Expelled

I had some time the last few days to view the film "Expelled" by Ben Stein. If you've not seen it, he does a good job of unveiling the academic bias against scientific research that doesn't conclude that evolution is true. One short clip of an ACLU representative from Pennsylvania caught my attention. He says that Intelligent Design (ID) is simply another religious system. The expected conclusion from this remark is that if that is the case we must not allow it into scientific discussion.
My thought was this. What if it is religion, and it is true? There are some assumptions made in the derogatory statement by the ACLU guy. If it is religious, it is not scientific and if it is not scientific, it cannot be factual. But...what if someone would answer the accusation, "it is religion" with "Maybe it is", and pose the question, is it true? ID is continuallydisregarded not with scientific argument, but simply by calling it religion. That is supposed to end all credibility. In reality ID takes no more faith than evolution.
Evolution demands faith to believe that life began on the backs of crystals or was planted here by aliens. It requires faith to believe that information is added to DNA from unknown sources to create new life forms. It takes faith to believe that new species are formed through mutations even though this has not been observed and is not recorded in the fossil record. It's interesting in Biologybooks that I have looked at (it's been awhile) that in the first chapters they convince you that all the traits you have were inherited from genetic material within your parents' gene pool and the last chapters (on evolution) tell you that new species arose from ongoing processes of natural selection in which new genetic traits arose by chance and not from your parents. I want to launch into the detrimental nature of mutations, but I will withhold such rantings at this time.
Bottom line is this. Which theory is most consistent with what we observe, scientific law, the fossil record and logic ( as in, if there is a design there is a designer)? My challenge is this. If someone tries to discount ID, Creationism or any other non-evolutionary theory on the basis of religion, do not let them get away with it. Feel free to say maybe it is religion, but is it true? May someone please be held accountable for evidence on the evolutionary side of the argument!!!
In 1980 I remember sponsoring a debate at the local Jr. College over evolution. We had a professor from Texas-El Paso defending creationism (ID was not yet on the scene) and a professor from Illinois-Chicago defending evolution. The creationist talked about science while the main argument of the evolutionist was not scientific credibility for evolution, but rather why the creationist was simply religious and so was not credible. The creationist never used the Bible or faith as part of his argument and yet he was discredited because his basis was religion. Evolution is more philosophical than scientific! Usually science observes a process happening and then concludes the truth of it. Evolutionists on the other hand conclude evolution is true and decide to figure out exactly how it happened later. That's religious conviction!!