CENTER FOR THE RENEWAL OF SCIENCE & CULTURE DISCOVERY INSTITUTE(1999)
INTRODUCTION(イントロダクション)
The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the West's greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free enterprise, and progress in the arts and sciences.
Yet a little over a century ago, this cardinal idea came under wholesale attack by intellectuals drawing on the discoveries of modern science. Debunking the traditional conceptions of both God and man, thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud portrayed humans not as moral and spiritual beings, but as animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by purely impersonal forces and whose behavior and very thoughts were dictated by the unbending forces of biology, chemistry, and environment. This materialistic conception of reality eventually infected virtually every area of our culture, from politics and economics to literature and art.
The cultural consequences of this triumph of materialism were devastating. Materialists denied the existence of objective moral standards, claiming that environment dictates our behavior and beliefs. Such moral relativism was uncritically adopted by much of the social sciences, and it still undergirds much of modern economics, political science, psychology and sociology.
Materialists also undermined personal responsibility by asserting that human thoughts and behaviors are dictated by our biology and environment. The results can be seen in modern approaches to criminal justice, product liability, and welfare. In the materialist scheme of things, everyone is a victim and no one can be held accountable for his or her actions.
Finally, materialism spawned a virulent strain of utopianism. Thinking they could engineer the perfect society through the application of scientific knowledge, materialist reformers advocated coercive government programs that falsely promised to create heaven on earth.
Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature. The Center awards fellowships for original research, holds conferences, and briefs policymakers about the opportunities for life after materialism.
Discovery InstituteのCenter for the Renewal of Science and Cultureはまさに唯物論とその文化的遺産の転覆させようとしている。自然科学や人文科学および社会科学の指導的な学者たちを集めて、センターは生物学や物理学および認知科学の新しい成果を調査し、科学的唯物論についての重大な疑いを投げかけ、自然についての広い有神論的理解への扉を再び開いている。センターは、唯物論を超えた生命の可能性について、独自の研究に共同研究資金を提供し、学会を開催し、政策決定者に説明する。
NBC News Poll conducted by the polling organizations of Peter Hart (D) and Bill McInturff (R). March 8-10, 2005. N=800 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.5.
"Which do you think is more likely to actually be the explanation for the origin of human life on Earth: evolution or the biblical account of creation?" Asked of those who answered "Biblical account": "And by this do you mean that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh as described in the Book of Genesis, or that God was a divine presence in the formation of the universe?"
A conference on "Mere Creation" at Biola University in suburban Los Angeles brought together an unprecedented cross-disciplinary gathering of 200 men and women--mostly academics and mostly Christians--interested in building a credible origins model based on "theistic design."
"This isn't really, and never has been, a debate about science," says the conference's prime mover, law professor Phillip Johnson of the University of California at Berkeley. "It's about religion and philosophy." Mr. Johnson also insists the real issue in the century-old debate isn't even about the early chapters of Genesis. "I turn instead to John 1," says the astute Presbyterian layman, "where we're told that 'In the beginning was the word.'"
Phillip Johnson's strategy stretches like a would-be eclipse over most of the differences. "We can't afford to be shooting incessantly at each other over old-earth and young-earth disagreements," he says wherever he goes among evangelical Christians. "The real enemy is naturalistic, impersonal Darwinism that deliberately and consciously seeks to set God on the sideline of our culture." Mr. Johnson suggests there will be time enough for settling the details of creation once Darwinism has been denied its century-old dominance.
Is intelligent design theory the same as creationism?
インテリジェントデザイン理論は創造論と同じか？
... Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the Biblical God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text. ...
Does IDEA take a position on the age of the earth?
IDEAは地球の年齢についての何らかのポジションをとっているか？
The age of the earth is not an issue related to intelligent design theory, the validity of evolutionary theory, or even to to the validity of religions, including Christianity. For this reason, IDEA finds no reason to make any statements about the age of the earth. This does not mean it is not an important question, but it is not one we address.
これでは何を言っているのかわからない。せっかく"若い地球の創造論"および"古い地球の創造論"との互換性を実現しても、両側からアフォ扱いされることになる。"古い地球の創造論"ミニストリ"Reasons To Believe"の主宰者Dr. Hugh Rossと、"若い地球の創造論"ミニストリCreation Ministries Internationalの主宰者Dr. Carl Wielandは次のように、インテリジェントデザインを評する：
When it comes to the origin of the universe, life, and humanity, scientists want history's story. They emphatically request that the story be cast in the form of a testable model. In a two-hour prime-time national television debate in 1997 between evolutionists and ID leaders, the evolutionists repeatedly asked, "Where is your model?" and never received a reply. Nine years later, evolutionists still ask the same question and still receive no response.
They generally refuse to be drawn on the sequence of events, or the exact history of life on Earth or its duration, apart from saying, in effect, that it "doesn't matter". However, this is seen by the average evolutionist as either absurd or disingenuously evasive - the arena in which they are seeking to be regarded as full players is one which directly involves historical issues. In other words, if the origins debate is not about a "story of the past", what is it about?
What is the theory of intelligent design?
インテリジェントデザイン理論とは何か
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
Rather than trying to infer God’s existence or character from the natural world, it simply claims "that intelligent causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable."
Intelligent design is a scientific theory which seeks to determine if some objects in the natural world were designed through recognizing and detecting the types of information known to be produced by the intelligent agents when they act.
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
Design is simply the purposeful arrangement of parts.
デザインとは部品の意図的配置だ。[
Behe 1998
]
となっている。一方、デザイナーの属性は不明かつ研究対象外である。
One need not fully understand the origin or identity of the designer to determine that an object was designed. Thus, this question is essentially irrelevant to intelligent design theory, which merely seeks to detect if an object was designed. .... Intelligent design theory cannot address the identity or origin of the designer--it is a philosophical / religious question that lies outside the domain of scientific inquiry
中味のないインテリジェントデザイン"理論"だが、それでもちっと困らないのが、インテリジェントデザイン運動。Discovery Instiuteのシニアフェローであり、
Gilder Publishing LLC
代表であるGorge Gilderの2005年の名言[via
Panda's Thumb
]に次のようなものがある：
"I'm not pushing to have [ID] taught as an 'alternative' to Darwin, and neither are they," he says in response to one question about Discovery's agenda. "What's being pushed is to have Darwinism critiqued, to teach there's a controversy. Intelligent design itself does not have any content."
GALESBURG - The father of intelligent design says his child is not ready for school.
The hypothesis of intelligent design, while being developed, is not complete enough to be taught in the classroom, Phillip Johnson, professor emeritus of law at the University of California at Berkeley, said during a lecture at Knox College Friday.
Is intelligent design theory incompatible with evolution?
インテリジェントデザインと進化は相容れないか？
It depends on what one means by the word "evolution." If one simply means "change over time," or even that living things are related by common ancestry, then there is no inherent conflict between evolutionary theory and intelligent design theory. However, the dominant theory of evolution today is neo-Darwinism, which contends that evolution is driven by natural selection acting on random mutations, an unpredictable and purposeless process that "has no discernable direction or goal, including survival of a species." (NABT Statement on Teaching Evolution). It is this specific claim made by neo-Darwinism that intelligent design theory directly challenges.
それは進化という言葉が何を意味するかによる。"時間を経ての変化"あるいは生物が共通祖先によって関係しているという意味なら、進化論とインテリジェントデザイン理論の固有の対立はない。しかし今日の主流の進化論はネオ・ダーウィニズムであり、それは進化は自然選択が突然変異に働くことで進み、種の存続を含む識別できる方向性や到達点を持たない、予測できない目的のない過程であると主張している(NABT Statement on Teaching Evolution)。このネオ・ダーウィニズムによる主張に対して、インテリジェントデザイン理論は挑んでいる。
