Creation vs. Evolution - Intelligent Design
- Nov 1, 2005 - 1
“Intelligent design is the science that studies signs of intelligence. Note that a sign is not the thing signified. Intelligent design does not try to get into the mind of a designer and figure out what a designer is thinking. Its focus is not a designer’s mind (the thing signified) but the artifact due to a designer’s mind (the sign). What a designer is thinking may be an interesting question, and one may be able to infer something about what a designer is thinking from the designed objects that a designer produces (provided the designer is being honest). But the designer’s thought processes lie outside the scope of intelligent design. As a scientific research program, intelligent design investigates the effects of intelligence and not intelligence as such.”
William Dembski, The Design Revolution (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 33.
“The most dramatic supporting evidence for intelligent design comes from the discovery of DNA. Molecular biology has revealed at the core of life a code, a language, a message. As a result, the origin of life has been recast as the origin of new, complex forms of information. How do we explain the sequence of symbols in a message – any message? The sequence of letters in a book is not random, nor does it follow a rule or law (i.e., it is not a regular, repeating pattern, like a macro on your computer). Instead, the sequence has a third kind of structure that scientists call “specified complexity” – which means a complex sequence that fits a pre-selected pattern.
“Specified complexity can be identified by rigorous mathematical formulas (as William Dembski has shown in The Design Inference), which means scientists are now equipped to go beyond merely negative critiques of naturalistic evolution by identifying the positive marks of design. In all cases where we know the source of information, like books and computer programs and musical scores, that source is an intelligent agent. It is logical to conclude that the source of information in living things is likewise intelligent.”
Nancy Pearcey, “Forward” in Phillip E. Johnson, The Right Question: Truth, Meaning and Public Debate (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 16-17.
“The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself – not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the hard work that biochemistry has done over the past forty years, combined with consideration of the way in which we reach conclusions of design every day. Nonetheless, saying that biochemical systems were designed will certainly strike many people as strange, so let me try to make it sound less strange … What is ‘design’? Design is simply the purposeful arrangement of parts … Inferences to design do not require that we have a candidate for the role of designer. We can determine that a system was designed by examining the system itself, and we can hold the conviction of design much more strongly than a conviction about the identity of the designer … The conclusion that something was designed can be made quite independently of knowledge of the designer. As a matter of procedure, the design must first be apprehended before there can be any further question about the designer. The inference to design can be held with all the firmness that is possible in this world, without knowing anything about the designer.”
Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: The Free Press, 1996), 193-197.
Note: Two important concepts are foundational to Intelligent Design: irreducible complexity and specific complexity. The following three articles help to define those two concepts.
“Many biochemical systems are stumbling blocks for natural selection because they are irreducibly complex, meaning they need several parts working together in order to function. A good illustration of an irreducibly complex system is a simple mechanical mousetrap. If the mousetrap is missing any of its pieces, it doesn’t catch mice. Therefore it is irreducibly complex. It turns out that irreducibly complex systems are headaches for Darwinian theory because they are resistant to being produced in the gradual, step-by-step manner that Darwin envisioned. For example, if we wanted to evolve a mousetrap, where would we start? Could we start with just the platform and hope to catch a few mice rather inefficiently? Then add the holding bar, and improve the efficiency a bit? Then add the other pieces one at a time, steadily improving the whole apparatus? No, of course we can’t do that because the mousetrap doesn’t work at all until it is essentially completely assembled. Many biochemical systems, such as the bacterial flagellum, also appear to be irreducibly complex, and thus difficult to explain by Darwinian means … such systems are better explained as the result of design – purposeful, intentional design by an intelligent agent. Although some of my critics, noting that I am a Catholic, argue that design is a religious idea, I disagree. I think a conclusion of design is completely empirical, and can be justified solely by physical data, as well as by an understanding of how we come to a conclusion of design. To see how we detect design, consider the Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson in which a team of explorers is going through a jungle, and the lead explorer has been strung up and skewered by a hidden trap. One companion turns to another and confides, ‘That’s why I never walk in front.’ Now every person who sees the cartoon immediately knows that the trap was designed. In fact, Larson’s humor depends on you recognizing the design. It wouldn’t be terribly funny if the first explorer had just fallen off a cliff or a rotted tree accidentally fell on him. No, his fate was intended. But how do you know that from looking at the cartoon? How does the audience apprehend that this trap was designed? Is it a religious conclusion? No. You can tell that the trap was designed because of the way the parts interact with great specificity to perform a function. Like the mousetrap, no one looking at the cartoon system would mistake it for an accidental arrangement of parts.”
Michael Behe, “A Catholic Scientist Looks at Dawinism,” in William Dembski, Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2004), 142.
“Intelligence leaves behind a characteristic trademark or signature – what I call specified complexity. An event exhibits specified complexity if it is contingent and therefore not necessary; if it is complex and therefore not readily repeatable by chance; and if it is specified in the sense of exhibiting an independently given pattern. Note that a merely improbable event is not sufficient to eliminate chance: flip a coin long enough and you’ll witness a highly complex or improbable event. Even so, you’ll have no reason not to attribute it to chance.
“The important thing about specifications is that they be objectively given and not just imposed on events after the fact. For instance, if an archer fires arrows into a wall and then we paint bull’s-eyes around them, we impose a pattern after the fact. On the other hand, if the targets are set up in advance (‘specified’) and then the archer hits them accurately, we know it was by design.
“In determining whether biological organisms exhibit specified complexity, design theorists focus on identifiable systems – such as individual enzymes, metabolic pathways, molecular machines and the like. These systems are specified in virtue of their independent functional requirements, and they exhibit a high degree of complexity. Of course, once an essential part of an organism exhibits specified complexity, then any design attributable to that part carries over to the organism as a whole. One need not demonstrate that every aspect of the organism was designed; in fact, some aspects will be the result of purely natural causes.”
William Dembski, The Design Revolution (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 35.
“Although creation and intelligent design are logically separable (you can have one without the other), many who hold to a doctrine of creation also believe that creation exhibits clear marks of intelligence. Biblical texts used to support the connection between creation and intelligent design include Psalm 19:1 (‘The heavens declare the glory of God; / the skies proclaim the work of his hands’) and Romans 1:20 (‘For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made’). Thus, many who hold to a doctrine of creation are also proponents of intelligent design. To many theists it seems perfectly reasonable that a creator would create a world in which the creator’s intelligence was made manifest. To be sure, the creator could be a master of stealth who obscures his tracks so that they are undetectable. But theists by and large agree that the natural world exhibits God’s intelligence, wisdom and purposes.
“How the world exhibits design, however, is a matter of dispute. For proponents of intelligent design, design in the world is empirically detectable – we can know it when we see it, and increasingly what enables us to see it is specified complexity. In contrast to taking this scientific approach to design, one can also take a purely theological approach to it. Accordingly, the world exhibits design only against the backdrop of the religious believer’s faith experience and theological worldview. On this view, the religious believer sees design in the world only through the eyes of faith. Attributing design to the world thus becomes a theological gloss or overlay, not a generally accessible fact about the world open to believer and nonbeliever alike.
“Thus, many theologians resist intelligent design’s fundamental claim that the natural world exhibits objectively discernible design. Why is that? For the theist, any designing agent responsible for the world’s design would be either God or an intermediary intelligence created by God (e.g., angels, demons or purposeful processes in nature). Such an intermediary would operate either at God’s explicit direction or, at least, with God’s permission. In any case, God would ultimately be behind all the design in the world. Thus, for instance, any design evident in complex biological systems would have to be ascribed to God.”
William Dembski, The Design Revolution (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 39.
“Intelligent design and scientific creationism differ in their propositional content and method of inquiry. Intelligent design begins with data that scientists observe in the laboratory and nature, identifies in them patterns known to signal intelligent causes and thereby ascertains whether a phenomenon was designed. For design theorists, the conclusion of design constitutes an inference from data, not a deduction from religious authority. In addition, the propositional content of intelligent design differs significantly from that of scientific creationism. Scientific creationism is committed to the following propositions:
SCl: There was a sudden creation of the universe, energy and life from nothing.
SC2: Mutations and natural selection are insufficient to bring about the development of all living kinds from a single organism.
SC3: Changes of the originally created kinds of plants and animals occur only within fixed limits.
SC4: There is a separate ancestry for humans and apes.
SC5: The earth’s geology can be explained via catastrophism, primarily by the occurrence of a worldwide flood.
SC6: The earth and living kinds had a relatively recent inception (on the order of thousands or tens of thousands of years).
Intelligent design, on the other hand, is committed to the following propositions:
IDl: Specified complexity and irreducible complexity are reliable indicators or hallmarks of design.
ID2: Biological systems exhibit specified complexity and employ irreducibly complex subsystems.
ID3: Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of specified complexity or irreducible complexity.
ID4: Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanation for the origin of specified complexity and irreducible complexity in biological systems.”
Adapted from William Dembski, The Design Revolution (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 41-42.
“ID is a research program that claims design is evident in biology. What exactly does this mean, and how is it different from evolution? The concept of design, per se, is not peculiar to ID. Even evolutionists admit that organisms show the appearance of having been designed. This appearance of design, they say, is due to the evolutionary process. Evolutionists sometimes use design-type language when speaking of the process of evolution.
“The word intelligent distinguishes ID from evolution. It means that the design we observe was brought about by an intelligence rather than the interplay of unguided natural forces. ID claims that an intelligence is necessary to account for at least some of the design in biology. In other words, the evolutionary explanation is not sufficient.
“Why is evolution unable to account for the design in biology? Because there are examples of design that cannot have arisen via a sequence of functional intermediates.
“Evolution requires that every structure in biology, whether at the molecular or the morphological level, arose via a series of functional intermediate forms. In order for evolution to create the appearance of design, functional intermediates between all designs must exist. And the sequence of intermediates must be sufficiently gradual so that each successive form could have arisen from the previous form via normal biological variation. ID claims that at least in some cases no such sequence is possible.”
Cornelius G. Hunter, Darwin’s Proof (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2003), 120.
“For Christians, once they’ve accepted the idea of an intelligent designer, it’s obvious to them who the designer is. In my own development I first addressed the issue without reference to the Bible at all. I came to the conclusion that the scientific evidence just doesn’t support the central claims of the Darwinian theory at all. It tends to refute them. But then I thought, ‘If you can’t do the creating without an intelligent designer, a Creator, then there must be a Creator.’
“Then at this point I brought the Bible into the argument. I looked for the best place to start and I found that in the prologue to the Gospel of John: ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ And I asked the question, ‘Does scientific evidence tend to support this conclusion or the contrary conclusion of the materialists that ‘in the beginning were the particles’?’ If we start with that basic explanation of the meaning of the creation in John 1, we see that is far better supported by scientific investigation than the contrary. So what’s the objection to believing that that’s true?
“At this point we haven’t proved that the Bible’s claims about creation are true, but we’ve removed a powerful obstacle in the way of such belief. And that’s all I really want to do with the scientific evidence is to clear away the obstacle that it presents to a belief that the Creator is the God of the Bible.”
Phillip Johnson cited in Marvin Olasky and John Perry, Monkey Business (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2005), 198.
Further Learning
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1 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Mar 5th, 2008, at 4:26pm, Barbara wrote:
First of all, believing that intelligence must mean perfection then nothing or no one is intelligent. Defining intelligence this way would involve supernatural. Now, if intelligence simply means a collection of thoughts that you can recall from memory in order to find a solution to the memory of collective thoughts then intelligence is appropriate in terms of intelligent design.
If people insist on knowing who is the intelligent designer then I would say, “Cyanobacteria” since these organisms made all life forms dependent on them for survival. Who made the designer? The sun did when cyanobacteria converted light energy to chemical energy thus producing oxygen as their waste product. All life forms dependent on oxygen to survive is their designer.