Intelligent Design

What do some of the posters here think about the intelligent design movement? Do any of you consider it a science? Is anyone here familiar with the Wedge Document?

1. I'm somewhat neutral on it.
2. I don't think it is acceptable as science.
3. I'm not familiar with the Wedge Document.

It's nothing more than unscientific religious dogma masquerading as science, it is not science at all, what is the Wedge Document?

http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Wedge_document

I've seen something like this before, although I don’t know if I've seen that exact document. It's certainly seems to go against creationsts’ claims that the “intelligent design” movement is just trying to win equal status for alternative theories about the development of life.

Indeed, the Wedge Document does infact contradict the claims of many ID advocates. It indicates that Intelligent Design is literally a front thats being used to undo science and all 'methodological naturalism' and materialism and replace it with, basically, mysticism and a new metaphysics.

This is basically what people like Genie Scott, from the NCSE, have been talking about as beign the current creationist strategy.

Did anyone here go to the SVP meeting in Denver last year? There was a short talk given by Dr. Scott about just this activity. What she outlined has been noticed in a lot of evolutionvcreationism webboards and newsgroups before, but it was interesting to see that the NCSE was addressing it. Creationist advocates will contact people on local school boards, or get their people onto the school boards, and then bring up this issue of intelligent design. The real issue with intelligent design is that it claims to be a scientific investigation of merely design, not god or any supernatural being, so at first it seems acceptable to people. They'll call for intelligent design, as a 'science' to be taugh along with evolution, which is 'only a theory' and hasn't been 'proven'. THis is the sort of thing that sounds reasonable to people and certainly tugs at their interests of having 'fair play' for both sides of any argument. Once the idea of critique of evolution is brought in (even when its unscientific and faith based critique), the issue of Intelligent Design is dropped and outright creationism is brought into play.

I think it would be telling as to what precisely the ID advocates want even if they hadn't screwed up and released the Wedge Document. Consider that their actions are not to publish Intelligent Design science articles in established scientific journals, but rather to create their own journals and publish from there. And consider that their actions are largely legalistic; going to courts, challenging bylaws, etc etc, rather than conducting the proper methodology of science. And also consider that, despite Drs Behe and Dembski, one of the biggest advocates for intelligent Design is phil johnson, a lawyer with no scientific training, his training is in rhetoric.

The majority of ID journals are largely short articles that could have used children's books for a reference describing nature and how glorious the work of God is.

I’ve got an essay about this I wrote for a college class last year, if anyone's interested. Some of you may have seen it already.

I find the reaction to ID very disturbing. Too many people claiming to take the science angle, but sounding like their 'religion' is being threatened.

ID is NOT the same as Creationism. It may be wrong, but it does endeavour to be science. Creationism in the strict sense comes from a particular fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. It starts from the presumption that the Bible is an absolute authorityand that their interpretation is correct. ID in its pure form does not stem from 'revelation' but rather from observation and hypothesis, which is how science should work. Fundamentally ID theory proposes that much of the information content in living organisms cannot be explained by in situ processes and must have been introduced from outside in some way. Dembski's peer reviewed monograph 'The Design Inference - eliminating chance through small probablities' (published by Cambridge Univeristy Press), is a remarkable piece of work that is of broad applicablity, and shows how design can be identified in a scientifically rigorous manner. ID theory as a science does not comment on the source of this design, that would be religion.

The allegation that ID theory is the new brand of Creationism is manifestly untrue. There are ID proponents who are agnostic for goodness sake!, and others who have religious beliefs but do not subscribe to ID theory on that basis. Behe is on record as saying that as a Catholic he has no problem with evolution, as a scientist he does. Some ID proponents subscribe to 'descent with modification' albeit with the design information being input from some unspecified external source.

However some Creationsists do seem to have jumped on the ID bandwagon. Their motives may sometimes show through. Just as evolution doesnt automatically require atheism, so ID theory doesn't require creationism.

Some of the work done by ID proponents has been carried out by properly qualified scientists, employing scientific method and published under peer review. So what makes it not science? It may be wrong, or it may be right, but that's true of all any published science. You dont have to agree with it, but to resort to petty name calling is foolish and childish. If it is wrong, use scientific method to show why. Unfortunately it seems to me that too many people are reacting as if their 'faith' is being challenged, or else that they have a serious case of cognitive dissonance.

Perhaps not as much ID material is peer reviewed as one would like to see, but the simple fact is that experience shows that typically any theory that challenges the prevaling paradigm tends to be at a disadvantage in this regard. Peer review is an excellent way of weeding out much of the rubbish, but it also tends to perpetuate the position of the 'leaders' in the field. Thats a consequence we have to live with.

The core of the problem is one of philosophy rather than science or religion. For many scientists in academia the 'presumption of naturalism' is held as an absolute, which by definition excludes ID, but to me such a presumption is a quasi-religious philosophy not science in the true sense. The philosopher of science Midgely has much of interest to say on this matter in her book 'Evolution as Religion'. Surely science should be about using scientific method to take us where ever the evidence leads - I want to know what really is the case, not just to reinforce preconceptions. My father taught me as a kid that 'the truth can stand any question you ask of it'. Real science should manifest the open-minded enquiring spirit of Galileo, Darwin and Copernicus, not the closed-minded zealot attitude of Dawkins and many others today.

By way of putting my remarks in context: I do have a scientific background (I have a MSc, though not in a biological science). I have read widely literature from the evolutionist, creationist and ID perspectives. I do not consider myself to be a creationist, but I do feel that ID has raised many significant questions that so far evolutionary biology has failed to address. Time will tell what is the truth of the matter, I suspect that a century from now the debate will be settled for good, one way or the other.

In the meantime, lets keep the debate friendly and respectful. We don't have to agree with the views of others to respect them.

And yet when the authors of the creationist text Of Panda's and People learned of the 1987 court case that ruled creationism unconstitutional, they simply replaced the word "creationism" with "intelligent design" in subsequent editions of the text...

I disagree. To employ ID is to give up on science. What ID seeks is to make reference to the unknowable supernatural whenever natural explanations are hard to come by. In his book, Behe makes reference to a number of irreducibly complex (read: ex nihilo) biological systems -- all of which have since been shown to be reducibly complex. Does this negate the existence of God? I would argue that not only is ID bad science, but bad theology, too!

Have you read Miller's Finding Darwin's God? His book pretty much puts any and every claim made by ID to rest.

I don't know anyone that considers science to be anything like their religion, rather its a tool used to investigate phenomena.

It postulates, in broadest terms, that the world was created.

The large organizations pushing it, like the Discovery Institute, clearly have an anti-science agenda, as revealed in their internal memo, the "Wedge Document".

What do you mean in the 'strictest' sense? In any sense it comes from the bible. Its people trying to show that there really was a Flood with Noah and pairs of animals. That there was a physical garden and eve was made from adam's rib, etc.

THis is the basic bone of contention. ID probably wouldn't exist without Creationism. Its earliest form was "Natural Theology", in which people thought that they could look at nature and determine the characteristics of god, or rather see that god if good because things in nature are in proportion.

Modern ID starts off with the idea that intelligent design can be detected, and then looks for ways to show it. These attempts ultimately boil down to trying to 'show' that something is too complex to have 'occured naturally'.

Thats not science.

No. It proposes that nature cannot create certain complex systems without a thinking and intelligent agent.

This is a typical tactic. Cambridge University Press is a business, it publishes books. THe fact that Cambridge University Press has published a book is meaningless in regards to the information content of that book. Why make this silly 'argument from authority' anyway? The authorities on science and biology flatly state that ID isn't science, and ithat Darwinian Natural Selection is essentially the strongest theory out there. I don't find that too meaningful, but its a heck of a lot more meaningful than saying 'something with the name 'Cambrige' printed it, so it must be true' is.

Please explain this rigorous argument.

Please explain how ID 'theory' can be refuted.

If the postulates of ID are scientific, then the source of the design is in the domain of science, not religion. ID proponents are often very careful to not talk about who's doing the designing, but, clearly, since we are talking about life being designed, then there must be something non-biological that designed biological life, ie, God.

You know, there's a reason why one of the big backers of ID is Phil Johnson, a lawyer. Its because the 'movement', by and large, is trying to get science removed from the schools and replaced with irrational metaphysical beleifs. ID is a type of creationism, just like so called "Scientific Creationism" is a type of biblical creationism.

Such as?

It would be science, if it were true. Since its not, its not science.

I think everyone would rather see evidence that shows Intelligent Design is a good theory. Or even is workable as a theory.

And its also one that is essentially irrelevant. No one rejects ID because its not popular in scientific journals. Its noted that its not accepted, but peopel reject it because its simply not a scientific theory and doesn't have any evidence to support it.

And yet, you said that ID doesn't involve any information about the designer and isn't a religion. But now you are saying its all about metaphysics. Which is it, science, or irrational metaphysical beleifs??

And that methodology can not inform us about metaphysical happenings. Ipso facto, ID is not science. You can not demonstrate that something which exists can't exist naturally. You can not demonstrate the supernatural.

Dawkins is a scientist. Phil Johnson is a professional rhetorician, a lawyer. Lets not have any mud slung onto Dawkin's. You didn't even show how he is a 'zealot', but rather just slandered the guy and left it at that. So how can you say that people need to not 'reinforce preconceptions'??

Fair enough. Such as what?

Why? What technological advances could possibly make a difference? The ID arguement is laid out, plain and simple. The ID advocates make the case that it is essentially correct. That case has been reviewed, and found to be fundamentally flawed in that its simply not a scientific methodology.

You'd think that you could detect design. After all, we know that an airplane is designed, so you'd think we could quantify that design aspect, and then see if there are any parrelells in the biological world. But that misses, entirely, the basic ideas of darwinian evolution, things will have this appearance of design, because they've got a 'fit' to a 'function'.