Coloradomtnman
Rational and proud of it.
The evidence for what you call "the theory of evolution" but what is actually a number of different theories (the most famous being The Theory of Evolution Through Natural Selection) is overwhelming not because it is someone's opinion on an internet website, but because the discoveries from different fields of science - such as biology (molecular biology and cellular biology just two name two sub-disciplines), chemistry, physics, geology, paleontology, and anthropology all converge to lead to the various theories of evolution as the current, best explanation and description of the currently available evidence.
Theory in this case can be defined as
- A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world.
Scientific theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There are many arguments made in an attempt to undermine the theories of evolution, but none of them stand up to real scrutiny and almost all of them are made by those with a religious agenda and not because of valid and sound reasoning or criticism - such as the argument you made above.
Intelligent design is not real science.
Number 1 because one can not test for God in a lab, study God in a microscope, or falsify a theory or hypothesis that has God as an element of its explanatory process. Because Science is only useful in making sense of the natural world, the supernatural (God) is necessarily outside the purview of Science.
Number 2 because when you start with a conclusion and lead the evidence to that conclusion, you subvert the scientific process by introducing an intrinsic bias to your work. This makes all of your work not credible. Instead, the evidence should lead to the conclusion. The "scientists" over at the Discovery Institute already believe in God. If they were good scientists, they wouldn't put forth God as a theory until they had sufficient scientific evidence and not the other way around: putting God forth as the theory and trying to find the evidence to support that theory afterwards.
Number 3: God isn't a theory. "God did it" has no explanatory power or scope. How exactly did God do it? In what manner did He form the Universe? How by just uttering "Let there be light" did light become manifest? Where would one find scientific evidence for such phenomena?
On top of that, theories are not to be believed. Belief is irrelevant to a scientific theory. Theories are simply the current, best attempt to explain and describe the currently available observable evidence and can change or be rejected at any moment with a better theory, new evidence, or contradicting evidence. Can that be done with God as a theory? If new evidence suggested that God didn't intelligently design something, would the theory be changed, rejected or would those that believe based on faith remain faithful to their beliefs?
New discoveries are made every day by scientists. Thousands of papers are published in peer-reviewed scientific journals every year. Tens of thousands over the past decade. Of those tens of thousands of published papers, almost none of them come from the intelligent design movement and the few papers which did are about process and not directly addressing the question: Did God do it?
