The notion that the universe was created by God may have merit as a religious idea, but it has no merit as science. To some people, the phrase “intelligent design” evokes the belief that the universe, and especially human beings, were crafted by the guiding hand of a loving God. This is a belief shared by many people, including many scientists. NCSE takes no position on the merits of these religious beliefs, except to say that these are not scientific statements, and should not be presented as such. Nor should their denials.
But the political forces promoting intelligent design use that phrase to mean something much more specific than what the general public often takes it to mean. The Discovery Institute and other ID promoters insist that “intelligent design” is a scientific research program that aspires to detect phenomena in nature whose existence can only be explained by appealing to intentional design. From this, it would then be possible to infer the existence and actions of an unnamed designer – a being which intelligent design promoters identify variously as the Christian, Jewish, or Islamic God.
Moreover, ID unabashedly rejects the methods and results of the well-established scientific discipline of evolutionary biology. While almost all religious traditions hold that the presence of order in the cosmos reflects in some sense an underlying purpose or “design,” many religious groups hold that God guides the course of evolution through the laws of nature, not through frequent overt miracles. This position has been adopted by the vast majority of Jewish rabbis, by the Pope, by mainline Protestant churches, by over 11,000 Christian clergy , and by a growing number of Evangelical Christians. As Steve Martin, an Evangelical and a scientist, observes , "Evolutionary creationism [the compatibility between biological evolution and an Evangelical expression of Christian faith] is no longer a radical fringe position within the Evangelical community. … The scholarly dialogue phase regarding the scientific merits of biological evolution within the mainstream evangelical scientific community may be practically complete; we are now in a phase where this community is communicating their (majority?) consensus to their Christian brothers and sisters who are less comfortable with scientific discussions." Other theological traditions adopt different ways of theologically accommodating evolution. And, of course, a sizable fraction of the population does not see any intelligence or purposive design in the universe at all. Scientific methods cannot resolve these disagreements.
In short, the basic idea that God created is central to many religious traditions. The religious merits of that idea do not imply that it is scientifically legitimate. It is of no service to people of faith to insist, as ID promoters do, that religious belief compels the rejection of well-established results from well-developed scientific fields like evolution. Intelligent design has no scientific merit, and ID promoters acknowledge that it would require a redefinition of science in order to fall within the realm of scientific inquiry. This religious idea should not be imposed on public school science classes.
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