1. Religious Essence of Intelligent Design
Galileo’s trial: Roman Catholic Inquisition, 1633
Church’s Argument: A literal interpretation of Biblical texts* (“Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, over the valley of Ajalon.” Joshua 10:12, KJV)
Galileo observed reasons that supported Copernicus’s idea of a heliocentric solar system:
The Moons of Jupiter: This discovery proved that not every thing revolves around the earth.
Phases of Venus: Galileo observed phases of Venus (like our moon’s phases), that could best be
explained by Venus sometimes being hidden from our view because it was behind the sun, thus orbiting the sun, and not the earth.
Retrograde Motion: caused when Earth over takes another planet that has a bigger orbit than us.
Scope Monkey Trial
Nicholas Copernicus, a Polish scientist living about a century before Galileo, had already come up with the unorthodox idea that the Sun was at the center of the solar system. Galileo knew about and had accepted Copernicus's heliocentric (Sun-centered) theory.
It was Galileo's observations of Venus that proved the theory. Using his telescope, Galileo found that Venus went through phases, just like our Moon. But, the nature of these phases could only be explained by Venus going around the Sun, not the Earth. Galileo concluded that Venus must travel around the Sun, passing at times behind and beyond it, rather than revolving directly around the Earth.
Galileo's observations of the phases of Venus virtually proved that the Earth was not the center of the universe. It was this assertion which most angered the Church leaders of the time.
galileo-made-to-support-a

2. (Forrest in Evolution The Molecular Landscape, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2009, this slide and the next with the quote from Phillip Johnson)
Not a single expert witness over the course of the six week trial identified one major scientific association society or organization that endorsed ID as science….We have concluded that it is not [science], and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious antecedents (Jones 2005)
Figure 3.22 Scopes on Trial
John Scopes, right, confers with a member of his defense team.
Arguments about evolution are less to do with science and more to do with the affect on public perception of morality

3. Phillip Johnson, major proponent of ID in an interview:
I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that comparable. Working our a positive theory is the job of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove….No product is ready for competition in the education world.

4. The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from smallest number of hypotheses or axioms (Albert Einstein)
What is a Theory?
Hierarchical framework that contains clearly formulated postulates based on a minimal set of assumptions from which a set of predictions logically follows.
Theory from theoria (Greek) = viewing or contemplation. In use, a way of looking at the world.

5. Evolution, like other disciplines of science, makes predictions:
Predicting the location of
Tiktaalik
Tiktaalik /tɪkˈtɑːlᵻk/ is a monospecific genus of extinct sarcopterygian (lobe-finned fish) from the late Devonian period, about 375 Ma (million years) ago, having many features akin to those of tetrapods (four-legged animals).[1]
Tiktaalik has a possibility of being a representative of the evolutionary transition from fish to amphibians. It is an example from several lines of ancient sarcopterygian fish developing adaptations to the oxygen-poor shallow-water habitats of its time, environmental conditions which are thought to have led to the evolution of tetrapods.[2]
Ellesmere Island
Tiktaalik’s left and right fins had a single
upper bone (the large bone at the bottom
of each of these drawings) followed
by two intermediate bones, giving the
creature an elbow and a wrist, as in more
recent organisms.

6. Press’s interpretation
of Controversy between
Science and Religion during
Darwin’s life-time

7. Much effort to educate public
Science and faith does not conflict
Public and private initiatives

8. US resistance to Evolution
Coyne, 2012, Evolution

9. “We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different
traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and
the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist.
We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational
scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny
and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement
rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as ’one theory
among others’ is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance
and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that
among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical
thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a
rejection of the will of our Creator We urge school board
members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum
by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a
core component of human knowledge. We ask that science
remain science and that religion remain religion, two very
different, but complementary, forms of truth.”
—“The Clergy Letter Project” signed by more than 10,000
Christian clergy members. For additional information, see

11. Conclusion, Evidence for Evolution
Descent with modification
Vestigial traits
Darwin’s Law of Succession
Transitional forms in fossil record
Common Ancestry
Phylogenies
Homology
Extinction
Recent evolution
Age of Earth
Science uses natural phenomenon to describe the world.