NationStates Jolt Archive


From "BeliefNet:" FAQ ... What Is Intelligent Design?

Eutrusca
10-05-2005, 23:03
NOTE: This is a rather interesting FAQ on Intelligent Design and seems to be fairly factual. Since this is a frequent topic of discussion on here, I thought it might be instructive for some.


FAQs: What Is Intelligent Design? (http://www.beliefnet.com/story/166/story_16641_1.html?rnd=42)

Kansas is weighing whether public schools should teach intelligent design alongside Darwin's theories. What is ID all about?

What is intelligent design (ID)?

Intelligent design is the theory that living things show signs of having been designed. ID supporters argue that living creatures and their biological systems are too complex to be accounted for by the Darwinian theory of evolution, and that a designer or a higher intelligence may be responsible for their complexity.

What do ID proponents believe about evolution?

Many ID proponents do not quarrel with most of Darwin's original claims about evolution. They do, however, believe that random genetic mutation and natural selection cannot account for certain biological phenomena, such as the human eye or the body's blood clotting mechanism. ID supporters argue that for these systems to arise via a gradual series of mutations is statistically impossible, which implies that a designer may have guided the process.

Is creationism the same thing as intelligent design?

No, although many critics of Intelligent Design conflate the two.

Creationism usually refers to the theory or belief that God created the universe and human beings in six days as recorded in the Bible's first book, Genesis.

In the United States today, some creationists--called Young Earth Creationists--accept the Genesis account literally and believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old, basing their calculations on the genealogies in the Hebrew scriptures. Young Earth creationists believe God created humans directly; humans did not evolve from other species.

Others, seeking to reconcile the Bible with modern science, believe that each Genesis day may have represented several billion years. (Gerald Schroeder, a physicist and Orthodox Jewish scholar, has calculated what the time spans may be.)

Intelligent design does not posit that the universe was created in six days; it does not contradict the commonly-held scientific view that the universe has been in existence for about 15 billion years. ID also does not challenge the idea that humans developed over time as a result of evolution.

However, critics of intelligent design have called it "creationism in a lab coat," saying that to point to an intelligent designer as the cause of certain biological systems is to abandon scientific inquiry. They argue that, over the decades, science has frequently closed "gaps" and explained previously inexplicable phenomena.

What are the origins of intelligent design theory?

The argument from design, as it has been known for hundreds of years, was expounded most famously by William Paley, a 19th century British theologian. Using the analogy of the watchmaker, Paley argued that just as we infer a watchmaker from the complex workings of a pocket watch, we must infer a creator of the universe from the complex systems of the natural order.

Today's advocates of intelligent design maintain that while Paley's perspective was rooted in the idea of a benevolent Christian God, theirs is the outgrowth of scientific discovery, which has left some profound and fundamental phenomena, such as cell structure, unexplained. But the overwhelming majority of intelligent design advocates are Christians, and virtually all are theists.

Some critics equate intelligent design theory with the so-called "God of the gaps" fallacy—resorting to a divine intelligence to explain the existence of natural phenomena for which we have no scientific explanation. But proponents of intelligent design respond by arguing that their perspective is based upon the latest scientific inquiry into the complexity of the natural order and recognition that evolutionary and other more recent scientific theory is inadequate to explain many biological and physical phenomena.

What do scientists say about intelligent design?

Many of the most vocal supporters of intelligent design have scientific backgrounds and credentials. Prominent among them is Michael J. Behe, a professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University. Behe stresses that he regards ID as a "minimalist position. It only requires that there be physical evidence of an intelligence behind creation of complex natural systems. Who did the creating, or why, comprise a separate set of questions."

Among proponents of intelligent design, there are distinctions between those who support the "old Earth position" as Behe does—he believes that the universe is 13 billion years old—and proponents of the "young Earth" position. They all share a set of assumptions about the "irreducible complexity" of some natural phenomena, if not the process of the design or the characteristics of the designer.

What is the controversy in Kansas about?

In a setting that some have compared to the famous Scopes “Monkey Trial,” the Kansas State Board of Education subcommittee in May 2005, has begun hearings on proposed changes to science testing standards for Kansas public school students. The changes would add intelligent design as an alternative explanation to the current teaching that life evolved through natural selection. The hearings are preliminary to a full board meeting in June.

The three board members presiding over the hearings are all conservative Republicans who agree with critics of evolution. Experts on both sides of the controversy are testifying, but some state and national science groups are boycotting the hearings on the grounds that the outcome is preordained and that the hearings are meant to showcase intelligent design.

In 1999, the Kansas school board voted to remove references to evolution from statewide science standards. But the references were restored later after anti-evolutionist board members were unseated. In the current case, a majority again favors adding intelligent design, which makes adoption of new standards likely.
Free Soviets
10-05-2005, 23:32
NOTE: This is a rather interesting FAQ on Intelligent Design and seems to be fairly factual. Since this is a frequent topic of discussion on here, I thought it might be instructive for some.


FAQs: What Is Intelligent Design? (http://www.beliefnet.com/story/166/story_16641_1.html?rnd=42)

...

But proponents of intelligent design respond by arguing that their perspective is based upon the latest scientific inquiry into the complexity of the natural order and recognition that evolutionary and other more recent scientific theory is inadequate to explain many biological and physical phenomena.

which is, of course, utter crap. most of the gaps behe points to were filled in before he even wrote "darwin's black box". id is nowhere near up to date with the current science, and the more they try to catch up, the more of their argument they have to surrender as being stupid.

which is why behe and friends stick to writing books instead of peer-reviewed journal articles, and doing presentations at young-earther churches instead of scientific conferences, and bringing the fight to the court of public opinion instead of in the scientific community.
New Genoa
10-05-2005, 23:38
If they teach intelligent design, they might as well teach retarded design too. Ya gotta be fair!

Or... you could go to church for that stuff and go to school for science. Seems logical. And creationism is not an alternative scientific theory. Neither is ID. They're religious concepts, and thus not science. I don't see why so many people have trouble with this. I mean, what the hell would you teach?

*lengthy discussion on evolution*

five minutes left in class...

"Oh yeah, and some people think that god created the universe. Some think he did it exactly like in the bible and some think he did it, but scientifically. Yeah. Study for both tests on tuesday..."
Phylum Chordata
11-05-2005, 06:30
Yes, my body is very intelligently designed. That's why my earwax tastes so good.
Lochiel
11-05-2005, 06:32
My school teaches more creationism than evolution. My teachers think it's bogus, so...they teach more on the faults of evolution.

I think schools should have every aspect taught. That way, it's fair.
Phylum Chordata
11-05-2005, 06:57
I'm very cross with the Intelligent Design crowd. Now as everyone knows, Australians traditionally believe that the world was created by a giant snake called the Rainbow Serpent. Now I'm not trying to put the Rainbow Serpent down here, but how many snakes have you met that could be described as intelligent? I demand that they amend their theory to include this and rename it Intelligent/Unintelligent Design.
Old Dobbs Town
11-05-2005, 07:02
My school teaches more creationism than evolution. My teachers think it's bogus, so...they teach more on the faults of evolution.

I think schools should have every aspect taught. That way, it's fair.

Fair to who?

And whose brand of creationism are they shilling at your school, anyway? If it's to be fair, shouldn't you be getting info on all creation myths?

I guess what bugs me is that some people want myth (and only one group's myth) taught alongside scientific method. That is just incredibly dense.
Domici
11-05-2005, 07:21
Fair to who?

And whose brand of creationism are they shilling at your school, anyway? If it's to be fair, shouldn't you be getting info on all creation myths?

I guess what bugs me is that some people want myth (and only one group's myth) taught alongside scientific method. That is just incredibly dense.

Yes, we all know that the world was actually created out of Mimnir's corpse. What phenomena could account for the mountains of the world if not a giant being carving them out of the bones of an even larger giant? The geological evidence behind tectonic plate theory is fundamentally flawed. Rocks don't bend and fold the way they would have to to account for the rounded mountains of the appalachians, nor do they break so cleanly as would account for the Matterhorn. Rocks shatter. If tectonic plate thory held then all mountains would just be piles of granite dust.

And there is evidence of their design everywhere. Didn't you ever notice how every morning the sun comes up and every night it goes down so that we can tell one from the other? Such a perfect time-keeping mechanism could not have developed randomly, it was clearly designed to tell us what time to get up in the morning.

This evidence of design is clear evidence of a creator, but it can't be Jehovah because he already ceded dominion over the sun to Baal who, in his aspect as lord of the flies, would warm the pools of water allowing the mosquitoes in them to spread disease.
Lacadaemon
11-05-2005, 07:37
Yes, my body is very intelligently designed. That's why my earwax tastes so good.

You win the thread.
Reformentia
11-05-2005, 07:42
NOTE: This is a rather interesting FAQ on Intelligent Design and seems to be fairly factual. Since this is a frequent topic of discussion on here, I thought it might be instructive for some.

I could have saved them room.

Intelligent Design: An argument based on ignorance masquerading as a scientific hypothesis. "If I don't know how it could have evolved right this minute, something must have designed it!"

There. Intelligent Design in all it's glory.
New Fuglies
11-05-2005, 07:48
I wonder if it will ever become a post-scondary degree program... :D
Free Soviets
11-05-2005, 08:40
I could have saved them room.

Intelligent Design: An argument based on ignorance masquerading as a scientific hypothesis. "If I don't know how it could have evolved right this minute, something must have designed it!"

There. Intelligent Design in all it's glory.

with the corollary that the discovery of an evolutionary pathway for any or all proposed examples of design shall not be taken to count against id, nor even against those things being examples of design.