President Ronald Reagan’s Classic Illustration of Intelligent Design
From Evolution News & Science Today:
We are approaching President Ronald Reagan’s 113th birthday, falling next week on February 6. Two days before his birthday in 1988, Reagan delivered remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC. (Editor’s Note: The 2024 National Prayer Breakfast convened earlier this morning in the nation’s capital.).
Dr. John G. West (Photo by Chris Morgan, Discovery Institute).
He told attendees that he had “long been unable to understand the atheist in this world of so much beauty.” With a touch of mischief in his voice, he added: “I’ve had an unholy desire to invite some atheists to a dinner and then serve the most fabulous gourmet dinner that has ever been concocted, and — after dinner — ask them if they believe there was a cook.”
The audience responded with extended laughter and applause.
It was Reagan’s riff on the age-old argument for intelligent design, the idea that the order and purposefulness of nature point to a designer. Just as a sculpture implies a sculptor — or, in Reagan’s telling, a gourmet meal implies a master cook — the elegant and functional features of nature imply a creator.
The basic argument goes back millennia and can be found among ancient Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians. But the argument has gained new power in recent years because of contemporary discoveries in physics, cosmology, chemistry, and biology.
Go here for the rest of this outstanding analysis by Dr. John G. West, who is Vice President of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and Managing Director of the Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.
Formerly the Chair of the Department of Political Science and Geography at Seattle Pacific University, West is an award-winning author and documentary filmmaker who has written or edited 12 books, including Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science, The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society, and Walt Disney and Live Action: The Disney Studio’s Live-Action Features of the 1950s and 60s.
His documentary films include Fire-Maker, Revolutionary, The War on Humans, and (most recently) Human Zoos. West holds a PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate University, and he has been interviewed by media outlets such as CNN, Fox News, Reuters, Time magazine, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post.
See Kepler’s illustration involving his wife’s salad to make the same point.