Intelligent design

Overview

Intelligent design (or "ID") is a direct creation theory which is often proposed as a valid alternative to the scientific theory of evolution, a.k.a. Darwinism. It is essentially creationism, but with any falsifiable claims (e.g. the creation of the earth being specifically pegged at approximately 4000 BC) removed, and only the claim of an "intelligent designer" – who might be God, but whose nature is left carefully unspecified and could just as easily be some form of extraterrestrial intelligence – remains.

ID is, then, basically a redress of the classical "argument by design" which has been debated for at least 2000 years (see Wikipedia), but stops before the assertion that God must be the intelligent being involved.

Intelligent Design treatises often spend considerable energy on criticizing Darwinism and debating the merits of ID over those of Evolution, rather than refining ID as a theory (e.g. attempting to determine the exact nature of the hypothesized interventions, at what points they happened, etc.). These criticisms and debates often raise valid (although not unanswerable) objections to Darwinism, but do not (despite the ID adherents' apparent belief to the contrary) present evidence actually in support of ID.

Scientific Claims

ID does make the following falsifiable claims:

wikipage=Issuepedia:Debaticons tooltip=claim that is the main subject of a debate img_src=Image:Arrow-button-rt-20px.png img_alt=right arrow debaticon </linkedimage> Certain organisms display what ID proponents call "irreducible complexity", i.e. organs which they claim would not function properly if even a small percentage of their components were absent or not functioning properly, and therefore these organs could not have evolved.

wikipage=Issuepedia:Debaticons tooltip=claim that is the main subject of a debate img_src=Image:Arrow-button-rt-20px.png img_alt=right arrow debaticon </linkedimage> The flagellum, which is actually a molecular motor with "about 50 parts"

This argument of ID is essentially making a scientific prediction, falsification of which proves that the theory is wrong as stated. The prediction is that the flagellum would be useless without all (or most) of its parts. Dr. Kenneth Miller answers this by showing a sample organism which is missing 40 of the 50 parts and yet still functions "perfectly".

wikipage=Issuepedia:Debaticons tooltip=claim that is the main subject of a debate img_src=Image:Arrow-button-rt-20px.png img_alt=right arrow debaticon </linkedimage> Life could not have evolved by chance, according to mathematician Dr. William Dembski of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, due to the vast improbability of functioning sequences of DNA happening to occur out of all the vastness (philosophy) number of possible alternatives.

This is based on two mistaken understandings:

wikipage=Issuepedia:Debaticons tooltip=erroneous or logically inconsistent statement in main argument img_src=Image:Button-e!-20px.png img_alt=e! debaticon </linkedimage> Error: The probability of any given genome (DNA sequence for an organism) happening to occur is the same as that of any other genome, i.e. they happen at random.

wikipage=Issuepedia:Debaticons tooltip=correction, or corrected version of earlier statement img_src=Image:Button-check-20px.png img_alt=check mark debaticon </linkedimage> Correction: This would only be true if each organism had been first created in something close to its present form. The theory of evolution posits that the genomes for each species evolved gradually over millions of years, starting from the shortest possible strands which could reproduce and gradually being edited over the eons by natural selection – adding on a bit here, trimming a bit there – until we arrive at all the different organisms there are today. Hence DNA sequences (like any engineering project, or like writing) tend to follow certain patterns which are a vanishingly small subset of all the possible patterns. Genomes which actually work as organisms are an even smaller subset of genomes which are constructed mainly of patterns in common use.

wikipage=Issuepedia:Debaticons tooltip=erroneous or logically inconsistent statement in main argument img_src=Image:Button-e!-20px.png img_alt=e! debaticon </linkedimage> Error: The DNA sequences found in organisms today were each created in their entirety, like a hand of cards being dealt, for the first organism to use them. There are only a vanishingly small number of "hands" (out of all the Vast number of possible hands) which might work as organisms, and the misunderstanding seems to be that we have from the beginning of life until now to "deal out" functioning organisms from a well-shuffled deck.

wikipage=Issuepedia:Debaticons tooltip=correction, or corrected version of earlier statement img_src=Image:Button-check-20px.png img_alt=check mark debaticon </linkedimage> Correction: Again, the patterns started out being relatively simple, and gradually evolved into the complex forms we see today.

A legitimate question to ask is how that first pattern could have been created, since the "simplest pattern capable of copying itself" would seem to be quite complicated, but that discussion is outside the realm of evolution by natural selection (EbNS) – though not at all outside the realm of science, and theories have been proposed which make use of many of the mechanisms found in EbNS.

Behe and Dembski argued that there had to be an intelligent, deliberate influence in order to overcome these obstacles they thought they saw, but they would seem to have been clearly in error; one can only think that it is intellectual dishonesty which compels them (and other ID supporters) to continue making the case for ID without answering these points.

Supernatural?

It's not clear whether they were specifically arguing for a supernatural influence. Regardless of whether there was some kind of intelligent force at work in the process of evolution, there are two possible ways it could operate:

via means detectable to us
via means undetectable to us

In the former case, we should be able to verify that either known scientific laws (of physics, probability, or whatever) are being violated. If they are not being violated, then there is obviously no influence outside of the laws which Darwinists believe are at work. So we should expect to see some violation of the laws of nature as we presently understand them.

In the latter case, then by definition we will see no variance from expected behavior according to natural law, as we could detect that. The most we might find is natural laws operating in ways we do not yet understand.

The whole case for claiming anything is supernatural is logically inconsistent, and a fake explanation. To say a given phenomenon involves the supernatural is to be claiming that it not only operates by laws we do not currently understand, but by laws that we will never come to understand merely by studying the phenomenon. This is quite a claim to make without huge amounts of evidence that the laws of nature we currently understand are being violated – and even in that case, history has shown repeatedly that we do eventually come to understand seemingly inexplicable phenomena once we have identified them.

In order to make a serious case for the supernatural, one would have to (1) show clearly a phenomenon which was not explained by our present science, (2) wait many years for repeated failures to make any headway whatsoever in studying it.

Origin: The Wedge Document

As a coherent theory, ID seems to have been created solely for the purpose of finding an argument which would be acceptable to Christians and yet would succeed where creationism, due to the illegality of teaching religion-based ideas as fact in US schools, had failed.

An apparently damning strategy paper generally referred to as The Wedge Document was written in 1998 by the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. The paper does not appear to be anywhere on DI's web site (currently only available on the AntiEvolution web site - "concise and accurate information for those who wish to critically examine the antievolution movement"), although there is one reply (available only in PDF at present) dated 2005-12-19 on DI's site. (This PDF should probably be transcribed at some point for easier access.)

The Wedge paper makes it clear that ID was created – at least, from the point of view of the DI/CSC – solely for the purpose of "[seeing] intelligent design theory as the dominant perspective in science", regardless of its veracity.

Links

Reference

News & Views

2006-07-30 (blog entry) I.D. is Bad Science on Its Own Terms by John Rennie
2006-02-12 (email/reply) Subject: Intelligent Design Gedanken experiment: writer's argument seems well-stated and convincing; Pournelle's reply seems evasive.
2005-10-27 (article) The Brontosaurus: Monty Python's flying creationism, by William Saletan: compares Michael Behe with Miss Anne Elk
2002-02-13 (article) Unintelligible Redesign by William Saletan: ID offers nothing testable, and only the unsupported assertion that something which seems designed must be designed.

Articles

The Other Intelligent Design Theories by David Brin: "Intelligent Design is only one of many "alternatives" to Darwinian evolution."
- Points out that the creation of "Intelligent Design" shows how scientific ideas such as openness to criticism, fair play in discussion, and respect for the contingent nature of truth have become accepted standards
- Refutes the implicit premise that ID is the only valid alternative to Darwinian evolution
- Takes some of ID's arguments to the next logical step (something ID proponents seem to carefully avoid doing)

Discussion

TruthMapping: ID is not scientific and therefore does not belong in science education

Humor

2003-01-22 "The Quixotic Message", or "No Free Hunch": humorously-phrased IDist viewpoints on various related issues, with supporting documentation

Video

"A War on Science" (episode of BBC's Horizon series): Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Comments

If it is necessary to invoke a deity in order to explain gaps in the theory of evolution, why does ID stop there? For example, scientists are still trying to explain how galaxies are held together when the force of gravity seems to be insufficient; the current theory is that dark matter is responsible, but most scientists will admit that this theory is a bit lame. Why aren't the ID people arguing that God must be holding the galaxies together? And then there's the whole area of quantum physics... --Woozle, 17:20, 23 January 2006
David Brin said (in Contrary Brin 2005-12-08), arguing that the repurposing of Creationism's arguments in the more scientific-sounding "Intelligent Design" guise, as cynical as it may seem, is actually a score for science:

Take a gander at so-called "Intelligent Design." Would they have retreated so far from older "Creationism"... using every trick to dress it up in scientific-sounding and rationalist language, eschewing every reference to religion and even dropping all mention of the age of the Earth/universe (!)... if they did not realize how deeply and strongly science and enlightenment still hold attraction to the American majority?