Where Do They Get It Right? :: Intelligent Design

Welcome to part two of an infinite part series of entries on Evolution, Intelligent Design, Neo-Darwinism, Academic Freedom, Creationism, and Teaching The Strengths and Weaknesses of Scientific Theories.

As before, I will try my best to point out where a group actually has some validity and give them credit.  I want to be as balanced as I can in this series, but I realize that I have my biases.  Therefore I need YOU to point out where I'm wrong.  Let's work together on this, Team.

Today's Topic: Intelligent Design!

Intelligent Design (ID) is the belief that we can scientifically detect intelligence in nature.  

ID proponents often make analogies to illustrate their point.  Mount Rushmore is an example of an analogy that is commonly used.  

The claim is that if you look at Mount Rushmore, you know that there is a lot more going on than just a mountain.  Even if you were an alien from outer space that landed on this planet, you could tell that it was not something that just happened naturally.

Another major claim that ID proponents push is Irreducible Complexity (IC).  IC is more scientific and breaks the anatomy of life down to the cellular level.  According to IC there is a limit to what is capable of evolving.  Highly coordinated biological systems like the endocrine system are too complex to have evolved through natural selection, non-random mating, gene flow, genetic drift, and mutation.

ID proponents claim that life requires a designer to have evolved.  They use the previously mentioned analogies and IC, in addition criticizing the current science of evolution, the big bang theory, chemical evolution, biogenesis, and geology to make their point.  ID proponents believe that life at the molecular level is too complex to have arisen through natural causes.

Most of my information on ID will come from The Discovery Institute's web site and podcast.  The Discovery Institute is an organization devoted to developing and promoting ID as a scientific theory.  Unlike other web sites or movies like Expelled, The Discovery Institute often uses real and current science to try to prove their point, making their arguments more valid and credible.

Intelligent Design:  Where Do They Get It Right?

Despite what skeptics and atheists say, Intelligent Design is not creationism.  It attempts to be a legitimate scientific theory, and is more broad than creationism.  Intelligent Design proponents can be members of any religion including agnostic and atheist, whereas creationists are primarily Jewish, Muslim, and Christian.

ID only attempts to find intelligence in the design of nature.  The interpretation is then up to the student to decipher for themselves.  For theists, the original designer may be their god.  For non-theists, the designer could be extra terrestrial.  Since ID can have natural explanations, it's difficult to argue that ID = religion. 

The Discovery Institute does not endorse the teaching of ID in the classroom.  According to the Casey Luskin of the ID The Future podcast, the Discovery Institute advised the Dover school board against teaching ID in the classroom during the famous Kitzmiller v. Dover trial in 2005.  The Discovery Institute's stance is that ID needs to be developed as a strong theory first.  Once enough sufficient evidence has been gathered, the theory will be too strong to be rejected by school boards.

There are also some misconceptions about the Dover trial that atheists and skeptics frequently get wrong.  The book titled Of Pandas And People is a biology text book that teaches ID.

During the trial, it was shown that previous copies 

of this text book contained the words "Creator" 

and "Creation." Later drafts had those words 

replaced with "Designer" and "Design." The 

interpretation was that the book was a creationist 

text that had been converted to an Intelligent 

Design text, and therefore 

Intelligent Design = Creationism, and teaching 

Creationism is unconstitutional. However, if we 

look at the content of the book, there is no 

mention of Adam and Eve, religion, talking snakes, 

Towers of Babel, or anything else remotely biblical 

in the original texts. The word "creator" is not 

necessarily synonymous with God, but this was 

how it is interpreted by anti-ID groups.

Intelligent Design:  Where Do They Get It Wrong?

Irreducible Complexity (IC) is the most compelling argument that ID proponents have.  The biochemistry of the human body is amazingly coordinated.  It's easy to see how someone can conclude that certain biological systems and processes are too complex to have originated from natural selection, non-random mating, gene flow, genetic drift, and mutation.  There is a famous animation made by Harvard University that shows the processes that happen on the inside of a cell.  This video actually appears in the movie Expelled and is used as an illustration of how complex our body really is.

I can't begin to explain how all of this activity evolved 

from single celled organisms that existed 3 billion 

years ago.

We have some idea, but we may never fully understand.

The problem is that IC takes the lack of knowledge of 

an organism's history and concludes that it had to 

have been intelligently designed. There are two 

logical fallacies here (among others): an argument 

from igorance, and a false dichotomy. The argument 

from ignorance is when we try to draw a conclusion 

from a lack of information. In this instance, we don't 

know everything about the evolution of a cell.  

However, the lack of information about our current 

understanding does not equal positive evidence for 

design. A false dichotomy is the assumption that there 

are only two choices. In this case those choices are 

Evolution or ID.

Why can't we have a third or forth choice? Let's get 

creative! Depending on your opinion, the features of 

an organism depicted in the above video could have 

been produced by natural selection, non-random 

mating, gene flow, genetic drift, and mutation.  If you 

disagree, ID doesn't have to be the alternative.  What 

if there is some other natural mechanism that hasn't 

been discovered yet?  Let's pull out out microscopes 

and get thinking rather than drawing something from 

nothing.

Another problem with ID is the constant use of 

analogies to prove the existence of intelligence.  

Let's examine these two situations:

> Humans and aliens can detect that there was 

intelligence behind the creation of Mount Rushmore.  

> Archaeologists find cave drawings and can determine 

that they were made by beings with intelligence. 

These are both examples of identifying human-like intelligence.  Humans can identify natural processes like wind and water erosion, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc.  It's rare that someone will go outside after a hail storm to find damage to their car and scream, "Which one of you fucking kids dumped 250 golf balls on my car from the top of my roof and then cleaned up the balls, leaving no evidence behind?"

When we look up at Mount Rushmore, we see the remarkable shape of human faces in the rock.  We recognize that it would be highly unlikely that the wind and rain would have eroded the mountains in such a miraculous way.  This would not be enough for us to make our conclusion that it was intelligently designed.

We would have to ask ourselves, "How else could this have been done?"  In the case of Mount Rushmore, little investigation is needed.  There is a tourist info center nearby that will explain the entire process to you.  We know what human beings are capable of, and we know that humans using sculpting techniques on a large mountain is a more likely explanation than a tornado (or some other natural cause) eroding a mountain into the detailed shape of our forefathers.

In the case of the cave drawings, we need to investigate a bit more.  What was used to make these paintings?  Who could have lived in this cave?  How old are these paintings?  Is there any evidence of ancient inhabitants?  Is it possible that wind could have blown these materials onto the wall in this manner?  Could a paint-like substance have dripped onto the wall this way?

These are all questions that we can investigate and associate with human-like intelligence.

We can't ask these same questions with Intelligent Design.  

"How could a cell have been produced in this complex manner?"

"Who did it?"

"What was the process?"

Intelligent Design admittedly refuses to answer these questions.  According to the Discovery Institute, ID does not study the designer or the processes by which nature has been designed.  Their web site reads, "The scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design."

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How does the Discovery Institute think that they are going to develop a theory without studying the cause or the process?  

Even if you are a non-theist that believes that aliens somehow planted life here, you'd have to come up with proof of an alien visitation or a mechanism by which aliens were able to synthesize life, and then send it to earth.  

Unless some profoundly compelling evidence arises, I can't see how ID would ever become a solid theory that would be acceptable for teaching in a classroom.

Conclusion:  Intelligent Design Is Not Solid Science And Needs More Evidence

Unfortunately for Intelligent Design, they're building a theory on a pick and choose foundation.  Every theory in science will ask who, what, when, where, and how, but Intelligent Design chooses not to ask the "who" and "how."  Instead, they make poor analogies, attack current science, and in some cases (groups outside of The Discovery Institute) drudge up creationist arguments that have been disproved for decades.

It reflects poorly on the theory to team up with those who are not up to date on the science and the arguments for or against that science.  The Discovery Institute and other groups tend to team up with anyone who will agree with their cause.  I tend to be more sympathetic to people like Michael Behe and Casey Luskin who use current science to gain credibility rather than scare tactics.  Yet The Discovery Institute fully supports and advertises when a movie like Expelled comes out, which has more scary images from the holocaust than actual science.

If The Discovery Institute spent less time supporting propaganda, and more time on science, they might be able to get people to listen to them. 

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