Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week: Design by Darwin
Can Darwin get credit for intelligently-planned research? Apparently John Chaput thinks so. A press release from the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University states this:
Nature, through the trial and error of evolution, has discovered a vast diversity of life from what can only presumed to have been a primordial pool of building blocks. Inspired by this success, a new Biodesign Institute research team, led by John Chaput, is now trying to mimic the process of Darwinian evolution in the laboratory by evolving new proteins from scratch. Using new tricks of molecular biology, Chaput and co-workers have evolved several new proteins in a fraction of the 3 billion years it took nature.
A strange mix of chance and design permeates the article, with evolve or evolution 17 times and design seven times. The Biodesign Institute itself, according to its information page, seeks to learn from nature’s designs, as do Caltech (06/25/2005) and the Georgia Institute of Technology (10/29/2005). The inspiration for such ventures is credited to evolution:
Research in the Institute shares a common starting point. It explores the remarkable structure and function of living systems, which have been honed by thousands of years of evolution and natural selection. If man could duplicate what nature does routinely, all aspects of society would be transformed….
The list of hopes is impressive: preventive health care, increase in the global food supply, brain repair and industrial efficiency. It’s all tied together in this sentence: “The ‘Biodesign’ reference in our name reflects a desire to design solutions with the same efficiency and success as living systems.” But those, it goes without repeating, presumably evolved by chance over millions of years.
The Darwin Dogma of Miracles can be summarized: (1) assume evolution, (2) personify Nature, and (3) wave the magic wand of millions of years. Then, miracles of exquisite design occur by natural law. (Contradiction intended for ironic, dramatic effect.)
The Intelligent Design movement should sue for trademark infringement, plagiarism, and copyright violations when Biomimetics credits the Darwin Party. Design belongs to intelligent minds, not trial-and-error outcomes of blind, impersonal processes. How many times do we have to educate the Darwinists and reporters that “guided evolution” is a contradiction in terms? That “artificial selection” is not natural selection, but intelligent design? When Dr. Chaput has a goal, designs the parameters, and makes a selection with his mind, he is exercising intelligent design by definition. Darwin has nothing to do with it. Mother Nature is a fiction, OK? Give honor to whom honor is due.
Good grief, the next thing we’ll see the Darwinists doing is offering prayers and sacrifices at the foot of idols of Mother Nature. At least that would be more sensible than talking this way in a science lab. Recall a worse example by Francisco Ayala earlier this month (05/10/2007).