Intelligent design

Intelligent Design is the theory that all biological complexity must derive from a non-human designer (such as God), rather than the chance processes of evolution and natural selection. It is often seen by it's critics as a form of Creationism-lite, in that it is a means of arguing against the Theory of Evolution without adopting any particular religious doctrine.

Proponents of Intelligent Design generally adopt the 'argument from incredulity'. They argue, essentially, that the complexity of living organisms is such that it could only come from an intelligent 'designer', without much justification other than their own inability to understand how evolution could create the same complexity.

The other major argument in the Intelligent Design arsenal is a variation of the incredulity argument, in that supporters frequently mischaracterise evolution as being a wholly random process, and that random processes. Intelligent Design proponents misunderstand, or at least seem to misunderstand, the effects of the iteration of natural selection in a particular environment over hundreds or thousands of generations.

The theory of Intelligent Design has little or no support outside the United States, which is in the grip of a currently in the grip of an irrational religious-backed campaign to reject the teachings of the Theory of Evolution.