Johnny lacks the education to know why, so if he did say because of evolution, or because of God, it would show that he is just parroting someone else's belief systems. That's the point, we don't need more parrots, we need more thinkers who look at all the facts, all the possibilities, and come to their own conclusions. Ignorant chance theory is without any evidence to support it....it is just a guess that has become dogma. I firmly oppose indoctrination of belief systems, either atheistic or theistic in the public school systems.
Of course. It is only worthwhile to appeal to those willing to think critically. As you suggested, believers have lost their intellectual compass. There is a dichotomy here. There are those who truly think and then there are those who truly believe. I suppose it serves a purpose. GWB has been able to circumvent the need for the mess and clutter of critical thinking. He enjoys the relative calm and serenity of belief. Attacking those beliefs with facts and evidence is simply bad form. That is why the true believers here have not listened to even a moment of the Miller lecture for which you provided a link.
No link is needed. Conversion of energy into matter happens all the time around us. Every time a light is shun on something, some photons are absorbed into that material. That material gets heavier by the amount of photons it absorbs. If you want an example of change in fundamental particles rather than just macroscopic changes, then take the example of reverse beta-decay. If an electron, an anti-neutrino, and a proton come together with enough kinetic energy, they may join into a neutron. The neutron has more mass than the original three particles. This, of course, can happen in the outer space, where a lot of these high energy particles are running around. Both of these examples are "chance" events that happen at random.
in your world johnny stays ignorant forever.in the real world johnny is told what the latest evidence shows. maybe johnny grows up and proves everyone wrong with some new theory. the key being if you back up the latest scientific conclusions with the evidence that allowed scientists to come to those conclusions johnny will have a basis to at least understand how they were arrived at and then be able to improve or refute those conclusions.
Physicists generally agree that matter is neither created nor destroyed. Energy is routinely 'turned into' matter in particle accelerators and in high energy events in places like ths Sun; however, it is agreed that there is a commensurate loss of energy from some other source. I will say this - just by the tone of your question, I know that there are certain bubble chamber pictures that have come out of high energy physics which you would simply say that you don't believe in, based on your religious faith. There are results coming out of particle accelerators that are so bizarre that it boggles the mind to consider them. They would not fit in your world view. I am not going to do your research for you. At any rate, what does your question have to do with ID? If you are saying that you believe the matter in the universe (which is of course billions of years old - even Christian scientists now admit that) must have been initially formed by some entity with intelligent influence, you are essentially saying 'I believe in ID because I believe in ID'. In fact, as far as I can tell, that's the only argument that exists for ID. At least, it's the only one that's been presented here.
The question presupposes that there was a time in the past when only energy existed. No such requirement exists. Given the pre-existence of matter and energy trapped within this universe, energy converts to matter whenever a photon strikes an atom. You will undoubtedly move to the next position in the argument which is to state that the matter and energy must have come from somewhere, i.e., from a "creator." This is no more a rational statement, then the statement that the creator has always existed. In fact, your position is less rational, because your version of reality requires a sophisticated intelligence to bring the universe into existence, whereas the alternative proposition requires nothing but matter and energy.
In my world, Johnny is exposed to every piece of information available, and makes up his own mind. He doesn't believe things on the basis of faith in others and their opinions, he decides for himself based on his own life experiences, his intuition, and his own common sense. Johnny is not fed a random ignorant chance theory, nor an ID theory in the public school system as something that he needs to believe in order to viewed as "intelligent" by his peers. Johnny becomes his own man, not a clone of what atheists or theists think he should be. Oh, and by the way, there is no evidence that ignorant chance is what is behind the changes in biological organism that we observe... A current lack of so called evidence of intelligent design is not proof of ignorant chance...but that truth is arrived at via the application of logic and reason, not swallowing the dogma of scientists who have atheistic agendas, and erecting sand castles on the basis of ignorance.