Intelligent design

Intelligent Design is the theory that all biological complexity must derive from a non-human designer (such as God), rather than the natural process of evolution. Critics often assert that it is Creationism-lite, in that it is a means of sneaking creationism into schools without overt religious implications.

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 mischaracterize 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.