Pondering Evolution/Intelligent Design

The theme of this weekend has been examining the debate surrounding Evolution. First, on Friday night, I finally got to see the movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." The movie does a great job of looking at how academia is currently stifling debate over flaws in Evolution. In particular, those who espouse Intelligent Design (not to be confused with Creationism) face constant harassment or are forced to remain silent because they suggested that Neo-Darwinian evolution may not be valid. What especially disappoints me is that my alma mater, Iowa State, is one of the schools that stifled academic freedom. A few atheistic professors were able to convince the university to deny tenure to an Astronomy professor simply because he co-wrote a book that argued that the Earth could not have evolved as the result of chance. The fact that diverse opinions were not allowed to flourish at the university is just one incident in an attempt by many evolutionists to stifle any debate over Intelligent Design.
"But," many will say, "isn't evolution already establish as scientific fact, like gravity?" No, evolution is not a fact, neither is gravity, at least not in the sense of fact as we use it. (This was a part of our discussion in Sunday School, where we examined Darwinism's flaws in detail.) Gravitation and evolution are both theories that attempt to describe general patterns of reality. Theories always can be expanded or adjusted as more data comes in. In the case of gravitation, the theory has been updated and expanded over time thanks to Einstein's theory of General Relativity. In the case of Evolution, however, as we learn more and more about the complexity required for even the simplest organisms and simplest cells, we're discovering that blind Darwinian evolution simply could not have occurred. However, Evolution has been the dominant theory for so long (and its atheistic implications so important) that many mistakenly think that it is fact.
Given, however, the amount of irreducible complexity in even the simplest machines (and the lack of sufficient support from the fossil record), Evolutionary theory faces many, many challenges. It simply cannot continue as it is. As "Expelled" points out, rather than adjust their theories, some Evolutionary theorists have instead chosen to (with an almost-religious fervor) cling to the Theory of Evolution. The result has been a stifling of academic freedom and a lot of ad hominem attacks on those who attempt even a critique of Evolution.
I'm sorry to report that many of us who think that the Theory of Intelligent Design better explains life than Darwinism are neither ignorant nor stupid nor wicked. We simply are scientists who see significant discrepancies between the data and Evolutionary Theory and think that Intelligent Design Theory does a better job of explaining it. Unfortunately, in this current academic climate of "political correctness," Intelligent Design is anathema. Hopefully, one day there will be a recognition that Evolution is so deeply flawed that it must be rejected. But I won't be holding my breath.