[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWvS1UfXl8k]

‘Unlocking the mystery of life’ is a documentary produced and distributed by Illustra Media describes Intelligent Design (ID) as an extension of evolution, not a substitute. Yes, I know most of you will cringe at the mention of ID due to the tarnished reputation it has received lately. ID has been, unfortunately, used my religious establishments as a proof of existence of God and thus to increase their stronghold on public conscience. The idea of ID was made more famous by the public dispute between the board of a public school in US and the parents who went to court against ID being included in the syllabus of the school. For 200 years now we have accepted Darwinian Theory of natural selection and evolution as a norm. However, evolution talks about how natural selection could have modified existing primitive organisms to produce diverse and more complex species we see today. But it doesn’t explain how life would have originated on this planet.

‘Unlocking the mystery of life’ shows us that natural selection cannot explain complex structures of simple life forms like cell and bacteria or correct assembly of amino acids into functional proteins. It proves (with much success) why intelligent design is required to be considered when explaining the workings a bacterial flagellum or that of protein-assembly using the genetic code stored in the DNA of every living being. Instead of looking at ID as a proof of God’s existence (and hence, dismissing it), it should be looked at as the conclusion to which unbiased scientific observations lead. It should be looked at as (and IT IS) a pursuit of truth about the origin of life. As a couple of scientists mention at the end of this documentary, if the conclusion has religious or metaphysical implications, then so be it! You go where the data leads you.

I believe that after watching this documentary you will remember your high school biology class. When you were taught about the workings of the DNA, mRNA and production of proteins using the counter-sequence encoded in the DNA strand, you were amazed by the precision. And somewhere inside you knew that this had to be engineered, it had to be designed. You just didn’t know that it was called ‘Intelligent design’.

The evolution doesn’t need to be discarded. But it needs to be used only to explain what it is meant to explain.