Intelligent design

Intelligent Design (ID) is the theory that various features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause and not by undirected processes.

Evidence

One of the first major books with evidence for intelligent design was Michael J. Behe's. Behe is a Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University. He states in his book "Darwin's Black Box" that there are certain irreducible complexities in organisms which can only be addressed by an intelligent designer.

William Dembski in book No Free Lunch, states the the following:

"A system performing a given basic function is irreducibly complex if it includes a set of well-matched, mutually interacting, non-arbitrarily individuated parts such that each part in the set is indispensable to maintaining the system's basic, and therefore original, function. The set of these indispensable parts is known as the irreducible core of the system.

Analogies

Many Intelligent Design advocates propose the "watch" analogy made famous by William Paley.

Paley wrote:

“Suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there: I might possiblyanswer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever; nor would it, perhaps be very easy to show theabsurdity of this answer. But suppose I found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happenedto be in that place. I should hardly think of the answer I had before given - that, for anything I knew, the watch mightalways have been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? When we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e.g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion is soregulated as to point out the hour of the day."

Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works ofnature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater and more, and that in a degree which exceeds allcomputation. I mean, that the contrivances of nature surpass the contrivance of art, in the complexity, subtlety, and curiosityof the mechanism.” .

Support

Recently, there have been articles which were favorable to the intelligent design position in scientific journals which traditionally have favored the macroevolutionary position.

Design theory enjoys a small amount of stated support within the worldwide scientific community (creationist scientists report there is widespread discriminatory action against creationist scientists ). From 2001 to 2007, over 700 scientists had signed the pro-Intelligent Design manifesto, A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism, published by the leaders of the design movement, the Discovery Institute. This has caused some scientists to question the claim of the dominant scientific community that evolution is the best explanation for the origin of life and call for public school science students to study the evidence supporting it in greater detail.

Opposition

Some scientists who reviewed Behe's book felt that the structures he defined could evolve through the mechanisms of naturalist evolution and that the evidence provided was not convincing.

In a recent trial in Dover, Pennsylvania Judge John E. Jones III ruled that Intelligent Design was not valid science and "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents". However, the WorldNetDaily stated: "A historic judicial ruling against intelligent design theory hailed as a "broad, stinging rebuke" and a "masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking" actually was "cut and pasted" from a brief by ACLU lawyers and includes many of their provable errors, contends the Seattle-based Discovery Institute." This information was originally published in a press release from the Discovery Institute. Critics contend that it is a misrepresentation of legal precedent and that the ruling followed standard procedure.

In a speech to the Anti-Defamation League, Jones said that "had I decided the Dover matter in a different way, I would have then engaged in just the kind of judicial activism which critics decry," stating that he was bound by "over a half century of strong legal precedents."

See also

• ResearchID.org
• Theory of evolution
• Specified complexity
• Explanatory filter
• Privilidged Planet