Who Doubts The Fact of Evolution?

Evolutionary skeptics can be logically grouped into two primary groups: “Intelligent Design” advocates and “Biblical Creationists.” Biblical Creationists can be viewed as Intelligent Design advocates who claim that the Judeo-Christian God served as the Intelligent Designer.

Intelligent Design advocates, whether or not they are Biblically oriented, are often accused of undermining science by bringing religion into the debate. However, Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel are two very famous Origin of Life Researchers who have described the possibility that life on earth had a non-religious intelligent designer:

We have considered Directed Panspermia, the theory that organisms were deliberately transmitted to the earth by intelligent beings on another planet. We conclude that it is possible that life reached the earth in this way, but that the scientific evidence is inadequate at the present time to say anything about the probability.

Quote is from: Francis H. C. Crick and Leslie E. Orgel, “Directed Panspermia,” Icarus 19:341-6, 1973, p. 341, as quoted from this website: http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/SC/B/C/C/P/_/scbccp.pdf.

If one can't estimate the probability that life was sent to earth by intelligent aliens, then one can't estimate the probability that life was not put on earth by intelligent aliens - because the two probabilites are related. Thus, the probability that life evolved on earth (rather than being put here by intelligent aliens) is an unknown variable.

Furthermore, all of the Intelligent Design advocates I am aware of believe that living organisms function according to the laws of physics and chemistry, that Mendel’s experiments uncovered the laws of genetic inheritance, that genetic mutations and natural selection are scientific facts, and that complex molecular machines allow cells to function.

The only science that Intelligent Design advocates seek to undermine is the theoretical claim that biochemical complexity arose without the input of an external intelligent source. If you are interested in understanding why I make that claim, please select a chapter from ‘The Fact of Evolution?’ and start reading.