Intelligent design

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This article is about the Intelligent Design movement. You may have been looking for the more general teleological argument (also called the argument from design).

Intelligent design (ID) is the claim that empirical evidence points to the conclusion that life on earth was deliberately designed by one or more intelligent agents. The phrase "Intelligent Design," used in this sense, was first widely publicized by legal scholar Phillip E. Johnson in his 1991 book Darwin on Trial (earlier references can be found in creationist literature). Johnson's assumption, and a key tenet of the ID movement, is that philosophical naturalism is false. Some ID proponents argue that the standard scientific model of evolution by natural selection is insufficient to explain the origin, complexity, and diversity of life, in light of instances of irreducible complexity and specified complexity. Some, in a view that may be compatible with evolution, argue that the universe is "fine tuned" for living things in a manner that must have been by design. ID makes no explicit claims about the identity of the designer, but asserts that the motive was to create or make life possible and that the method is some form of applied intelligence.

The Intelligent Design movement is an organized campaign to promote ID arguments in the public sphere, primarily in the United States. The hub of the movement is the Center for Science and Culture, a subsidiary of the Discovery Institute, a politically conservative think tank. Though explicitly secular in its arguments, the ID movement is associated with conservative Christians, and in this connection ID is sometimes described as a revision of the argument from design made famous by William Paley in the early 19th century.

The vast majority of scientists and scientific institutions reject the ID claims as being scientifically illegitimate. Organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences and the National Center for Science Education describe ID as pseudoscience. Nonetheless, the ID movement has developed a public following who advocate teaching about ID in school science curricula, on grounds of religious neutrality (see Creation and evolution in public education). Critics have in turn labeled ID "stealth creationism," a veiled attempt to introduce religious beliefs into scientific discourse. They argue that it is merely a "trojan horse" designed to circumvent already existing legal protections against establishment of religion in previous Supreme Court cases, and that ID advocates are religious zealots bent on polluting the discourse. They point to ID's close association with the religious right, and its followers willingness to use accusations of "bigotry" as proof that ID is a cultural, not a scientific, movement.

Thus the subject of ID is deeply embedded in political controversies, with charges of dogmatic bias and bad faith being made on all sides.

Points at Issue

From the perspective of ID supporters, they have established that there is reasonable doubt that "random mutation and natural selection" are sufficient to explain diversity and structures observed in the world. That they have established that it is impossible for natural mechanisms to ever produce a sufficient explanation, and that this requires the assumption of an "intelligent" influence to produce what is observed. They then contended that they have established this with scientific credibility to sufficient degree to make it reasonable for governments to "teach the controversy", and require the presentation of Intelligent Design to students in public schools. That is they have met scientific, legal and public policy tests for the mandated presentation of their views in education, and in the public sphere in general.

According to critics of ID, not only has ID failed to meet these tests, but in most cases ID has not even met the minimum standard in any of these areas. That is, not only has it not established reasonable doubt, but it has not even presented a case worth taking seriously. Not only has it not established the sufficient plausibility of ID, but it has not even presented credible scientific evidence. Critics of ID argue that not only has ID not presented a case for the public policy utility of presenting Intelligent Design in education, but 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. That is, from the perspective of its harshest critics, ID has not even met the "laugh test".

However, between these two positions, there stands a large body of opinion that, while it does not condone the teaching of unscientific or questionable material, is generally sympathetic to the position of theism, and therefore desires some compromise between the two. Holders of this position, while generally willing to admit that Intelligent Design has not met burdens of proof required, should be given deference in public debate because of its relationship to freedom of conscience, and the free exercise of religious belief, even, or perhaps especially, where that belief seems to be in conflict with present scientific understanding. As with many issues, the nominal points of contention are seen by many 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 a religion and that it promotes secularism and materialism in an attempt to erase religion from public life. This larger debate is often the subtext for arguments made over Intelligent Design.

Summary of arguments made by supporters of Intelligent Design

Arguments for intelligent design can be broadly split into four categories:

Assertions that the theories of naturalistic abiogenesis and macroevolution cannot fully account for the observed "irreducible complexity" and variety of organic life.
Arguments in support of a "design inference": just as it is reasonable to infer that an "irreducibly complex," functional, and interdependent machine was deliberately designed—a wristwatch, for example, implies a watchmaker— so, it is argued, it is reasonable to infer that "biological machines" that show similar characteristics were also designed.
Probability-based arguments that consider cosmological constants and other features of our universe that are "just right" for life, which conclude that a life-supporting universe is so exceedingly improbable it must be a product of deliberate design. (See Fine-tuned universe)
Arguments against philosophical naturalism, the assumption in science (and in intellectual life more generally) that any meaningful explanation describes (and is based upon) an empirically accessible material reality. Materialism of this sort rules out explanations that depend on factors located outside of observable nature, including most concepts of an active creator God. ID proponents argue that a priori exclusion of supernatural possibilities amounts to an ideological prejudice that obstructs the genuine search for truth.

Summary of arguments made by critics of Intelligent Design

Principal criticisms of intelligent design (from agencies like the National Center for Science Education (http://www.natcenscied.org/) ) include:

The assertion that ID is not a scientific theory. ID lacks testability, makes no positive statements about Earth history, and offers no research program. Instead it rests on updated versions of already refuted arguments from Creationism.
Claims that specific criticisms of biological evolution offered by ID advocates are flawed and misleading; most have been thoroughly refuted in the past, and ID proponents rarely acknowledge or address the body of science that contradicts their claims.
Many ID arguments rest on a misrepresentation of the theory of evolution. For example, a body part or organ that has a modern function did not necessarily have the same function in the past, as assumed in the "irreducible complexity" argument. Evolution works on chance and opportunity, with gill bones of mouth-less fishes evolving into jaws, fish air bladders becoming vertebrate lungs, and fin support structures becoming fingers and toes.
Arguments against the sufficiency of natural causes, also known as "God of the gaps" arguments, are historically prone to failure. The history of science shows that gaps in our knowledge are continuously filled. Such arguments are historically an attack on the idea that science should explain observations of the natural world with natural causes.

Summary of other points of view

Because ID supporters make no secret of their contempt for "Darwinians" , the issue of Intelligent Design goes far beyond the scientific viability of ID arguments. While the Discovery Institute attempts to place a wall between the theism of its members, and Intelligent Design, this wall breaks down in actual practice as soon as the public debate on the issue is joined.

The larger debate of the basic assumptions of public discourse is beyond the scope of an article on Intelligent Design as such, but cannot be ignored, both because of the public involvement of prominent theists in support of Intelligent Design, and the legal precedents involved in deciding whether Intelligent Design is legal to establish as part of public school curicula, it cannot be ignored in reporting the public points of view. Public opinion polls as of January 2005 show that the majority of Americans believe that "God created humans in their current form" .

Within this context, not all critics of Intelligent Design regard it as a clear and present danger, for example William Saleton of Slate called agrees that Intelligent Design is neo-creationism, and that it is "soft headed", but disputes the contention that it is any more than a last gasp of "educational relativism". . And it is far from universally true that religiously conservative individuals are supporters of "Intelligent Design", for example in 1996 John Paul II stated that Darwinian theory had been "proved true" and was consistent with Catholic Dogma. Nor are all supporters of evolution in the public realm willing to make the line against teaching Creationism in schools one that they are willing to defend with political capital: Albert Gore, while Vice President of the United States, stated that he did not oppose local school districts using federal funds to teach Creationism.

The principal arguments made by Intelligent Design supporters

Irreducible complexity

The term "irreducible complexity" 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 complex cellular systems. ID advocates argue that cellular machines 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 interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where 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, and the environment selects variants that have the highest fitness, which are then passed on to the next generation of organisms. Change occurs by the operation of natural forces over time, perhaps gradually, perhaps more quickly (See Punctuated equilibrium) and 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 example of a mousetrap to illustrate 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. Natural selection could therefore not create them from scratch by 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.

Specified complexity

The ID argument of specified complexity was developed by mathematician, philosopher, and theologian William Dembski. Dembski uses 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. The following examples demonstrate the concept of specified information:.

High information, low specificity. For example, the 10-letter structure "dkownl el." 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 information theory.)
High specificity, low information. For example, the 10-letter structure "aaaaaaaaaa." The sequence has low information because it can be compressed into a smaller string, namely “10 a’s” . However, because it conforms to a pattern it is highly specified.
Specified information. For example, the 10-letter structure "I love you". 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 assert that specified complexity cannot come about by natural means, and is therefore a reliable indicator of design.

The improbability of a life-supporting universe

ID proponents use the argument that we live in a "finely-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 - see Fine-tuned universe for a more detailed discussion.

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 the physics must have made it possible for life to arise. The strong form is a distinctly minority position and is highly controversial. (See Anthropic principle, Cosmology).

Criticisms of ID Arguments and Actions

ID and scientific peer review

George W. Gilchrist of the University of Washington looked through thousands of scientific journals in the mid-1990s, searching for any articles on intelligent design or creation science—he found none. More recent surveys have also failed to find articles on these subjects in the primary scientific literature. By contrast, many articles have been published in peer reviewed science journals that specifically deny the claims of ID (for example, Lenski et al. 2003 The evolutionary origin of complex features. Nature 423:139-44.)

One of the scientific community's justifications for its vociferous opposition to ID, is the perception that ID proponents are attempting to "end run" the scientific process by either not submitting to peer reviewed journals, or by setting up "peer review" that consists entirely of ID supporters.

One of ID's explanations for its absence from peer-reviewed literature is that papers explaining the findings and concepts in support of ID are consistently excluded from the mainstream scientific discourse by definition, because ID arguments challenge the principles of naturalism and uniformitarianism that are accepted as fundamental by the mainstream scientific community. Thus, they claim, 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 of "naturalists" against them.

To date, the intelligent design movement has succeeded at publishing one article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, although that journal has subsequently disowned the paper. The author is Stephen C. Meyer, 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 article is not available on-line from this journal, but a copy is on the Discovery Institute site: *The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories

A critical review of it is available on the Panda's Thumb website .

The vast majority of practicing biologists oppose Intelligent Design—a recent letter called teaching "Intelligent Design" "profoundly misguided". 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, for example, 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 even cursory scrutiny is regarded by the critics of intelligent design as a strong argument against Intelligent Design being considered as "science" at all.

Reactions such as this one from more than 250 science and science educators in Missouri are common: ID is "non-science" and that it fails to meet not only academic notions of science, but legal notions as outlined in McLean v Arkansas Board of Education.

Criticism of Irreducible Complexity

Critics of ID attack the definition of irreducible complexity, showing numerous inconsistencies in Behe's work, its lack of mathematical precision, and the application of an assertion that one can count a number of irreducible steps as Behe claims. They also point out that Behe has backed off of examples of irreducible complexity. They argue that Behe does not accurately calculate the odds of particular changes in the genome occuring. Further they argue that ID has promulgated no theory or method which would allow them to detect possible examples of cases of human modification of the genome, which would seem to be indistinguishable from the process of interfering with the genome that Intelligent Design asserts occured.

Critics of ID also argue that the IC argument assumes that the present function of a system must have been the one that it was selected for. But the concept of cooption, 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.

The IC argument assumes that a necessary part of a system has always been necessary. 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. Evolutionary pathways have been elucidated for IC systems such as cilia, the immune system and the flagellum. If IC is a reliable barrier to evolution, it should not be possible to construct such pathways. Computer simulations of evolution also demonstrate that IC can evolve.

Critics have also pointed out that Behe neglects to take into account the possibility of neutral traits and genetic drift from population genetics. This criticism points at the aspect of "Irreducible Complexity" argues that traits that don't have selective value of themselves could not have evolved independently. Instead, Motoo Kimura argued that traits which have no effect on fitness can have variation. Variation which can later become part of a selected ensemble of traits when other variations become present.

Critics also reject the ID movement's assertion that design is recognizable, namely that if it looks designed, it must be designed. The counter example is the honeycomb which is both regular and orderly, but was not designed.

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. However, when Behe's model of irreducible complexity was critiqued, it was found to contain highly dubious assumptions in order to prove that evolution in asexual populations was not possible.

Criticism of Specified Complexity

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. Scientists also point out that this is "argument from ignorance", namely the fallacy that because we do not know how something occured, it must be the sign of intelligence. In scientific terms, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" for naturalistic explanations of observed traits of living organisms.

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 phrase "I love you" can be written "luv u" or even with a "heart" symbol, reducing 10 bytes down to 2. The genome simliarly has redundancy and reability built in, which makes its information content much lower than the number of base pairs used.

Intelligent Design as "Stealth Creationism"

As outlined in the section on the legal arguments over ID, previously the doctrine of Creationism was rejected as suitable for teaching in public schools in the United States. According to opponents of ID, the Discovery Institute and its allied organizations are merely stripping the obvious religious content from their anti-evolution assertions as a means of avoiding the legal restriction on establishment. They argue that ID is simply an attempt to put a patina of secularity on top of what is a fundamentally religious belief, one that is driven largely by the unwillingness of many people to accept that the world evolves by understandable, verifiable and describable means.

The basis for this argument rests, first, on the nature of many ID arguments being updated versions of old teleological attacks on evolution, including the "watch requires a watchmaker", "lack of intermediate steps" and "improbability" arguments. According to critics of ID, all of these arguments really rest on a fundamental disbelief in evolution, which rests, in turn on an unstated belief in something else. Second, it rests on the behavior of ID advocates in many of their subsidiary comments, namely the implication that the Intelligent Designer is a supernatural one. Finally, they note that ID advocates routinely reference previous attempts to assert creationism as a public dogma in the past, including the Scopes trial in the 1920's.

These three critiques of ID are meant to assert that ID fails to meet the legal criterion for science, fails to meet the legal criterion for not having a clear religious motivation in its establishment, and fails to meet the test of good faith. If ID is merely an attempt to avoid standing legal objections, without alteration of actual substance, these critics argue, it should be dimissed as a settled issue.

The Center for Science and Culture and the "Wedge" strategy

Main Article: Center for Science and Culture

The intelligent design movement is centered around the Center for Science and Culture (CSC), formerly known as the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture, which was founded in 1996. The CSC is affiliated with the conservative Christian thinktank, the Discovery Institute.

In their effort to gain widespread acceptance of their views, the CSC fellows devised the "wedge strategy", and produced an internal memo now known as the Wedge Document, which was inadvertently leaked to the public. The Wedge Document serves as the unofficial manifesto of the ID movement; it outlines the movement's goal to exploit perceived discrepancies within evolutionary theory in order to discredit evolution and scientific materialism in general. Much of the strategy is directed toward the broader public, as opposed to the professional scientific community. The stated "governing goals" of the CSC's wedge strategy are "1. To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies" and "2. To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God." Critics of ID argue that the wedge strategy demonstrates that the ID movement is motivated by religion and political ideology.

Theological Debate

Hypotheses about the intelligent designer

Although the Intelligent Design movement is often portrayed as a variant of Bible-based Creationism, many ID arguments are formulated in secular terms; and almost all arguments are not rooted in reference to Biblical literalism, nor do they require that their adherents accept the Bible’s accounts or even the existence of a creator god. Some, though by no means all, ID supporters avoid claims about the identity of the designer or the mechanism of the design process, though proponents do make claims about the moment or moments in history at which the designer’s intervention occurred, usually assuming the designer to be available and capable at every place and time.

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.

Likewise, ID claims can support a variety of theisitic notions. Some proponents of creationism and intelligent design reject the hellenic Christian concept of omnipotence and omniscience on the part of the creator, and ascribe to Open Theism or Process theology. ID researchers that hold to the proposition of an omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent God as the designer may face an additional burden of proof beyond the claims of the ID movement, by having to additionally demonstrate that the designs themselves are flawless and anticipate all eventualities. Existing evidence poses many difficult challenges for the advocates of omniscient, omnipotent design, for example:

the poor ability of the human body to repair spinal cord injuries
the inability of the human body to grow replacement limbs
the failure to anticipate the demands of a plentiful, sedentary lifestyle leaving the human body vulnerable to chronic diseases such as type II diabetes and atherosclerosis
using the same genetic code for various species making it dangerously easy to transmit viruses across species' barriers
the requirement of a lower temperature for mammalian spermatogenes that results in the carrying of the testicles externally in a more vulnerable position

Some of these ID researchers would instead argue that when compared to that of an all-knowing God, our own knowledge is insignificant, and so features that may appear flawed to us, are more rightly considered perfect.

External links

Pro-ID

Misplaced Pages

Points at Issue

Summary of arguments made by supporters of Intelligent Design

Summary of arguments made by critics of Intelligent Design

Summary of other points of view

The principal arguments made by Intelligent Design supporters

Irreducible complexity

Specified complexity

The improbability of a life-supporting universe

Criticisms of ID Arguments and Actions

ID and scientific peer review

Criticism of Irreducible Complexity

Criticism of Specified Complexity

Intelligent Design as "Stealth Creationism"

The Center for Science and Culture and the "Wedge" strategy

Theological Debate

Hypotheses about the intelligent designer

See also

Further reading

Pro-ID

Anti-ID

External links

Pro-ID

Anti-ID

Young-Earth creationist comment on ID

Neutral