Why Intelligent Design Isn't a Scientific Theory

[Jacurutu]

Intelligent design is not a scientific theory for several reasons.

1) Any scientific theory must falsifiable. This means that it has to be something that can be tested and proven wrong if it is indeed wrong. There is no means of doing this with the "theory" of intelligent design.
2) Any scientific theory must be parsimonious, in the sense that it must be the simplest and most realistic explanation. Now, I know that many people might say that it doesn't get more simple than saying "God created everything." However, based on scientific observation, does it seem more probable that the universe and all living things were spontaneously generated at once or that modern life is the result of the processes of natural selection and random mutation over the last three billion years? We can rule out the first simply by the chemical law that mass and energy are neither created nor destroyed (although they may be interchanged). The second possibility is supported by mounds of empirical evidence.
3) Any scientific theory should allow you to make predictions. With evolution, you can do this; with intelligent design, you cannot.
4) Any evidence must be reproduceable. There are countless experiments testing the tenets of evolutionary theory; for example, you could test random mutation by inducing mutation in yeast with UV radiation (the same radiation that comes from our sun) and observing the phenotypic variation after plating these samples and allowing colonies to grow. Likewise, you can induce mutation in more advanced animals and observing the phenotypic effects of those mutations. The results of these tests will be consistent over time. The other bases of evolution are quite testable and reproducable as well.

Anyway, I've seen plenty of people claim that evolution and intelligent design are equally viable scientific theories, but intelligent design does not meet the qualifications to be considered a scientific theory.

My question is: how do people still want to call ID a scientific theory and teach it alongside evolution when one is faith and the other is a true scientific theory?

[micatala]

ID does not explain how life began. It just says straight out that God did it by magic and that it took six days.

?? Surely this is not what ID proponents say? It might be what some of them believe, but it is certainly not what they write.

I would agree that what they write might cynically be intended as a smokescreen to promote young earth creationism, but I think it is more likely simply an attempt to drag down the credibility of evolution in the public mind by whatever means necessary, and to carve out a direct, interventionist, role for God in the creation of life and in particular humans. It does not have to be YEC.

[McCulloch]

?? Surely this is not what ID proponents say? It might be what some of them believe, but it is certainly not what they write.

I would agree that what they write might cynically be intended as a smokescreen to promote young earth creationism, but I think it is more likely simply an attempt to drag down the credibility of evolution in the public mind by whatever means necessary, and to carve out a direct, interventionist, role for God in the creation of life and in particular humans. It does not have to be YEC.

Sure, find me an example of an active proponent of ID who is not YEC.

[Goat]

ID does not explain how life began. It just says straight out that God did it by magic and that it took six days.

?? Surely this is not what ID proponents say? It might be what some of them believe, but it is certainly not what they write.

I would agree that what they write might cynically be intended as a smokescreen to promote young earth creationism, but I think it is more likely simply an attempt to drag down the credibility of evolution in the public mind by whatever means necessary, and to carve out a direct, interventionist, role for God in the creation of life and in particular humans. It does not have to be YEC.

It is probably overstating the case, but not by much. The efforts of the discovery institute, rather than on trying to find a way to test and falsify the concept, have more been interested in trying to push it to be being taught in the classroom.

[ManBearPig]

Currently ID doesn't postulate anything.

Right, the problem with ID is that it's completely vacuous! I mean, a theory has to describe something. Whether you think they're right or not, evolutionists can describe how they think the eye was formed.

If IDers want to have a theory, they need to do the same. But so far they have no "how", and I don't think they care. "God made it happen" doesn't count. It would be like proposing "God makes things fall to the earth" as a theory of gravity (I stole that from The Onion I think ).

[Confused]

ID tries to explain how life began on earth and with Gods influence let to what we have today.

ID does not explain how life began. It just says straight out that God did it by magic and that it took six days.

Evolution theory doesn't postulate how we got here, only how we have evolved and survived.

Evolution explains most of the path of how we got here. It is just missing a few bits. Most troubling is the first bit about how living things came from non-living. Science has the honesty of saying, we really don't know, rather than falling back on the God of the gaps.

You are killing me

[Ronin]

Did I miss something or did they prove evolution is an absolute fact?
Last book I read it said "the theory of evolution" meaning a guess, a mental hypothesis. All theorys are scientific, if they are made by scientist. Just because you don't agree with it doesen't change their legitimacy. The fact that ID is at all possible,should be reason enough to doubt evolution is not at all logical.

[Goat]

Did I miss something or did they prove evolution is an absolute fact?
Last book I read it said "the theory of evolution" meaning a guess, a mental hypothesis. All theorys are scientific, if they are made by scientist. Just because you don't agree with it doesen't change their legitimacy. The fact that ID is at all possible,should be reason enough to doubt evolution is not at all logical.

Both yes and no.

FIrst of all, you are using the layman term for the word 'Theory', not the definition for a scientific theory. This is the logical fallacy known as equivocation. Not all theories are 'scientific'. There is a field that is known as 'psuedoscience', in which people take claims and dress it up in scientific terms, but do not meet scientific standards. That is what ID is.

Evolution is both a fact and a theory (just like gravity). The fact is that
evolution has been observed. The theory are models on how that occured.

[McCulloch]

Did I miss something or did they prove evolution is an absolute fact?
Last book I read it said "the theory of evolution" meaning a guess, a mental hypothesis. All theorys are scientific, if they are made by scientist. Just because you don't agree with it doesn't change their legitimacy. The fact that ID is at all possible,should be reason enough to doubt evolution is not at all logical.

I guess this bears repeating:

This thread is explicitly using the scientific definition of the word theory (1 below) rather than the informal common one (6).

the·o·ry n. pl. the·o·ries
1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
[...]
6. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.

Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theory (accessed: October 31, 2006).

[QED]

Did I miss something or did they prove evolution is an absolute fact?

Have no fear, proofs of "absolute fact" are extremely hard to come by and are virtually unheard of in honest scientific literature.

Last book I read it said "the theory of evolution" meaning a guess, a mental hypothesis.

What wonderful fun we can have with words A "guess" might range from something as hopeless as choosing a winning lottery number to deciding that a pen will land on its side when dropped on the floor. How would you go about justifying the ranking you would give to Evolutionary Theory?

All theorys are scientific, if they are made by scientist.

That's interesting. I'm a retired Scientist so I'm a bit confused by your statement: does it mean that my theories are no longer scientific? What about the one I was working on when I hung-up my lab-coat for the last time? If I complete it now in my spare time will it no longer be a scientific theory? That would be a shame because I was quite close to completing a theory that the Moon is made of Marshmallow.

Just because you don't agree with it doesen't change their legitimacy.

Except if the "science" on offer is untestable. In this case it ceases to be "science" and shades into "revelation"-- irrespective of the credentials of its purveyors.

The fact that ID is at all possible,should be reason enough to doubt evolution is not at all logical.

Despite your unsubstantiated claim that evolution "is not at all logical" it turns out to be so logical that it can actually be put to good use. Perhaps you might be able to find a moment to read what NASA have to say about this.

We will see how the computer simulates biological evolution and the laws of natural selection in the following activity.

It's fun; you can even try it for yourself if you follow the instructions

[Ronin]

Please explain to me what is logical about this...
you have matter(don't know where it came from)it mingles with other matter,it blows up,(biggest explosion of time and space) and then primordial soup happens.,we crawl out of the ocean...What are the chances
How do you get such order and form out of absolute chaos?
What is so logical about how the earth began? I wonder what a mathmatition
would say. What is more probable a big bang or an Itelligent designer.
I wonder what the numbers would say?