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Intelligent design ('''ID''') is the concept that "certain features of the . An overwhelming majoritySee: 1) has stated that intelligent design "and other claims of Supernatural intervention in the origin of life" are not science because they cannot be tested by Experiment , do not generate any predictions and propose no new Hypotheses of their own. National Academy of Sciences, 1999 Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition A that intelligent design is not science and is essentially religious in nature. INTELLIGENT DESIGN IN SUMMARY Intelligent design is presented as an alternative to implies that life on Earth must have been designed by an Intelligent agent or agents. William Dembski , one of intelligent design's leading proponents, has stated that the fundamental claim of intelligent design is that "there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence."Dembski. The Design Revolution. pg. 27 2004 Proponents of intelligent design look for Evidence of what they term ''"signs of intelligence"'' — Physical Properties of an object that they assert necessitate design. The most commonly cited signs include Irreducible Complexity , information mechanisms, and Specified Complexity . Design proponents argue that living systems show one or more of these, from which they infer that some aspects of life have been designed. This stands in opposition to mainstream Biological Science , which relies on experiment and collection of uncontested data to explain the natural world through observed impersonal physical processes such as Mutations and Natural Selection . Intelligent design proponents say that while evidence pointing to the nature of an "intelligent cause or agent" may not be directly Observable , its effects on nature can be detected. Dembski, in ''Signs of Intelligence'', states: "Proponents of intelligent design regard it as a scientific research program that investigates the effects of intelligent causes. Note that intelligent design studies the ''effects'' of intelligent causes and not intelligent causes ''per se''." In his view, one cannot test for the identity of influences exterior to a closed system from within, so questions concerning the identity of a designer fall outside the realm of the concept. Origins of the concept For millennia, philosophers have argued that the complexity of nature indicates the existence of a purposeful natural or supernatural designer/creator. The first recorded arguments for a natural designer come from (c. 427–c. 347 BCE) posited a natural " Demiurge " of supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the cosmos in his work '' Timaeus ''. Aristotle (c. 384–322 BCE) also developed the idea of a natural creator of the cosmos, often referred to as the " Prime Mover " in his work '' Metaphysics ''. In his ''de Natura Deorum'' (On the Nature of the Gods) Cicero (c. 106–c. 43 BCE) stated, "The divine power is to be found in a principle of reason which pervades the whole of nature." Cicero, The Latin Library The use of this line of reasoning as applied to a supernatural designer has come to be known as the in his book ''Natural Theology'' (1802), where he uses the Watchmaker Analogy , which is still used in intelligent design arguments. In the early 19th century such arguments led to the development of what was called Natural Theology , the study of Biology as a search to understand the "mind of God". This movement fueled the passion for collecting fossils and other biological specimens that ultimately led to Darwin's theory of The Origin Of Species . Similar reasoning postulating a divine designer is embraced today by many believers in Theistic Evolution , who consider modern science and the theory of Evolution to be fully compatible with the concept of a supernatural designer. Intelligent design in the late 20th century can be seen as a modern reframing of natural theology seeking to change the basis of science and undermine evolution theory. As evolutionary theory has expanded to explain more phenomena, the examples that are held up as evidence of design have changed. But the essential argument remains the same: complex systems imply a designer. In the past, examples that have been offered included the eye (optical system) and the feathered wing; current examples are mostly ). The earliest known modern version of intelligent design began, according to Dr Barbara Forrest , "in the early 1980s with the publication of ''The Mystery of Life's Origin'' (MoLO 1984) by creationist chemist Charles B. Thaxton with Walter L. Bradley and Roger L. Olsen. Thaxton worked for Jon A. Buell at the Foundation For Thought And Ethics (FTE) in Texas, a religious organization that published MoLO."Dr Barbara Forrest. Know Your Creationists: Know Your Allies Intelligent design deliberately does not try to identify or name the specific Agent Of Creation – it merely states that one (or more) must exist. While intelligent design itself does not name the designer, the personal view of many proponents is that the designer is the Christian god. Whether this was a genuine feature of the concept or just a posture taken to avoid alienating those who would separate religion from science-teaching has been a matter of great debate between supporters and critics of intelligent design. The Kitzmiller V. Dover Area School District court ruling held the latter to be the case. Origins of the term Though unrelated to the current use of the term, the phrase "intelligent design" can be found in an 1847 issue of ''Scientific American'', and in an address to the 1873 annual meeting of the British Association For The Advancement Of Science by Paleyite botanist George James Allman : No physical hypothesis founded on any indisputable fact has yet explained the origin of the primordial protoplasm, and, above all, of its marvellous properties, which render evolution possible—in heredity and in adaptability, for these properties are the cause and not the effect of evolution. For the cause of this cause we have sought in vain among the physical forces which surround us, until we are at last compelled to rest upon an independent volition, a far-seeing intelligent design.'The British Association', ''The Times'', Saturday, 20 September, 1873; pg. 10; col A. The term can be found again in ''Humanism'', a 1903 book by order (design, adaptation). Therefore, it was produced by an intelligent designer." The term "intelligent design" was also used in the early 1980s by Sir Fred Hoyle as part of his promotion of Panspermia .'Evolution according to Hoyle: Survivors of disaster in an earlier world', By Nicholas Timmins, ''The Times'', Wednesday, 13 January, 1982; pg. 22; Issue 61130; col F. The predominant modern use of the term began after the following his 1991 book '' Darwin On Trial '' which advocated redefining science to allow claims of supernatural creation. Johnson, considered the "father" of the Intelligent Design Movement , went on to work with Meyer, becoming the program advisor of the Center For Science And Culture in forming and executing the Wedge Strategy . CONCEPTS The following are summaries of key concepts of intelligent design, followed by summaries of criticisms. Counter-arguments against such criticisms are often proffered by intelligent design proponents, as are counter-counter-arguments by critics, etc. Irreducible complexity See Also: Irreducible complexity In the context of intelligent design, irreducible complexity was put forth by Michael Behe , who defines it as: ...a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. (Behe, Molecular Machines: Experimental Support for the Design Inference) Behe uses the mousetrap as an illustrative example of 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. Intelligent design advocates assert that natural selection could not create irreducibly complex systems, because the selectable function is only present when all parts are assembled. Behe's original examples of allegedIrreducible complexity of these examples is disputed, see Kitzmiller p 76-78, and Ken Miller Webcast irreducibly complex biological mechanisms also include the bacterial Flagellum of '' E. Coli '', the Blood Clotting cascade, Cilia , and the adaptive Immune System . Critics point out that the irreducible complexity argument assumes that the necessary parts of a system have always been necessary, and therefore could not have been added sequentially. They argue that something which is at first merely advantageous can later become necessary, as other components change. Furthermore, they argue that evolution often proceeds by altering preexisting parts or by removing them from a system, instead of by adding them; this is sometimes referred to as the "scaffolding objection" by an analogy with scaffolding, which can support an "irreducibly complex" building until it is complete and able to stand on its own. Specified complexity See Also: Specified complexity The intelligent design concept of specified complexity was developed by mathematician, philosopher, and theologian Sonnet is both complex and specified."Dembski. Intelligent Design, p. 47 He states that details of living things can be similarly characterized, especially the "patterns" of molecular sequences in functional biological molecules such as DNA . Dembski defines complex specified information as anything with a less than 1 in 10150 chance of occurring by (natural) chance. Critics say that this renders the argument a Tautology : Complex specified information (CSI) cannot occur naturally because Dembski has defined it thus, so the real question becomes whether or not CSI actually exists in nature. The conceptual soundness of Dembski's specified complexity/CSI argument is strongly disputed by the scientific community. Nowak quoted. Claudia Wallis. Time Magazine, characterize Dembski's "explanatory filter" as ''eliminative'', because it eliminates explanations sequentially: first regularity, then chance, finally defaulting to design. They argue that this procedure is flawed as a model for scientific inference because the asymmetric way it treats the different possible explanations renders it prone to making false conclusions.John S. Wilkins and Wesley R. Elsberry. Biology and Philosophy, 16: 711-724. 2001. The Advantages of Theft over Toil: The Design Inference and Arguing from Ignorance Fine-tuned universe See Also: Fine-tuned universe One of the arguments of intelligent design proponents that includes more than just biology is that we live in a fine-tuned universe, with many features that make life possible that cannot be attributed to chance. These features include the values of physical constants, the strength of nuclear forces, and many others. Intelligent design proponent and Center For Science And Culture fellow Guillermo Gonzalez argues that if any of these values were even slightly different, the universe would be dramatically different, with many Chemical Elements and features of the universe like Galaxies being impossible to form.Guillermo Gonzalez. The Privileged Planet. Thus, they argue, an intelligent designer of life was needed to ensure that the requisite features were present to achieve that particular outcome. Scientists almost unanimously have responded that this argument cannot be tested, is not scientifically productive, and some argue that even when taken as mere speculation, these arguments are poorly supported by existing evidence.The Panda's Thumb. review of The Privileged Planet Critics of both intelligent design and the weak form of Anthropic Principle argue that they are essentially a Tautology ; in their view, these arguments amount to the claim that life is able to exist because the universe is able to support life. The claim of the improbability of a life-supporting universe has also been criticized as an Argument By Lack Of Imagination for assuming no other forms of life are possible; life as we know it might not exist if things were different, but a different sort of life might exist in its place. A number of critics also suggest that many of the stated variables appear to be interconnected, and that calculations made by mathematicians and physicists suggest that the emergence of a universe similar to ours is quite probable. The designer or designers See Also: Intelligent designer Intelligent design arguments are formulated in secular terms and intentionally avoid identifying the intelligent agent they posit. They do not state that God is the designer, but the designer is often implicitly hypothesized to have intervened in a way that only a god could intervene. Though Dembski in ''The Design Inference'' speculates that an alien culture could fulfill these requirements, the authoritative description of intelligent design"The theory of Intelligent Design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.''" Discovery Institute. What is Intelligent Design? Questions About Intelligent Design explicitly states that the ''universe'' displays features of having been designed. Acknowledging the God , to the exclusion of all other religions. Beyond the debate over whether intelligent design is scientific, a number of critics go so far as to argue that existing evidence makes the design hypothesis appear unlikely, irrespective of its status in the world of science. For example, Jerry Coyne, of the '' that we are simply incapable of understanding the designer's motives, so such questions cannot be answered definitively. Odd designs could, for example, "have been placed there by the designer... for artistic reasons, to show off, for some as-yet undetectable practical purpose, or for some unguessable reason." Coyne responds that in light of the evidence, "either life resulted not from intelligent design, but from evolution; or the intelligent designer is a cosmic prankster who designed everything to make it look as though it had evolved." Asserting the need for a designer of complexity also raises the question, "what designed the designer?"Dr. Donald E. Simanek. Intelligent Design: The Glass is Empty Intelligent design proponents say that the question is irrelevant to or outside the scope of intelligent design.IDEA "One need not fully understand the origin or identity of the designer to determine that an object was designed. Thus, this question is essentially irrelevant to intelligent design theory, which merely seeks to detect if an object was designed... Intelligent design theory cannot address the identity or origin of the designer--it is a philosophical / religious question that lies outside the domain of scientific inquiry. Christianity postulates the religious answer to this question that the designer is God who by definition is eternally existent and has no origin. There is no logical philosophical impossibility with this being the case (akin to . Absent observable, measurable evidence, the very question "what designed the designer?" leads to an Infinite Regression from which intelligent design proponents can only escape by resorting to religious creationism or logical contradiction. INTELLIGENT DESIGN AS A MOVEMENT See Also: Intelligent design movement cover, August 15, 2005]] The intelligent design movement arose out of an organized Neocreationist campaign directed by the Discovery Institute to promote a religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes employing intelligent design arguments in the public sphere, primarily in the United States . Leaders of the movement say intelligent design exposes the limitations of scientific orthodoxy and of the Secular philosophy of Naturalism . Intelligent design proponents allege that science shouldn't be limited to naturalism, and shouldn't demand the adoption of a naturalistic Philosophy that dismisses any explanation that contains a supernatural cause out of hand. while conducting its adjunct Teach The Controversy campaign. Leading intelligent design proponents have made conflicting statements regarding intelligent design. In statements directed at the general public they state that intelligent design is not religious, while they state that intelligent design has its foundation in the Bible Johnson, 1999. Reclaiming America for Christ Conference. "Now the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn't true. It's falsified by all of the evidence and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, well, where might you get the truth? ... I start with John 1:1. 'In the beginning was the word...' In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right." How the Evolution Debate Can Be Won when addressing conservative Christian supporters. Barbara Forrest , an expert who has written extensively on the movement, describes this as being due to the Discovery Institute obfuscating its agenda as a matter of policy. She has written that the movement's "activities betray an aggressive, systematic agenda for promoting not only intelligent design creationism, but the religious world-view that undergirds it."Barbara Forrest. 2001. " The Wedge at Work: Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics Religion and leading proponents Intelligent design's arguments are carefully formulated in message."Phillip Johnson. Keeping the Darwinists Honest, an interview with Phillip Johnson.Citizen Magazine. April 1999. "Intelligent Design is an intellectual movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. ... The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens up for them some doors that have been closed." The principal intelligent design advocates, including Michael Behe , William Dembski , Jonathan Wells (actually a member of the Unification Church , headed by Reverend Moon ), and Stephen C. Meyer , are Christians and have stated that in their view the designer of life is God . The vast majority of leading intelligent design proponents are Evangelical Protestants . The conflicting claims made by leading intelligent design advocates as to whether or not intelligent design is rooted in religious conviction are the result of their ..." "Not only does intelligent design rid us of this ideology ( Materialism ), which suffocates the human spirit, but, in my personal experience, I've found that it opens the path for people to come to Christ."Dembski. 2005. Intelligent Design's Contribution to the Debate Over Evolution: A Reply to Henry Morris. Reply to Henry Morris Two leading intelligent design proponents, Phillip Johnson and William Dembski, cite the Bible's '' trial transcript, Day 6 (October 5) "What I am talking about is the essence of intelligent design, and the essence of it is theistic realism as defined by Professor Johnson. Now that stands on its own quite apart from what their motives are. I'm also talking about the definition of intelligent design by Dr. Dembski as the Logos theology of John's Gospel. That stands on its own." ... "Intelligent design, as it is understood by the proponents that we are discussing today, does involve a supernatural creator, and that is my objection. And I am objecting to it as they have defined it, as Professor Johnson has defined intelligent design, and as Dr. Dembski has defined intelligent design. And both of those are basically religious. They involve the supernatural." INTELLIGENT DESIGN CONTROVERSY A key strategy of the intelligent design movement is in convincing the general public that there is a debate among scientists about whether life evolved, seeking to convince the public, politicians, and cultural leaders that schools should " Teach The Controversy ."Seattle Times. March 31, 2005. Does Seattle group "teach controversy" or contribute to it? However, there is no such controversy; the scientific consensus is that life evolved.National Association of Biology Teachers Statement on Teaching Evolution The intelligent design controversy centers on three issues: #Whether Intelligent design can be defined as science #Whether the evidence supports such theories #Whether the teaching of such theories is appropriate and legal in public education and Specified Complexity that cannot be explained by natural processes. Supporters also hold that religious neutrality requires the teaching of both evolution and intelligent design in schools, saying that teaching only evolution unfairly discriminates against those holding creationist beliefs. Teaching Both , intelligent design supporters argue, allows for the possibility of religious belief, without causing the state to actually promote such beliefs. Many intelligent design followers believe that " Scientism " is itself a religion that promotes Secularism and Materialism in an attempt to erase Theism from public life, and view their work in the promotion of intelligent design as a way to return religion to a central role in education and other public spheres. Some allege that this larger debate is often the subtext for arguments made over intelligent design, though others note that intelligent design serves as an effective proxy for the religious beliefs of prominent intelligent design proponents in their efforts to advance their religious point of view within society.Joel Belz, 1996. World Magazine. Witnesses For The Prosecution Phillip E. Johnson. American Family Radio. January 10, 2003 "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of Intelligent Design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." Let's Be Intelligent About Darwin Jon Buell & Virginia Hearn (eds), 1992. Proceedings of a Symposium entitled: Darwinism: Scientific Inference of Philosophical Preference? " According to critics, intelligent design has not presented a credible scientific case, and is an attempt to teach religion in public schools, which the "theory." There are innumerable mutually-incompatible supernatural explanations for complexity, and intelligent design does not provide a mechanism for discriminating among them. Furthermore, intelligent design is neither observable nor repeatable, which critics argue violates the scientific requirement of Falsifiability . Indeed, intelligent design proponent Michael Behe concedes "You can't prove intelligent design by experiment."Claudia Wallis. Time Magazine, August 15, 2005. page 32 Evolution Wars Even though evolution theory does not explain . From a strictly Empirical standpoint, one may list what is known about Egyptian construction techniques, but must admit ignorance about exactly how the Egyptians built the pyramids. Many religious people do not condone the teaching of what is considered unscientific or questionable material, and support Theistic Evolution which does not conflict with scientific theories. An example is Cardinal Schönborn who sees "purpose and design in the natural world" yet has "no difficulty... with the theory of evolution {Link without Title} the borders of scientific theory." Defining intelligent design as science The , which in the Philosophy Of Science is about how and where to draw the lines around science. For a theory to qualify as scientific it must be:
For any theory, hypothesis or conjecture to be considered scientific, it must meet most, but ideally all, of the above criteria. The fewer criteria that are met, the less scientific it is; and if it meets only a couple or none at all, then it cannot be treated as scientific in any meaningful sense of the word. Typical objections to defining intelligent design as science are that it lacks consistency,Intelligent design is generally only internally consistent and logical within the framework in which it operates. Criticisms are that this framework has at its foundation an unsupported, unjustified assumption: That complexity and improbability must entail design, but the identity and characteristics of the designer is not identified or quantified, nor need they be. The framework of Intelligent Design, because it rests on a unquantifiable and unverifiable assertion, has no defined boundaries except that complexity and improbability require design, and the designer need not be constrained by the laws of physics. violates the principle of parsimony,Intelligent design fails to pass Occam's razor. Adding entities (an intelligent agent, a designer) to the equation is not strictly necessary to explain events. is not falsifiable,The designer is not falsifiable, since its existence is typically asserted without sufficient conditions to allow a falsifying observation. The designer being beyond the realm of the observable, claims about its existence can neither be supported nor undermined by observation, hence making Intelligent Design and the argument from design analytic a posteriori arguments. is not empirically testable,That Intelligent Design is not empirically testable stems from the fact that Intelligent Design violates a basic premise of science, naturalism. and is not correctable, dynamic, tentative or progressive.Intelligent design professes to offer an answer that does not need to be defined or explained, the intelligent agent, designer. By asserting a conclusion that need not be accounted for, the designer, no further explanation is necessary to sustain it, and objections raised to those who accept it make little headway. Thus Intelligent Design is not a provisional assessment of data which can change when new information is discovered. Once it is claimed that a conclusion that need not be accounted for has been established, there is simply no possibility of future correction. The idea of the progressive growth of scientific ideas is required to explain previous data and any previously unexplainable data. In light of its apparent failure to adhere to scientific standards, in September 2005 38 Nobel Laureates issued a statement saying "intelligent design is fundamentally unscientific; it cannot be tested as scientific theory because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent."The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Nobel Laureates Initiative. Intelligent design cannot be tested as a scientific theory "because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent." Nobel Laureates Initiative And in October 2005 a coalition representing more than 70,000 Australian scientists and science teachers issued a statement saying "intelligent design is not science" and called on "all schools not to teach Intelligent Design (ID) as science, because it fails to qualify on every count as a scientific theory." Faculty of Science, University of New South Wales. 20 October, 2005. Intelligent Design is not Science - Scientists and teachers speak out Intelligent design critics also say that the intelligent design doctrine does not meet the criteria for Scientific Evidence used by most courts, the Daubert Standard . The Daubert Standard governs which evidence can be considered scientific in United States federal courts and most state courts. The four Daubert Criteria are:
In deciding '' "we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents." Peer review The failure to follow the procedures of scientific discourse, and the failure to submit work to the scientific community which withstands scrutiny, have weighed against intelligent design being considered valid science. To date, the intelligent design movement has yet to have an article published in a peer-reviewed Scientific Journal . Intelligent design, by appealing to a is based on Methodological Naturalism and so does not accept Supernatural explanations became a sticking point for intelligent design proponents in the 1990's, and is addressed in the Wedge Strategy as an aspect of science that must be challenged before intelligent design could be accepted by the broader scientific community. The debate over whether intelligent design produces new research, as any scientific field must, and has legitimately attempted to publish this research, is extremely heated. Both critics and advocates point to numerous examples to make their case. For instance, the that intelligent design features no scientific research or testing. The only article published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that made a case for intelligent design was quickly withdrawn by the publisher for having circumvented the journal's peer-review standards. Written by the Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture Director Stephen C. Meyer , it appeared in the peer-reviewed journal ''Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington'' in August 2004. The article was Literature Review , which means that it did not present any new research, but rather culled quotes and claims from other papers to argue that the Cambrian Explosion could not have happened by natural processes. The choice of venue for this article was also considered problematic, because it was so outside the normal subject matter. (see Sternberg Peer Review Controversy ) In the , intelligent design proponents referenced just one paper, on simulation modeling of evolution by Behe and Snoke, that mentioned neither irreducible complexity nor intelligent design and that Behe admitted did not rule out known evolutionary mechanisms. Dembski has written that "Perhaps the best reason be skeptical of his ideas is that intelligent design has yet to establish itself as a thriving scientific research program." Dembski. Is Intelligent Design a Form of Natural Theology? In a 2001 interview Dembski said that he stopped submitting to peer-reviewed journals because of their slow time-to-print and that he makes more money from publishing books.Beth McMurtrie. The Chronicle Of Higher Education. 2001. "[http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i17/17a00801.htm Darwinism Under Attack In sworn testimony at the Kitzmiller trial Behe stated that "there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred.". Intelligence as an observable quality The phrase ''intelligent'' design makes use of an assumption of the quality of an observable , a researcher with the SETI Institute , refutes Dembski's claim, saying that intelligent design advocates base their inference on complexity — the argument being that some biological systems are too complex to have been made by natural processes — while SETI researchers are looking primarily for artificiality.Shostak. space.com "In fact, the signals actually sought by today’s SETI searches are not complex, as the ID advocates assume. ... If SETI were to announce that we’re not alone because it had detected a signal, it would be on the basis of artificiality." SETI and Intelligent Design Critics say that the design detection methods proposed by intelligent design proponents are radically different from conventional design detection, undermining the key elements that make it possible as legitimate science. Intelligent design proponents, they say, are proposing both searching for a designer without knowing anything about that designer's abilities, parameters, or intentions (which scientists do know when searching for the results of human intelligence), as well as denying the very distinction between natural/artificial design that allows scientists to compare complex designed artifacts against the background of the sorts of complexity found in nature. As a means of criticism, certain of a Computer Program was determined by the capabilities given to it by the computer Programmer , artificial intelligence need not be bound to an inflexible system of rules. Rather, if a computer program can access Randomness as a function, this effectively allows for a flexible, creative, and adaptive intelligence. Evolutionary Algorithms , a subfield of machine learning (itself a subfield of artificial intelligence), have been used to mathematically demonstrate that randomness and selection can be used to "evolve" complex, highly adapted structures that are not explicitly designed by a programmer. Evolutionary algorithms use the Darwinian metaphor of random mutation, selection and the survival of the fittest to solve diverse mathematical and scientific problems that are usually not solvable using conventional methods. Furthermore, forays into such areas as Quantum Computing seem to indicate that real probabilistic functions may be available in the future. Intelligence derived from randomness is essentially indistinguishable from the "innate" intelligence associated with biological organisms, and poses a challenge to the intelligent design conception that intelligence itself necessarily requires a designer. Cognitive Science continues to investigate the nature of intelligence to that end, but the intelligent design community for the most part seems to be content to rely on the assumption that intelligence is readily apparent as a fundamental and basic property of complex systems. Arguments from ignorance 's demands for ever more detailed explanations of the historical evolution of molecular systems seem to assume a Dichotomy where either evolution or design is the proper explanation, and any perceived failure of evolution becomes a victory for design. In scientific terms, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" for naturalistic explanations of observed traits of living Organisms . Scott and Branch also contend that the supposedly novel contributions proposed by intelligent design proponents have not served as the basis for any productive scientific research. Intelligent design has also been characterized as a " God Of The Gaps " argument, which has the following form:
A God-of-the-Gaps argument is the Theological version of an Argument From Ignorance . The key feature of this type of argument is that it merely answers outstanding questions with explanations (often Supernatural ) that are unverifiable and ultimately themselves subject to unanswerable questions. Improbable versus impossible events In "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences", John Allen Paulos states that the apparent Improbability of a given scenario cannot necessarily be taken as an indication that this scenario is therefore more unlikely than any other potential one: "Rarity by itself shouldn't necessarily be evidence of anything. When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been {Link without Title} dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable." This argument can be seen as a rebuttal to advocates of intelligent design who claim that only a sentient creator could have arranged the universe in such a way as to be conducive to life (see for example Specified Complexity Arguments or Fine-tuning Arguments ). In this context, the probability of life "evolving" rather than having been "created" may appear unlikely at first sight, but the evidence that this is the case could be argued to be so widespread, deep, and heavily scrutinized that it would be illogical to conclude that any other (and arguably less scientifically compelling) hypothesis should take its place as the primary theory. SEE ALSO
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