Intelligent Design
Posted By Paul on February 10, 2005
There has been a great deal of press and notoriety about Intelligent Design lately. It would seem that certain sectors of the scientific community would have it dismissed as nothing more than irrational babblings of mindless religious fanatics. Others would claim that it is a very reasonable counter-balance to the illogical and irrational rantings of Darwinism.
Quite surprisingly, the New York Times ran an op-ed piece by Michael Behe, author of DARWINS BLACK BOX: THE BIOCHEMICAL CHALLENGE TO EVOLUTION, this past Monday. In it, Behe outlined what intelligent design theory really is.
Since I haven’t quite understood it myself, I thought it would do me good to summarize it here. Hopefully it will help me get a grip on it, and maybe you’ll be able to help me talk about it.
1. Intelligent design is NOT a religiously based idea. Nothing in the theory says anything at all about religion.
2. Intelligent design theory is based upon physical evidence and logic. The argument for it consists of 4 linked claims:
a. we can often recognize the effects of design in nature. (Mt. Rushmore)
b. physical marks of design are visible in aspects of biology. (DNA)
c. no good explanation for foundation of life that doesn’t include intelligence (cell complexity)
d. in the absence of any convincing non-design explanation, justifies intelligent design
To evaluate this claim, it is important to keep in mind that it is the profound appearance of design in life that everyone is laboring to explain, not the appearance of natural selection or the appearance of self-organization.
The strong appearance of design allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it’s a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it’s so obvious.
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I think this is a big deal because evolution appears to contradict the cosmological argument for the existence of God. Read more of my thoughts here.
thought you might like this http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html
comments didnt’ seem to work.. but what i was hoping to link to was this http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html
Being a Christian I sometimes hate to do this, but pure naturalists will point out that every one of these principles relies on what’s known as the “God of the gaps” fallacy.