According to the theory of Intelligent Design, it is possible to infer from empirical evidence that some features of the natural world are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than unguided processes. The “ID movement,” as it is sometimes called, is quiet recent. It originated with the publication of several books between 1984 and 1992 and a small meeting organized by Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson near Monterey, California, in 1993.
Jonathan Wells, a key figure in the ID movement and author of the famed Icons of Evolution, notes seven things about ID worth knowing:
1. The word “intelligent” emphasizes that “design” in this case is not just a pattern, but a pattern produced by a mind that conceives and executes a plan. Any natural causes involved are guided by intelligence. Writing a meaningful paragraph on a computer depends on various physiological, mechanical, and electronic processes, but without a mind directing them they would not produce the paragraph.
2. ID is not a substitute for ignorance. If we don’t know the cause of something that does not mean it was designed. When we make design inferences- and all of us make them every day- we do so on the basis of evidence; the more evidence, the more reliable the design inference.
3. ID relies on scientific evidence rather than on Scripture or religious doctrines. It is not biblical creationism. Intelligent Design makes no claims about biblical chronology, and biblical creationists have clearly distinguished their views from ID. A person does not even need to believe in God to infer intelligent design in nature; otherwise, prominent atheist Anthony Flew could not have been persuaded that the evidence in nature points to design.
4. ID does not tell the identity of the designer. Although most proponents of ID believe that the designer is the God of the Bible, they acknowledge that this belief goes beyond the scientific evidence. Thus ID is not the same as nineteenth-century natural theology, which reasoned from nature to the attributes of God. Instead, ID restricts itself to a simple question: does the evidence point to design in nature? The answer to this question- whether yes or no- carries implications for religious belief, but the question can be asked and answered without presupposing those implications.
5. ID does not claim that design must be optimal; something may be designed even if it is flawed. When automobile manufacturers recall defective vehicles, they are showing that those vehicles were badly designed, not that they were undesigned.
6. ID is compatible with some aspects of Darwinian evolution. ID does not deny the reality of variation and natural selection; it just denies that those phenomena can accomplish all that Darwinists claim they can accomplish. ID challenges only the sufficiency of unguided natural processes and the Darwinian claim that design in living things is an illusion rather than a reality.
7. ID can apply on two different levels. Design may be detectable in specific features of living things, but it may also be detectable in natural laws and the structure of the cosmos. Most people who consider themselves ID advocates maintain not only that design is empirically detectable in the cosmos as a whole, but also that some features of the natural world (such as the shapes of rocks and cliffs) are not designed in the same sense that other features (such as the information in DNA) are designed. [1]
For those interested in learning more about ID, go here.
Courage and Godspeed,
Chad
Chad
Resource:
1. Taken and slightly modified from Jonathan Wells, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, p. 7-9.
