Origins

I recent watched all four parts of Nova’s Origins which was quite well done. Soon after, my wife found an interesting article about the man behind the Intelligent Design movement and how these modern creationists are becoming more sophisticated in their arguments. As I read it, I found myself intuitively knowing that his arguments were flawed but unable to directly counter them. Today, I found Scientific American’s 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense and now have the arguments I lacked. I’m many years behind on my evolutionary reading and the only real argument I had in my arsenal was the simple one that just because we don’t know the answer to one question does not invalidate all of the other answers we do have. That’s a logical fallacy.

A more interesting question that’s come up lately (something that my wife and I often go back and forth on) is whether the scientific method per se is enough to handle all questions. Is it too narrow an approach and prevents certain other outlooks or perspectives from being considered? I see some shades of Scully from the X-Files or Ellie from Contact here…<.p>