User:Woozle/Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design: a biased analysis

Related Articles

• Creation
• Intelligent Design

Point Counterpoint

The following list is largely proposed so that rhetoricists can stop using various irrelevant points to derail debate on this subject.

• There's no point in denying that evolution is "just" a theory, because it is. (However, it is currently the only real theory available; Intelligent Design does not make any falsifiable claims, nor does it make any predictions which might be confirmed by additional evidence.)
• The Intelligent Design (ID) folks need to admit that while evolution may be "just" a theory, it fits the facts very well, and while ID may be a theory in the most general sense ("a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action" (m-w.com), "An unproven conjecture" (wiktionary)), it is not a scientific theory ("A coherent statement or set of statements that attempts to explain observed phenomena, which has testable implications, and which is well tested and widely accepted as true." (wiktionary)), which is (where any doubt exists) generally a requirement for including such ideas in academic science curricula.
• The evolutionists need to admit that just because something doesn't have a lot of supporting data doesn't mean it isn't (or couldn't be) true, although such lack may well mean that it is also highly unlikely. They also need to admit that we don't yet know enough about the universe to say that it couldn't have been (or wasn't) designed by an intelligent being. (Such admissions do not contradict the theory of evolution, as far as they go.)
• The ID folks need to admit that until they have a specific theoretical argument with some testable conclusions, postulating an intelligent entity (which itself would need to be explained) when there are other simpler explanations is, as they say, making things unnecessarily complicated*.

*complicated: see Occam's Razor, a principle attributed to a 14th-century Franciscan friar who apparently agreed that it made proving the existence of God rather iffy [1]

• The evolutionists need to stop worrying that Intelligent Design will, all by itself, turn schoolchildren into Bible-thumping science-haters, and focus on making sure that the scientific method and logical thinking are taught well