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:"What about this rock formation convinces us that it was due to a designing intelligence and not merely to wind and erosion? Designed objects like Mt. Rushmore exhibit characteristic features or patterns that point us to an intelligence."--], pg. 33. :"What about this rock formation convinces us that it was due to a designing intelligence and not merely to wind and erosion? Designed objects like Mt. Rushmore exhibit characteristic features or patterns that point us to an intelligence."--], pg. 33.


ID opponents offer many criticisms of the argument that order and complexity imply design. They note that that ID proofs are often built upon an analogy. They counter that if things in the universe are found that are chaotic, then by analogy, that would imply there is no designer. It also often argued that the argument that the universe is designed is subjective. Different observations in the the natural world can produce different theories to account for their existence. They assert the justification for order implying design falls apart in light of this; there are many examples of unordered chaos in the universe, and there are other explanations are available that are more precise, simple, probable, and that don't require the positing of an additional entity (a designer). Critics also identify ID as religious ] repackaged in an effort to return creationism into public school science classrooms and note that ID features notably as part of the campaign known as '']''. The ] and the ] assert that ID is ], but creationism.{{ref|nas_id_creationism}} While the scientific model of ] by natural selection has observable and repeatable facts to support it such as the process of ]s, ], ], natural selection, and ], the "Intelligent Designer" in ID is neither observable nor repeatable. This violates the scientific requirement of ]. ID violates another cornerstone of the scientific method called ] by creating an entity to explain something that may have a simpler and scientifically supportable explanation not involving outside help. Critics call ID religious ] repackaged in an effort to return creationism into public school science classrooms and note that ID features notably as part of the campaign known as '']''. The ] and the ] assert that ID is ], but creationism.{{ref|nas_id_creationism}} While the scientific model of ] by natural selection has observable and repeatable facts to support it such as the process of ]s, ], ], natural selection, and ], the "Intelligent Designer" in ID is neither observable nor repeatable. This violates the scientific requirement of ]. ID violates another cornerstone of the scientific method called ] by creating an entity to explain something that may have a simpler and scientifically supportable explanation not involving outside help.


Critics point to the fact that implicit in ID is a redefinition of ],{{ref|forrest_redef}} and cite books and statements of principal ID proponents calling for the elimination of "methodological naturalism" from science.{{ref|johnson_reason_balance}} Natural science uses the ] to create ] knowledge based on observation alone (sometimes called ]). Intuition is extremely important in natural science, but the scientific method holds nothing to be true until it can be observed repeatedly. Critics of ID consider the idea that some outside intelligence created life on Earth to be ] (without observation) knowledge. ID proponents cite some complexity in nature that cannot yet be fully explained by the scientific method. (For instance, ], the generation of life from non-living matter, is not completely understood scientifically, although the first stages have been reproduced in the ].) Critics of ID maintain that ID proponents ''intuit'' that an intelligent designer is behind the part of the process that is not understood scientifically. Since the designer cannot be observed, they continue, it is ''a priori'' knowledge. Critics point to the fact that implicit in ID is a redefinition of ],{{ref|forrest_redef}} and cite books and statements of principal ID proponents calling for the elimination of "methodological naturalism" from science.{{ref|johnson_reason_balance}} Natural science uses the ] to create ] knowledge based on observation alone (sometimes called ]). Critics of ID consider the idea that some outside intelligence created life on Earth to be ] (without observation) knowledge. ID proponents cite some complexity in nature that cannot yet be fully explained by the scientific method. (For instance, ], the generation of life from non-living matter, is not completely understood scientifically, although the first stages have been reproduced in the ].) ID proponents ''infer'' that an intelligent designer is behind the part of the process that is not understood scientifically. Since the designer cannot be observed, it is ''a priori'' knowledge.

⚫ This ''a priori'' inference that an intelligent designer (''God'' or an ''alien life force''{{ref|dembski_aliens}}) created life on Earth has been compared to the ''a priori'' claim that ''aliens'' helped the ancient Egyptians build the pyramids{{ref|pyramids_comp}}. In both cases, the effect of this outside intelligence is not repeatable, observable, or falsifiable, and it violates ] as well. Empirical scientists would simply say "we don't know exactly how the Egyptians built the pyramids" and list what is known about Egyptian construction techniques. <!--paraphrasing : "ID advocates don't always articulate precisely what sort of intelligence they think is the designer, but God &mdash; defined in a very nebulous way &mdash; generally outpolls ''extraterrestrials'' as the leading candidate."-->


⚫ This ''a priori'' intuition that an intelligent designer (''God'' or an ''alien life force''{{ref|dembski_aliens}}) created life on Earth has been compared to the ''a priori'' claim that ''aliens'' helped the ancient Egyptians build the pyramids{{ref|pyramids_comp}}. In both cases, the effect of this outside intelligence is not repeatable, observable, or falsifiable, and it violates ] as well. Empirical scientists would simply say "we don't know exactly how the Egyptians built the pyramids" and list what is known about Egyptian construction techniques. <!--paraphrasing : "ID advocates don't always articulate precisely what sort of intelligence they think is the designer, but God &mdash; defined in a very nebulous way &mdash; generally outpolls ''extraterrestrials'' as the leading candidate."-->
<!--from ]: Induction is sometimes framed as reasoning about the future from the past, but in its broadest sense it involves reaching conclusions about unobserved things on the basis of what is observed. Inferences about the past from present evidence (e.g. archaeology) count as induction. Induction could also be across space rather than time, e.g. conclusions about the whole universe from what we observe in our galaxy or national economic policy based on local economic performance. -->
===The design argument, precursor to ID=== ===The design argument, precursor to ID===
{{Main|Teleological argument}} {{Main|Teleological argument}}

Revision as of 20:41, 7 July 2005

This article is about the concept of intelligent design. You may have been looking for the teleological argument. For the associated social movement see ID as a movement. For the book, see Intelligent Design (book).

Intelligent Design (or ID) is the controversial assertion that certain parts of existence are best explained by positing an intelligent designer. The majority of ID advocates state that their focus is on detecting evidence of design in nature, without regard to who or what the designer might be. However, ID advocate William Dembski in his book "The Design Inference" lists God or an alien life force as two possible options. Despite ID sometimes being called Intelligent Design Theory, the scientific community does not recognise ID as a scientific theory and considers it to be creationist pseudoscience.

Intelligent Design in summary

Although ID may have been born out of opposition to the theory of evolution, it does not oppose the concept of evolution as a mechanism for intelligent creation. Ostensibly its main purpose is to investigate whether or not there is empirical evidence that life on Earth was designed by an intelligent agent or agents. Proponents of ID study objects in an attempt to isolate what they call signs of intelligence — physical properties of an object that necessitate design. Examples being considered include irreducible complexity, information mechanisms, and specified complexity. Many design theorists believe that living systems show one or more of these signs of intelligence, from which they infer that life is designed. This stands in opposition to naturalistic theories of evolution, which explain life exclusively through natural processes such as random mutations and natural selection.

William Dembski, one of ID's leading proponents, uses the example of Mt. Rushmore to provide an analogy to the underlying premise of ID:

"What about this rock formation convinces us that it was due to a designing intelligence and not merely to wind and erosion? Designed objects like Mt. Rushmore exhibit characteristic features or patterns that point us to an intelligence."--The Design Revolution, pg. 33.

Critics call ID religious dogma repackaged in an effort to return creationism into public school science classrooms and note that ID features notably as part of the campaign known as Teach the Controversy. The National Academy of Sciences and the National Center for Science Education assert that ID is not science, but creationism. While the scientific model of evolution by natural selection has observable and repeatable facts to support it such as the process of mutations, gene flow, genetic drift, natural selection, and speciation, the "Intelligent Designer" in ID is neither observable nor repeatable. This violates the scientific requirement of falsifiability. ID violates another cornerstone of the scientific method called Occam's Razor by creating an entity to explain something that may have a simpler and scientifically supportable explanation not involving outside help.

Critics point to the fact that implicit in ID is a redefinition of natural science, and cite books and statements of principal ID proponents calling for the elimination of "methodological naturalism" from science. Natural science uses the scientific method to create a posteriori knowledge based on observation alone (sometimes called empirical science). Critics of ID consider the idea that some outside intelligence created life on Earth to be a priori (without observation) knowledge. ID proponents cite some complexity in nature that cannot yet be fully explained by the scientific method. (For instance, abiogenesis, the generation of life from non-living matter, is not completely understood scientifically, although the first stages have been reproduced in the Miller-Urey experiment.) ID proponents infer that an intelligent designer is behind the part of the process that is not understood scientifically. Since the designer cannot be observed, it is a priori knowledge.

This a priori inference that an intelligent designer (God or an alien life force) created life on Earth has been compared to the a priori claim that aliens helped the ancient Egyptians build the pyramids. In both cases, the effect of this outside intelligence is not repeatable, observable, or falsifiable, and it violates Occam's Razor as well. Empirical scientists would simply say "we don't know exactly how the Egyptians built the pyramids" and list what is known about Egyptian construction techniques.

The design argument, precursor to ID

Main article: Teleological argument

Philosophers as far back as Plato have reasoned that the complexity of nature shows grounds for believing in supernatural design. The most notable forms of this argument were expressed by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica (thirteenth century) and William Paley in his book Natural Theology (nineteenth century) where he makes the famous watchmaker analogy. According to William Dembski, Intelligent Design is different from the design argument in one important respect: ID says nothing about who did the designing. It only seeks to know whether object X was designed, and pleads agnosticism on all questions of identity, purpose, or intent.

Origin of the term

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The phrase "intelligent design", used in this sense, first appeared in Christian creationist literature, including the textbook Of Pandas and People (Haughton Publishing Company, Dallas, 1989). The term was promoted more broadly by the retired legal scholar Phillip E. Johnson following his 1991 book Darwin on Trial. Johnson is the program advisor of the Center for Science and Culture and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement.

Religion and leading ID proponents

Intelligent design arguments are formulated in secular terms and intentionally avoid positing the identity of the designer. Phillip E. Johnson has stated that cultivating ambiguity by employing secular language in arguments which are carefully crafted to avoid overtones of theistic creationism is a necessary first step for ultimately introducing the Christian concept of God as the designer. Johnson emphasizes "the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion" and that "after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact." only then can "biblical issues" be discussed. Johnson calls for ID proponents to obfuscate their religious motivations so as to avoid having ID recognized "as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message." Though not all ID proponents are theistic or motivated by religious fervor, the majority of the principal ID advocates are and have stated to their constituency that in their view the designer is clearly God, including William Dembski, Jonathan Wells, and Stephen C. Meyer.

What Intelligent Design is not

Intelligent Design is not and does not claim to be an alternative theory replacing mutations, gene flow, genetic drift, natural selection, or speciation. All of these have been observed in laboratories and in the field. For example, humans have themselves created many new species and have observed new species appearing in nature. This is contrary to how ID is sometimes characterized by both supporters and critics.

ID as a movement

Main article: Intelligent design movement

The Intelligent Design movement is an organized campaign to promote ID arguments in the public sphere, primarily in the United States. The movement claims ID exposes the limitations of scientific orthodoxy, and of the secular philosophy of Naturalism. ID movement proponents allege that science, by relying upon methodological naturalism, demands an a priori adoption of a naturalistic philosophy that dismisses out of hand any explanation that contains a supernatural cause. Phillip E. Johnson, considered the father of the intelligent design movement and its unofficial spokesman stated that the goal of intelligent design is to cast creationism as a scientific concept:

"Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools."
"This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy."

The intelligent design movement is largely the result of efforts by the conservative Christian think tank the Discovery Institute, and its Center for Science and Culture. The Discovery Institute's wedge strategy and its adjunct, the Teach the Controversy strategy, are campaigns intended to sway the opinion of the public. They target public school administrators and policy makers to facilitate the introduction of intelligent design into the public school science curricula and marginalize mainstream science. The Discovery Institute acknowledges that private parties have donated millions for a research and publicity program to "unseat not just Darwinism, but also Darwinism's cultural legacy."

Critics note that the principal ID proponents share an explicit religious vision, that the Discovery Institute as a matter of policy obfuscates its agenda, and claim that these facts prove the movement's "activities betray an aggressive, systematic agenda for promoting not only intelligent design creationism, but the religious worldview that undergirds it." They go on to portray ID as the latest attempt at "stealth creationism".

ID in US politics

Underscoring claims that ID is a dangerous threat of stealth creationism, Intelligent Design has featured in a number of controversial political cases. These are discussed in greater depth in the main Intelligent design movement article.

The Santorum Amendment: The Sanatorum Amendment was an attempted amendment to the 2001 education funding bill which became known as the No Child Left Behind Act. Originally drafted by Phillip E. Johnson and other Discovery Institute staff, the amendment relates to the teaching of evolution and alternatives to evolution in U.S. public school science classrooms. The Sanatorum Amendment was never put into law.

Dover, PA case: In 2004, Dover, Pennsylvania, passed a law requiring the teaching of Intelligent Design. Dover contends that Intelligent Design is not creationism, and its being taught does not have a "clear intent" to establish religion. A hearing in Federal District Court is scheduled for September, 2005.

Cobb County School District: Selman et al. v. Cobb County School District et al created controversy in the arena of creation and evolution in public education. Stickers were placed on text books stating that evolution was a theory and not a fact.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: There were debates whether public schools should teach "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution in front of a state legislative panel.

Intelligent design debate

Template:ID The intelligent design debate centers on three issues:

  1. whether the definition of science is broad enough to allow for theories of human origins which incorporate the acts of an intelligent designer;
  2. whether the evidence supports such theories; and
  3. whether the teaching of such theories is appropriate in public education.

ID supporters generally hold that science must allow for both natural and supernatural explanations of phenomena. Excluding supernatural explanations limits the realm of possibilities, particularly where naturalistic explanations utterly fail to explain certain phenomena. Supernatural explanations provide a very simple and parsimonious explanation for the origins of life and the universe. Proponents claim that the evidence strongly supports such explanations, as instances of so-called irreducible complexity and specified complexity appear to make it highly unreasonable that the full complexity and diversity of life came about solely through natural means. Finally, they hold that religious neutrality requires the teaching of both evolution and intelligent design in schools, because teaching only evolution unfairly discriminates against those holding the Creationist beliefs. Teaching both, ID supporters argue, allows for a scientific basis for religious belief, without causing the state to actually promote a religious belief.

According to critics of ID, not only has ID failed to establish reasonable doubt in its proposed shortcomings of accepted scientific theories, but it has not even presented a case worth taking seriously. Critics of ID argue that ID has not presented a credible case for the public policy utility of presenting Intelligent Design in education. More broadly, critics maintain that it has not met the minimum legal standard of not being a "clear" attempt to establish religion, which in the United States is forbidden by law. Scientists argue that those advocating "scientific" treatment of "supernatural" phenomena are grossly misunderstanding the issue, and indeed misunderstand the nature and purpose of science itself.

Between these two positions there is a large body of opinion that does not condone the teaching of what is considerd unscientific or questionable material, but is generally sympathetic to the position of Deism/Theism and therefore desires some compromise between the two. The nominal points of contention are seen as being proxies for other issues. For example Richard Dawkins, a very prominent spokesman for evolutionary theory, has argued that evolution disproves the existence of God. Many ID followers are quite open about their view that "Scientism" is itself a religion that promotes secularism and materialism in an attempt to erase religion from public life and view their work in the promotion of ID as a way to return religion to a central role in education and other public spheres. Some allege that this larger debate is often the subtext for arguments made over Intelligent Design, though others note that ID serves as an effective proxy for the religious beliefs of prominent ID proponents in their efforts to advance their religious point of view within society.

Irreducible complexity

Main article: Irreducible complexity

The term was coined by biochemist Michael Behe in his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box. The irreducible complexity argument holds that evolutionary mechanisms cannot account for the emergence of some complex biochemical cellular systems. ID advocates argue that the systems must therefore have been deliberately engineered by some form of intelligence. Irreducible complexity is defined by Behe as:

"...a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning."--(Behe, Molecular Machines: Experimental Support for the Design Inference).

According to the theory of evolution, genetic variations occur without specific design or intent. The environment selects variants that have the highest fitness, which are then passed on to the next generation of organisms. Change occurs by the gradual operation of natural forces over time, perhaps slowly, perhaps more quickly (see punctuated equilibrium). This process is able to create complex structures from simpler beginnings, or convert complex structures from one function to another (see spandrel). Most ID advocates accept that evolution through mutation and natural selection occurs, but assert that it cannot account for irreducible complexity, because none of the parts of an irreducible system would be functional or advantageous until the entire system is in place.

Behe uses the mousetrap as an illustrative example of this concept. A mousetrap consists of several interacting pieces—the base, the catch, the spring, the hammer—all of which must be in place for the mousetrap to work. The removal of any one piece destroys the function of the mousetrap. Likewise, biological systems require multiple parts working together in order to function. ID advocates claim that natural selection could not create from scratch those systems for which science is currently not able to find a viable evolutionary pathway of successive, slight modifications, because the selectable function is only present when all parts are assembled. Behe's original examples of irreducibly complex mechanisms included the bacterial flagellum of E. coli, the blood clotting cascade, cilia, and the adaptive immune system.

Criticism
Critics of ID point out that the IC argument only makes sense if one assumes that the present function of a system must have been the one that it was selected for. But the concept of cooption or Exaptation, in which existing features become adapted for new functions, has long been a mainstay of biology. Many purported IC structures have functional subsystems that are used elsewhere. ID advocates have often reacted to this by trying to define an "IC core", or by changing the number of parts required for an IC system. Critics have claimed that these instances of "moving the goal posts" show that IC is not a clear concept that can be objectively applied. While Behe has considered cooption, he rejects it as unlikely, which critics contend is an unwarranted dismissal.
The IC argument also assumes that the necessary parts of a system have always been necessary, and therefore could not have been added sequentially. But something which is at first merely advantageous can later become necessary. For example, one of the clotting factors that Behe listed as a part of the IC clotting cascade was later found to be absent in whales, demonstrating that it isn't essential for a clotting system. Many purported IC structures can be found in other organisms as simpler systems that utilize fewer parts. These systems may have had even simpler precursors that are now extinct.
Perhaps most importantly, evolutionary pathways have been elucidated for IC systems such as blood clotting, the immune system and the flagellum, which were the three examples Behe used. If IC is an insurmountable obstacle to evolution, it should not be possible to conceive of such pathways -- Behe has remarked that any such plausible pathways would defeat his argument. Computer simulations of evolution also demonstrate that IC can evolve. ID advocates respond by saying that proposed models for the evolution of IC structures are not detailed enough, or cannot be tested. They also dismiss computer simulations as biologically unrealistic.

Specified complexity

Main article: Specified complexity

The ID argument of specified complexity was developed by mathematician, philosopher, and theologian William Dembski. Dembski uses the term specified complexity to denote a property that makes living things unique. He claims that specified complexity is present when there exists a large amount of specified information:

  • High information, low specificity. For example, the 10-character structure "dkownl xel". According to Shannon's theory of information, a random string of letters contains the highest possible information content, because it cannot be compressed into a smaller string. However, the random nature makes the string without meaning, and thus non-specified according to Dembski. (Note that "meaning" does not play a role in Shannon's information theory.)
  • High specificity, low information. For example, the 10-character structure "aaaaaaaaaa". The sequence has low information because it can be compressed into a smaller string, such as "10 a's" . However, because it conforms to a pattern it is highly specified.
  • Specified information. For example, the 10-character structure "I love you". According to Dembski, this has both high information content, because it cannot be compressed, and specificity, because it conforms to a pattern (grammar and syntax). In this case, the pattern it conforms to is that of a meaningful English phrase, one of a selection of strings which together make up a small fraction of all possible arrangements. In living things, the "pattern" that molecular sequences conform to is that of a functional biological molecule, which make up only a small fraction of all possible molecules.

Dembski defines complex specified information (CSI) as something containing a large amount of specified information, which has a low probability of occurring by chance. He defines this probability as 1 in 10, which he calls the universal probability bound. Anything below this bound has CSI. The terms "specified complexity" and "complex specified information" are used interchangeably. Dembski and other proponents of ID argue that specified information is best explained by design and is therefore a reliable indicator of design.

Criticism
The conceptual soundness of Dembski's SC/CSI argument is strongly disputed by critics of ID. First, specified complexity, as originally defined by Leslie Orgel, is precisely what Darwinian evolution is proposed to create. It is not enough for Dembski to take a property of living things and arbitrarily declare it to be a reliable indicator of design; he must also provide compelling reasons why no natural processes could create such a property. According to critics of ID, by taking this burden of proof on himself, that is, to prove a negative, he must show not merely that there is no explanation currently accepted, but that no such explanation is possible within the framework of genetics and natural selection.
Additionally, Dembski confuses the issue by using "complex" as most people would use "improbable". He defines CSI as anything with a less than 1 in 10 chance of occurring naturally. But this renders the argument a tautology. CSI cannot occur naturally because Dembski has defined it thus, so the real question becomes whether or not CSI actually exists in nature. To demonstrate this, Dembski would need to show that a biological feature really did have an extremely low probability of occurring naturally by any means, an enormously difficult (perhaps impossible) task that would require definitively ruling out all potential theories, including those that may not have been thought of yet. In general, Dembski does not attempt to do this, but instead simply takes the existence of CSI as a given, and then proceeds to argue that it is a reliable indicator of design. Among the many criticisms of this approach is the problem of "arbitrary but specific outcomes". For example, it is unlikely that any given person will win a lottery, but, eventually, a lottery will have a winner. To argue that it is very unlikely that any one player would win is not the same as proving that there is the same chance that no one will win.
Further, mathematicians have pointed out that Dembski's information theory is flawed, that many of his examples that he claims cannot be compressed further, in fact can be. For example, the 10 byte phrase "I love you" can be written "luv u"; or, in context, even the three bytes of "ily" will convey the same message; and the ASCII art "heart" symbol "<3" even conveys the same message in two bytes. The genome similarly has redundancy and reliability built in, which makes its information content much lower than the number of base pairs used. In addition, the space sampled by an evolutionary process is a restricted set of the total possible genetic combinations. Only genetic sequences which result in reproducing organisms and are connectible through small deviations to other reproducing organisms are possible. This is a significantly smaller set than the total possible genetic combinations, which places significant inaccuracies in arguments which use the total possible combinations.

Fine-tuned universe

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Main article: Fine-tuned universe

ID proponents use the argument that we live in a fine-tuned universe. They propose that the natural emergence of a universe with all the features necessary for life is wildly improbable. Thus, an intelligent designer of life was needed to ensure that the requisite features were present to achieve that particular outcome. Opinion within the scientific community is still divided on the "finely-tuned universe" issue, but this particular explanation and assessment of probabilities is rejected by most scientists and statisticians.

Within mainstream physics this is related to the question of the anthropic principle, whose weak form is based on the observation that the laws of physics must allow for life, since we observe there is life. The strong form, however, is the assertion that the laws of physics must have made it possible for life to arise. The strong form is a distinctly minority position and is highly controversial.

Criticism
Critics of both ID and the weak form of anthropic principle argue that they are essentially a tautology; life as we know it may not exist if things were different, but a different sort of life might exist in its place. The claim of the improbability of a life-supporting universe has also been criticized as an argument by lack of imagination for assuming no other forms of life are possible (see also carbon chauvinism).
Based on the unproven idea that some of the universe's initial conditions might have been different, Stephen Hawking and James Hartle have shown that from the initial conditions of the universe, that is, the moment immediately after the Big Bang, a large number of types of universe could have formed. The type of universe that we live in is called a Hartle-Hawking type universe. According to their calculations, the chance that a Hartle-Hawking universe forms is over 90%. Thus, the chance that our particular universe formed may be small, but the chance that a universe of the same type, with stars, planets and the other elements required to create life as we know it would come out of the Big Bang is over 90%, not improbable at all.
Recent work in cosmology has put forth the mathematical possiblity of a multiverse. This would allow many types of universes to simultaneously arise, of which ours is one possibility. Although multiverse theories currently lack verified predictions, some astronomers believe that gravity may leak into other dimensions in braneworld scenarios, potentially providing the first observable data to support these theories.

Additional Criticisms of ID

Scientific peer review

One of the scientific community's chief oppositions to ID is the perception that ID proponents are attempting to "end run" the Scientific method either by not submitting to peer reviewed journals, or by setting up "peer review" that consists entirely of ID supporters. Proponents of ID explain the reason for their absence in peer-reviewed literature is that papers explaining the findings and concepts in support of ID are consistently excluded from the mainstream scientific discourse. They claim this is because ID arguments challenge the principles of Philosophical naturalism and uniformitarianism that are accepted as fundamental by the mainstream scientific community. Thus, ID supporters believe that research that points toward an intelligent designer is often rejected simply because it deviates from these "dogmatically held beliefs", without regard to the merits of their specific claims.

According to their critics, this is an ad hominem attack, designed to cover over the lack of success in creating scientifically testable or verifiable data or theory, by claiming that there is a conspiracy against them. Critics of ID point out that this is an argument commonly used by advocates of pseudoscientific views (most notably by UFO enthusiasts), and that the perceived bias is simply the result of ID being unscientific and inadequately supported. A notable exception to this explanation for lack of published, peer-reviewed writings is William Dembski, who claims in a 2001 interview that he stopped submitting to peer-reviewed journals due to their slow time-to-print and that he makes more money from publishing books.

To date, the intelligent design movement has only succeeded in publishing one article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories(Meyer, Stephen C., Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Jan. '05. Please note: Since its publishing, the article was removed from the journal's website. The link provided is hosted by the Discovery Institute.) The journal subsequently disowned the paper. The author is the Program Director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, the major organization promoting ID. The journal issued a public statement explaining that the Meyer paper did not go through the journal's approved peer review process and does not meet the scientific standards of the journal. This assertion has been denied by Richard Sternberg, who was managing editor at that time. Critics of Meyer's paper believe that Sternberg himself may be biased in this matter, since he is a member of the editorial board of the Baraminology Study Group, an organization with a creationist agenda. The Baraminology Study Group's official position is that Sternberg is not a creationist and acts primarily as a skeptical reviewer. A critical review of the article is available on the Panda's Thumb website.

The vast majority of practicing biologists oppose Intelligent Design. The Scientific community does not regard the argument over ID to be of the same kind as, for example, differing theories on how particular traits evolved, or even in the realm of scientific speculation, the way, a hypothesis of exogenesis might be considered as a plausible scientific speculation. The failure to follow the procedures of scientific discourse, and the failure to submit work to the scientific community which withstands scrutiny is regarded by the critics of ID as a strong argument against Intelligent Design being considered as "science" at all.

Hypotheses about the designer

Although the Intelligent Design movement is often portrayed as a variant of Bible-based Creationism, many ID arguments are formulated in secular terms. Most ID arguments do not depend on Biblical fundamentalism. They do not explicitly state that their adherents accept the Bible's accounts, they do not explicitly state that God is the designer, but the designer is often implicitly hypothesized to have intervened at so many different points in time and space (sometimes even outside of time and space) that only God or an extremely capable, long-lived and persistent alien culture could fulfill the requirements.

The key arguments in favor of the different variants of ID are so broad that they can be adopted by any number of communities that seek an alternative to evolutionary thought, including those that support non-theistic models of creation although the designers might be different. For example, the notion of an "intelligent designer" is compatible with the materialistic hypotheses that life on Earth was introduced by an alien species, or that it emerged as a result of panspermia, but would not be with the designer(s) of the "fine-tuned" universe.

"What designed the designer?"

By raising the question of the need for a designer for objects with irreducible complexity, ID also raises the question, "what designed the designer?" By ID's own arguments, a designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be irreducibly complex. Unlike with religious creationism, where the question "what created God?" can be answered with theological arguments, this creates a logical paradox, as the chain of designers can be followed back indefinitely, leaving the question of the creation of the first designer dangling. The sort of logic required in sustaining such reasoning is known as circular reasoning; a form of logical fallacy.

One ID counter-argument to this problem invokes an uncaused causer - in other words, a deity - to resolve this problem, in which case ID reduces to religious creationism. At the same time, the postulation of the existence of even a single uncaused causer in the Universe contradicts the fundamental assumption of ID that a designer is needed for every complex object. Another possible counter-argument might be an infinite regression of designers. However, admitting infinite numbers of objects also allows any arbitarily improbable event to occur, such as an object with "irreducible" complexity assembling itself by chance. Again, this contradicts the fundamental assumption of ID that a designer is needed for every complex object, producing a logical contradiction.

Thus, according to opponents, either attempt to patch the ID hypothesis appears to either result in logical contradiction, or reduces it to a belief in religious creationism. ID then ceases to be a falsifiable theory and loses its ability to claim to be a scientific theory.

Argument from ignorance

Some critics have pointed out that many points raised by Intelligent Design Theorists strongly resemble arguments from ignorance. In the argument from ignorance, one claims that the lack of evidence for one view is evidence for another view. Particularly, Michael Behe's demands for ever more detailed explanations of the historical evolution of molecular systems seem to assume a dichotomy where either evolution or design is the proper explanation, and any perceived failure of evolution becomes a victory for design. In scientific terms, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" for naturalistic explanations of observed traits of living organisms.


See also

Further reading

Pro-ID

Anti-ID

External links

Pro-ID

Anti-ID

Neutral

Miscellaneous

Young-Earth creationist comment

ID and education

Scientific databases Anyone reading this online Encyclopedia can just as easily conduct an online scientific literature search to read about the relative scientific merits of evolution and creationism:

Legal References

Notes and references

  1. William Dembski, 1998. The Design Inference. Cambridge University Press; cited in Evan Ratliff, 2004. "The Crusade Against Evolution." In Wired Magazine.
  2. "Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science" In Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition National Academy of Sciences, 1999
  3. Elizabeth Nickson, 2004. "Let's Be Intelligent About Darwin." In Christianity.ca.
  4. Barbara Forrest, 2000. "Methodological Naturalism and Philosophical Naturalism: Clarifying the Connection." In Philo, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Fall-Winter 2000), pp. 7-29.
  5. William Dembski in The Design Inference" (see further reading) cited extraterrestrials as a possible designer .
  6. Thomas Aquinas, 1265-1272. Summa Theologica. "Thomas Aquinas' 'Five Ways'" In faithnet.org.uk.
  7. The Design Revolution, pg. 64-65
  8. This claim has been made by:
  9. "...the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion. ...This is not to say that the biblical issues are unimportant; the point is rather that the time to address them will be after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact." Phillip Johnson. "The Wedge", Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity. July/August 1999.
  10. "Intelligent Design is an intellectual movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. ... The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens up for them some doors that have been closed." Phillip Johnson. "Keeping the Darwinists Honest", an interview with Phillip Johnson. In Citizen Magazine. April 1999.
  11. Joel Belz, 1996. "Witnesses For The Prosecution." In World Magazine.
  12. Joseph Boxhorn, 2004. "Observed Instances of Speciation." In TalkOrigins.org; and Chris Stassen, James Meritt, Anneliese Lilje and L. Drew Davis, 1997. "Some More Observed Speciation Events." In TalkOrigins.org.
  13. Max Blumenthal, 2004 "Avenging angel of the religious right." In Salon.com.
  14. Barbara Forrest, 2001. "The Wedge at Work." from Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics. MIT Press.
  15. CNN, 2005. "Judge: Evolution stickers unconstitutional."
  16. Martha Raffaele, 2005. "House Debate Over Evolution at Pa. Schools." ]/Yahoo! News.
  17. Semba U, Shibuya Y, Okabe H, Yamamoto T., 1998. "Whale Hageman factor (factor XII): prevented production due to pseudogene conversion." Thromb Res. 1998 Apr 1;90(1):31-7.
  18. Matt Inlay, 2002. "Evolving Immunity." In TalkDesign.org.
  19. Nic J. Matzke, 2003. "Evolution in (Brownian) space: a model for the origin of the bacterial flagellum." In TalkDesign.org.
  20. Lenski RE, Ofria C, Pennock RT, Adami C., 2003. "The evolutionary origin of complex features." Nature. 2003 May 8;423(6936):139-44.
  21. Beth McMurtrie, 2001. "Darwinism Under Attack." The Chronicle Of Higher Education.
  22. Richard Sternberg, 2004. "Procedures for the publication of the Meyer paper."
  23. "Clarifications Regarding the BSG, Bryan College, and Richard Sternberg."
  24. Wesley R. Elsberry, 2004. "Meyer's Hopeless Monster." In The Panda's Thumb.
  25. Elizabeth Nickson, 2004. "Let's Be Intelligent About Darwin." In Christianity.ca.
  26. Joel Belz, 1996. "Witnesses For The Prosecution." In World Magazine.
  27. Jon Buell & Virginia Hearn (eds), 1992. "Proceedings of a Symposium entitled: Darwinism: Scientific Inference of Philosophical Preference?" (PDF)
  28. "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." Phillip E. Johnson. January 10, 2003 on American Family Radio In www.christianity.ca
  29. Phillip E. Johnson in his book "Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law and Education" (InterVarsity Press, 1995), positions himself as a "theistic realist" against "methodological naturalism."
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