Talk:Intelligent Design

Here, put alternative passages for all to consider. Then post cleaned up whole versions to Intelligent Design. Anyone want to try this with me? --Ed Poor P.S. Those who object to frequent multiple edits to Intelligent Design can ignore this page.

---

Intelligent design (ID) is a theory of evolution which asserts that God guided the process of evolution. The basis of ID is the observation that some differences between species are too complex to have come about without having been designed (irreducible complexity).

ID's acceptance of the fossil record distinguishes it from Sudden Creationism[?] and represents one point of agreement with Darwinian evolution.

Although ID accepts the fossil record, thus agreeing that evolution did occur, it disagrees with the view that Natural Selection causes new species to come into being. It is only after a new species has come into being that it is subject to the weeding out process of Natural Selection, maintains ID, not before. This is the chief difference between ID and Darwinian evolution, and apparently an irreconcilable one.

Unlike Darwinian evolution, which says new species arise due to various random forces such as DNA transcription errors, chemicals, or radiation, ID propenents argue that new species arise only (or chiefly) by an intelligent force.

Natural Selection is sometimes defined as being both (a) the cause whereby new species arise and (b) the weeding out process whereby only successful variations propagate; or only (b). ID rejects (a) and accepts (b).

Critique of Intelligent Design

The scientific view of evolution is based on two premises. Variations occur in the genetic makeup of organisms, and through the process of Natural selection, the most fit of those variations survive while the others die out.

Intelligent Design accepts much of the scientific theory, but differs in the role of God in causing the variations.

It accepts that fact that there has been evolution, i.e., species have changed and diverged over time from earlier forms of life to the forms which exist today. It does not necessarily accept that there is speciation, the creation of more than one species out of a single species. It accepts the fossil record as an accurate representation of the history of the evolution of species, and accepts that analysis of the fossil record gives accurate and useful results. It accepts that there is a process of natural selection that acts on species after their creation, but disagrees with the scientific view that natural selection causes the species to come into being in the first flace. Only after the variation has been caused due to deliberate acts of God is the survival or extinction of a newly arisen species is believed to then be subject to the weeding out process.

Where it departs from the commonly accepted biological view is in the belief that the variations which are subsequently acted upon by Natural Selection are not random, but guided by the hand of God. In the scientific view, these variations are random and usually small. In the Intelligent Design viewpoint, these small, random variations exist but are not the explanation for speciation. Instead, speciation occurs when God steps in and causes the variation to occur.

Unlike Darwinian evolution, which says new species arise due to various random forces such as DNA transcription errors, chemicals, or radiation, ID propenents argue that new species arise only (or chiefly) by an intelligent force.

They point to complex biological structures such as the eye, saying that such structures could not have possibly have developed due purely to random chance. Symbiotic relationships, such as plants who can only be pollinated by a specific species of insect, which in turn can only reproduce by using the plant, could not have arisen -- a typical chicken-and-egg problem.

Adherents of ID consider their idea that God causes speciation a viable scientific hypothesis. Scientists generally consider it unscientific, because it is not falsifiable and so merely a philosophical or religious idea outside the realm of science.

These ideas distinguish ID from Sudden Creationism[?], which denies completely the existence of evolution.

Talk

Responses of the scientific community to ID

The main response of scientists to intelligent design has been to argue that it is a superfluous assumption, on the grounds that Darwinian evolution already explains the problems it was supposed to address. So, for instance, in response to the claim that an eye is too complicated to have developed on its own, one might present a series of evolutionarily intermediate forms leading up to the eye, each of which is close enough to its predecessor that the transition through random chance does not seem unlikely. The entire sequence, of course, remains improbable, but the argument is that some form must have developed, and whatever it is would be equally unlikely - just as someone must win a lottery, as unlikely as it is that any given person will win.

Once it is argued that intelligent design is unnecessary, it is usually dismissed. Strictly speaking, the argument is not falsifiable, since it makes no testable predictions, but any number of such explanations can always be invoked and it is generally argued they may be dismissed by parsimony (Occam's Razor).

It is also a common, and dishonest, rhetorical tactic of creationists to call Darwinian evolution a "random" process. Mutation can be random, but not all variation is, and selection is the exact 180-degree opposite of random. How many of your ancestors were infertile? Died before puberty? None. Zero. That's not random, that's 100% predictable.

Thanks, that's exactly the kind of feedback this draft page needs. I want to be sure that if use the word 'random' I use it in the right place. I understand that variation is random but selection is orderly. Can you help create an Intelligent Design page that expresses ID's views and contrasts ID with Darwinist evolution? As an extra bonus, write a Darwinist critique of ID, too. --Ed Poor

For the record, I said the transitions could arise through random chance, and they have to. It's whether or not you keep the end result that's not random. Structures can't evolve unless the opportunity is given.

---

Based on what has been expressed in this article, ID does make assertions which it shares with "sudden creationism"--and I wonder if these are falsifiable. The whole "eye" example is an example of this. Apparently ID is claiming that certain complex features of species cannot emerge from of the accumulation of incremental small changes. I think that Stephen Jay Gould addresses this question in one of his books, but maybe my recollection is wrong on that. So ID is not simply asserting that God is the source of the array of mutations or incremental changes that occur over time; rather, it is asserting that specific kinds of gross characteristics cannot possibly occur as the result the accumulation of incremental changes. this is not simply an example of Occam's razor at work here, because it is asserting that "intermediate" changes of certain kinds cannot exist. This is definitely different than just saying that all those incremental changes were directed by God, which obviously is not falsifiable because that would is positing an unverifiable cause to what appear to us to be random changes. Instead, it claims that these "intermediate" changes never occured, and that God just instantly created major changes, such as by directly creating an eye. As I've said elsewhere, this is similar to the sorts of accusations against evolution that sudden creationists use, and in my opinion it is just as bogus and unscientific. That being said, the question is, are such claims falsifiable? I would think that they might be, but I'm not a scientist, so what do I know. --Egern

See also : Intelligent Design