Thoughts in a Haystack

¹¹And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:

¹²And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

1Kings 19:11-12

It is, indeed, no accident that David Klinghoffer has posted his introduction to the "companion book" to Metamorphosis, the latest propaganda movie by the Undiscovery Institute, under the title "A Still Small Voice."

You can get the book for free (if you're willing to sign up for a Center for Science and Culture newsletter) but, with all that's going on in my life, the effort is too much. Perhaps some enterprising soul will save me the trouble. Given that Klinghoffer is the editor of the book, described as "The Case for Intelligent Design in a Nutshell Chrysalis," his introduction is likely instructive of the tenor of it.

After describing an encounter he and his son had with a Western Tiger Swallowtail butterfly comes this insipid thought:

Later I wondered, as have others, how such a vulnerable, defenseless, conspicuous and leisurely creature emerged, if the conventional evolutionary scenario is believed, as the fittest to survive over competitors.

... as if Darwin or any other scientist had declared that only 800 lb. bear and tiger ravaging creatures could fly from flower to flower and survive on nectar long enough to reproduce!

There is much talk of "enchantment," a theme Klinghoffer has essayed before, which boils down to "Look at the pretty ____________, ergo God!". But Klinghoffer, at least, among the Discoveroids, realizes that the "case for ID" has not been made:

This is an intuition and an intuition can be mistaken. Some observations need to be proved but some don't. In his wonderful little book Real Presences, the literary critic and philosopher George Steiner teaches that if materialism were to really win the day and conquer our culture, the expression and recognition of beauty would be crippled. He calls this a conjecture and admits it can't be proven. Yet Steiner also cites Aristotle's Metaphysics to the effect that knowing when an idea needs to be proven at all is a matter of apaideusis. The Greek word can "be translated as meaning a want of schooling, a fundamental lesion in education. I would render the term as connoting an indecency of spirit and of understanding."

To feel unmoved on seeing a butterfly, or even to feel moved yet to ask for harder proof that the creature points to the presence of an invisible reality behind nature, may well be indecent. If so, then you can call me indecent. Metamorphosis is a fantastically beautiful and informative documentary, but it left me hungry for a more detailed and conclusive treatment of the contradictions that butterflies have long been recognized as posing to Darwinian materialist philosophy. We have gathered the essays in this book because doubtless many other viewers will want, if not proof, then at least an elaboration of the ideas to which the film briefly alludes.

In other words, if you are looking for a scientific case for ID in Metamorphosis or its companion book, you'll be disappointed. All you'll get is insipid mangling of what science actually holds and "ideas" that are nothing more than wishful yearnings that the world might be more like our preconceived notions of our own importance.

Not that I begrudge them their hopes and fears ... I just despise the dishonesty by which they insist on calling them "science."
.