argument has no logical basis; because something is very complex, it doesn't necessarily have a "designer."

Sure there's still lots to learn in biology. We're talking about all living things on the planet, after all. Yet we don't look at some cellular structure or function, say "that's too complex for me, God musta dunnit," throw up our hands and abandon research in the area. That's like saying that God created the weather, so why bother studying meteorology. It just isn't useful.

I left a comment about his article:

Good article, Sanjai.

I despair at the header, "ID for faithful, evolution for scientists"

For those of us who believe in the God of reality, there is no conflict between faith and science. We are in awe as we find out more about the universe that God created through the knowledge that science continues to provide us.

It is only those who believe in the God of Biblical Mythology who have a problem with science. Those ID creationists who turn a blind eye to scientific observations such as the age of the earth, and scientific theories such as the theory of evolution not only show disrespect for God by turning their backs on the realities of His marvelous creation but also embarrass the rest of us who base our belief in God on reality not fantasy.

He responded as part of a comment later:

Re Mr. Ware's post; I agree that the title unfairly characterizes "faithful". I used it to mean those who reject empiricism, but that description certainly doesn't describe all people who are faithful. My apologies for the imprecision.

Accepting the reality of God's creation allows us to believe in a real God. There is no other.