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?

[Goat]

Thanks for the Welcome. You got me working for it already!

While ID is not a predominately Christian position, it is not science. The ones that try to promote it do admit they think the 'intelligent designer' is God. That is why, rather than trying to come up with a way to test for their claim, they resort to the political arena to try to get it taught in schools. Until such time as there is positive evidence for it, and it can be tested, it is not science.

I’m aware of the controversies in the US. It’s a bit different here in The Netherlands. I have no interest in the political side of these matters. All I can offer is an opinion.

And, what is the principle for falsification? The only think that 'ID' proponents have done is use quote mining, and pointing to puzzles in evolution that were being currently worked on. The initial problems that were proposed by Behe as 'evidence' of ID have been solved without needing an 'intelligent designer'. When will ID come up with evidence on it's own, rather than an attack on evolution? Even if evolution goes out the window, that does not demonstrate 'intelligent design'.

First of all the evolution theory could use a little critical scepticism here and there. That leads to better science, so there’s merit in that. You call it an attack, fair enough, but this particular battle between “science and religion” has raged to-and-fro since George Lyell published his book on geology. ID just hit quite a bit closer to home.

Yes, the evolutionary theory could use scepticism. However, an attack on evolution does not give support to I.D. For I.D. to have support, it has to be more than trying to find the weaknesses in the current evolution theory. It has to have a mechanism , it has to have explanatory powers, it has to be falsifiable and testable. So far, I.D. can not do any of those.

The proponents of I.D. are all religious Christians or Muslims, who believe that the 'Intelligent Designer' is God. It has no predictive powers, it is untestable, and it is not falsifiable. Therefore, as it stands now, it is religion, not science.

If evolution goes out the window, the question is what will replace it? It is widely agreed that, apart from specific details, either naturalism is true, or creationism is true. The only other views I’m aware of are of the “everything is an illusion” sort. So discounting the latter, if one is disproved, the other must be true.

I don't know what will replace it. However, it will have to be something that explains the evidence we DO have better then evolution does now.
I.D. does not do that.

The ID proponent fails to come up with a mechanism, and have admitted in courts (see the Dover case in Penn), that they 'think god did it'. You are also misrepresenting the naturalist position. The different between your strawman of the naturalistic position is that included in there is the 'filter' of Natural selection, which eliminates the 'chance' to a large degree.

Yes, I too believe God did it. My point was that this claim is often interpreted as a “here’s where the magic happens” explanation, quoting Arthur C. Clarke’s “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. It’s not scientific laziness to infer God as cause. Perhaps in the past it was but certainly not today. You make us work for it.

If/when the I.D. proponents come up with the criteria needed for it to be a scientific theory, then it will be considered a scientific theory. IF/then/maybe and pure speculation does not count. Evolutionary theory has been tested, and they have been trying to falsify it for 150 years. It would be something pretty major and spectacular to falsify it at this point.

It has been repeatedly tested. It has made predictions about what will happen, what will be found, and those predictions have been verified.

And there is where the contention is. I would ask what, which and how, but I fear that would bring us off-topic.

Yes, there are some fundamental assumptions that , if proven false, would also falsify evolution. That has not happened. However, it has been shown in a testable, repeatable experiment that 'irreducibly complex' systems can evolve naturally.

Since it can be shown that IC systems can evolve naturally, I guess it weakens the scientific argument against it. Example are the repeatable experiment to develop a lactose digesting system in bacteria, after the gene was deleted. Another example is the evolution of the inner ear, for which we have fossil evidence on how that occurred. The IC argument fails to take into account the use of preexisting structures being modified for a new purpose, and for the concept of scaffolding, where the 'supporting structure' is later deleted.

Interesting. I will research the examples you gave and come back to them later. Does this apply to the bacterial flagellum? I was told that pre-existing, functional structures could not account for it. There are too many “parts” involved in-between.
[/quote]

The way that the bacterial flagellum could very well have evolved had a number of publications on it. I don't want to cut/paste lots of items here,
but Talk origins has a page on Bacteria Flagellum and Irreducibly complex just because it is an error that keeps on being brought up.

[McCulloch]

McCulloch, my apologies, the word I should have used is ‘exclusively’.

One benefit of debate is that it teaches you to choose your words carefully. Your welcome.

My point being that once you investigate ID, the next question is: “which God is it”, or “did aliens do it?” Creationism (which in a sense is a super-set of ID) is a belief shared by both Judaic, Islamic and Christian traditions. It is without question that the minute ID hit mainstream most creationist-minded immediately and fervently embraced it, making it “their” theory/position in the process, which I think antagonized the scientific community and ear-marked all adherents as “religious zealots”. I’m not surprised about that; the implications of it being true are of such monumental proportions.

While it is true that virtually any form of theism or deism could probably fit the definition of ID, mainstream ID is mostly associated with YEC Christians.

Science is self correcting, divinely revealed religion is not.

Divine revelation should not be self correcting; that would defy the point. Any divine revelation that requires correction only suggests that its origin was not divine.

Yes, quite a reasonable point. That's why we have a New Testament, but I digress.

In the past, many things believers had to accept in faith in direct contrast to contemporary scientific dogma, is now accepted science. In a way you might say “we hold our breath until science catches up”.

In the past, many things discovered or hypothesized by science that were in direct contrast to contemporary religious dogma, which are now accepted by the faithful. In a way, you might say "we hold our breath until religion catches up".

The Catholic Church accepted the idea of Theistic evolution in an effort to “get along”, but I think this is a move bound to be reversed at some point in the future.

Don't hold your breath. [/quote]

True, to a point. Theistic evolution could possibly be cast as a form of ID. Perhaps you could list a few of the active ID proponents that deny the young earth idea.

I could name quite a few creationists which are “old earthers”, if you accept that as an answer.

A list of old earth creationists who are actively promoting ID would be acceptable.

[ManBearPig]

Well I'll first say that if evolution were proved wrong tomorrow, it wouldn't make ID automatically right. Why is it assumed there are only two choices? Why couldn't there be an alternative that nobody has considered yet?

And I'd like to ask Roy, could you give an example of how irreducible complexity could be falsified? I can't really think of one because the idea seems way too general to me.

[Goat]

Well I'll first say that if evolution were proved wrong tomorrow, it wouldn't make ID automatically right. Why is it assumed there are only two choices? Why couldn't there be an alternative that nobody has considered yet?

And I'd like to ask Roy, could you give an example of how irreducible complexity could be falsified? I can't really think of one because the idea seems way too general to me.

If an IR system can be shown to evolve naturally, then it falsifies the concept that it is evidence of an intelligent designer. This has been shown to be the case.

[Reasoned]

There is a far more fundamental reason that ID is not science. Science follows "methodological naturalism" (some creationists would use "materialism" here, but that's a poor choice of words because it has other, derogatory, meanings and also because it's not what scientists themselves would use).

What that means is, science asks questions ABOUT nature, and tries to answer them by referring TO nature. It seeks natural explanations for natural phenomena.

Whether one views ID as starting with the ASSUMPTION of supernatural intervention, or merely as allowing the POSSIBILITY of supernatural intervention, doesn't really matter here. As soon it allows supernatural explanations, ID is not science. It might be religion or superstition or philosophy or hallucination or poetry or spiritualism, but it is not science.

The fact that most of the proponents of ID believe that the Intelligent Designer (and Creator, since we are not talking about unimplemented blueprints here, but rather organisms that actually exist and therefore according to ID must have been "specially created") is the Judeo-Christian God (rather than Allah or Brahma or any of hundreds of other deities), lets us refine this and identify ID as religion.

A look at the history of ID makes this even clearer. The argument was first floated in the 13th century by Thomas Aquinas, who was quite clear that it was a religious argument for the existence of God. It was revived in the 1800s by the Rev. William Paley, and was again touted as proving God existed.

The new generation of Paleys has added a few twists like the concept of "irreducible complexity" (which is bogus and has been fairly well shredded in court and elsewhere), but really the argument is no more sound now than it was 700 years ago. It is basically the argument from incredulity: we don't understand how something could have happened, therefore it couldn't have happened, therefore it didn't happen.

By that reasoning, if I can't understand how so many otherwise-sensible people could have voted to re-elect George W. Bush in 2004, then they didn't, Kerry won, and we're not at war in Iraq now.

[Caligar]

But I think you pretty much summed it up when you said that the law of physics state that matter cannot be created or destroyed so therefore creation can't happen.

Despite it being likely irrelevant at this point, id like to point out that this is incorrect.

[Jacurutu]

No, the amount of mass-energy is assumed constant in the universe. It's one of the most basic laws of chemistry.

[muscle head]

You 're right in saying that intelligent design does not qualify to be called a scientific theory, and that's because intelligent design is absolutely true. It does not have to be tested, and predictions do not have to be made, because the evidence is all around us and there is no room left to deny it. Just look at the different species of animals and study them closely. Their physical characteristics and capablities are extraordinary and precisely perfect for the environment in which they live. Why is it that a polar bear's claws are much longer and pointier than that of a grizzly bear's? It's because God knew that the polar bear would need them in order to break the hard ice of its environment and be able to catch seals to eat. Why is it that the animals of the deep sea have bodies that produce their own light? It's because they were created that way because God knew that they would need their own supply of light since the sun light does not reach the bottom of the deep sea!

Every animal, in every species is carefully given a balanced set of characteristics that help that creature as well as other creatures that help keep the balance, to survive. Why is it that the biggest spider in the world is not venomous? It's because its shear size can kill an insect like that! But imagine if it were venomous. Than it could easily wipe out not just the smaller animals but also the bigger ones with just a sting from its fangs. But God knew that in order to keep a balance in the environment that He would have to keep the largest spider non venomous. That way another bigger animal could eat it and therefore no one animal is more powerful than the other. The same goes with the Lion. Lions are primarly found in Africa and although people in general think that the "king of the Jungle" rules, why do you think the elephant is around? It's to keep an environmental balance. Even the simpliest animal like a chameleon which isn't venomous and not exactly physcially threatening, is intelligently equipped to survive because God gave it the ability to blend with its surroundings and camouflage for safety and survival. These examples are just some of the countless reasons why there is a God who created everything and why intellligent design is simply a fact that is why it cannot be counted as a theory. It all has a purpose, a reason for being, and it all comes together in a perfect puzzle that allows the world to function the way it does.

For those of you who think that your environment will cause you to evolve in order to survive think about this:

If evolution were true than why is it that those who support it only apply it to animals and not to plants. Are plants not alive too? How come plants have not evolved despite all the natural disasters and changes that the world has gone through? If evolution were true, dinosaurs would still be around. How come they didn't evolve in order to survive? It's simply because dinosaurs were not equipped with the physical characteristics necessary to survive the changing times. You either have the characteristics necessary to survive in your environment or you don't. If you don't, you simply will not survive because the environment is not going to cause you to evolve in order to survive in it. If I dive to the deepest darkest bottom of the sea my lungs better be equipped to allow me to be there for the rest of my life because if they're not, I simply cannot survive like the animals that infact have the characeristics that enable them to live in that kind of environment. If I decide I want to live in Mount Everest I better be naturally equipped to do it because other wise Mount Everest isn't going to cause my body to change in order for me to survive on it. It's as simply as that! Our environment cannot cause us to change in order for us to survive if that were true than there simply would be no death because wouldn't everybody find a way to beat the odds and survive for ever?

[McCulloch]

For those of you who think that your environment will cause you to evolve in order to survive think about this:

You might try to understand evolution before you attempt to criticize it.

If evolution were true than why is it that those who support it only apply it to animals and not to plants. Are plants not alive too? How come plants have not evolved despite all the natural disasters and changes that the world has gone through?

Plants have evolved. So says every botanist who believes in evolution.

If evolution were true, dinosaurs would still be around. How come they didn't evolve in order to survive? It's simply because dinosaurs were not equipped with the physical characteristics necessary to survive the changing times.

Evolution is a slow process. When environments change faster than evolution to keep up, things like extinctions happen.

[Chad]

Just look at the different species of animals and study them closely. Their physical characteristics and capablities are extraordinary and precisely perfect for the environment in which they live.

There's a lot to cover in your post. However I always wanted to ask someone who is in favor of Intelligent Design the following...

If God was such an intelligent designer, why is it that 99% of all species to have existed have gone extinct?

Also, I'm curious where the idea came from that those who accept evolution don't think that plants evolved. This search on Amazon shows a lot of books/textbooks on the subject. In fact, it was work on plants by Gregory Mendel that laid the foundation for some of the core concepts of variability and heredity in evolution.