Intelligent design

Intelligent design (ID) is the concept 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." Its leading proponents, all of whom are affiliated with the Discovery Institute, say that intelligent design is a scientific theory that stands on equal footing with, or is superior to, current scientific theories regarding the origin of life.

More and more of the scientific community are beginning to view intelligent design as a valid scientific theory.

The Evidence in Cosmology
The Kalam cosmological argument is espousing a more powerful and compelling impetus. William Lane Craig desribes it as such:

• Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
• The universe had a beginning. Virtually all cosmologists agree that the universe had a beginning.
• Therefore, the universe has a cause. Astronomer Robert Jastrow says,

"The chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply, at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy."

The Evidence in Physics
The "Anthropic principle" lead Patrick Glynn to abandon atheism. He says, "Today the concrete data point strongly in the direction of the God hypothosis. It is the simplist and most obvious solution to the anthropic puzzle."

The evidence in Astronomy
"If the universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existance. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in." -John A. O'Keefe of NASA

The evidence in Biochemistry
Michael Behe has demostrated that Darwin's theory has broken down, through his description of "irreducibly complex" machines. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional.

The evidence in Biological Information
Stephen C. Meyer (Cambridge) has demonstrated that no hypothosis explains how information got into biological matter through naturalistic means.

The evidence in Consciousness
"You can't get something from nothing. If the universe began with dead matter having no consciousness, how, then, do you get something totally different--consciousness, living, thinking, feeling, believing, creatures--from materials that don't have that?" -J. P. Moreland


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Anthropic Principle

In physics and cosmology, the anthropic principle is an umbrella term for various dissimilar attempts to explain the structure of the universe by way of coincidentally balanced features that are necessary and relevant to the existence on Earth of biochemistry, carbon-based life, and eventually human beings to observe such a universe. The common (and "weak") form of the anthropic principle is a truism or tautology that begins with the observation that the universe appears surprisingly hospitable to the emergence of life, particularly complex multicellular life, that can make such an observation and concludes with that premise that in only such a fine-tuned universe can such living observers be.

The idea evolved from the so-called "Dicke's coincidence", and has subsequently been reinforced by the discovery of many more anthropic coincidences since Intelligent Design for the existence of God.

The "Anthropic principle" has lead Patrick Glynn, former Special Assistant to the Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under the Reagan Administration, to abandon atheism. He says,

"Today the concrete data point strongly in the direction of the God hypothosis. It is the simplist and most obvious solution to the anthropic puzzle." -The Case for a Creator, Lee Strobel

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Cosmology

Cosmology, from the Greek: κοσμολογία (cosmologia, κόσμος (cosmos) world + λογια (logia) discourse) is the study of the universe in its totality, and by extension, humanity's place in it. Though the word cosmology is recent (first used in 1730 in Christian Wolff's Cosmologia Generalis), the study of the universe has a long history involving science, philosophy, esotericism, and religion (see cosmological argument, kalam cosmological argument).

Disciplines
In recent times, physics and astrophysics have come to play a central role in shaping what is now known as physical cosmology, i.e. the understanding of the universe through scientific observation, experiments, and theorizing. This discipline, which focuses on the universe as it exists on the largest scales and at the earliest times, begins by arguing for the big bang, a sort of cosmic explosion from which the universe itself is said to have erupted ~13.7 ± 0.2 billion (109) years ago. After its violent beginnings and until its very end, scientists then propose that the entire history of the universe has been an orderly progression governed by physical laws. (see also: Kalam cosmological argument)

In between the doctrines of religion and science, stands the philosophical perspective of metaphysical cosmology. This ancient field of study seeks to draw logical conclusions about the nature of the universe, man, god and/or their connections based on the extension of some set of presumed facts borrowed from religion and/or observation.

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The Big Bang

In physical cosmology, the Big Bang is the scientific "theory" that the universe emerged from a tremendously dense and hot state about 13.7 billion years ago.

Observational evidence for the Big Bang includes the analysis of the spectrum of light from galaxies which reveal a shift towards longer wavelengths proportional to each galaxy's distance in a relationship described by Hubble's law. If this observation that galaxies are moving away from us is not at any special position in the universe (the Copernican principle), then this suggests that space itself is expanding. Extrapolation of this expansion back in time yields an initial state in the distant past in which all matter and energy was at an immense temperature and density. This initial state is the key premise of Big Bang theory.

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