Department of Cellular Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, USA.
J Eukaryot Microbiol. 2010 Jan-Feb;57(1):3-10. doi: 10.1111/j.1550-7408.2009.00460.x. Epub 2009 Dec 18.
In recent years the teaching of the religiously based philosophy of intelligent design (ID) has been proposed as an alternative to modern evolutionary theory. Advocates of ID are largely motivated by their opposition to naturalistic explanations of biological diversity, in accordance with their goal of challenging the philosophy of scientific materialism. Intelligent design has been embraced by a wide variety of creationists who promote highly questionable claims that purport to show the inadequacy of evolutionary theory, which they consider to be a threat to a theistic worldview. We find that examples from protistan biology are well suited for providing evidence of many key evolutionary concepts, and have often been misrepresented or roundly ignored by ID advocates. These include examples of adaptations and radiations that are said to be statistically impossible, as well as examples of speciation both in the laboratory and as documented in the fossil record. Because many biologists may not be familiar with the richness of the protist evolution dataset or with ID-based criticisms of evolution, we provide examples of current ID arguments and specific protistan counter-examples.
近年来，基于宗教的智能设计（ID）哲学的教学被提议作为现代进化理论的替代方案。ID 的倡导者主要受到他们对生物多样性的自然主义解释的反对的驱动，这符合他们挑战科学唯物主义哲学的目标。智能设计得到了各种各样的神创论者的拥护，他们提出了非常可疑的说法，声称表明进化理论的不足，他们认为这对有神论世界观构成了威胁。我们发现原生生物生物学的例子非常适合提供许多关键进化概念的证据，而 ID 倡导者经常对这些例子进行错误的描述或完全忽略。其中包括据说在统计学上不可能的适应和辐射的例子，以及实验室和化石记录中记录的物种形成的例子。由于许多生物学家可能不熟悉原生生物进化数据集的丰富性或基于 ID 的对进化的批评，我们提供了当前 ID 论点和特定原生生物反例的例子。
