Does Intelligent Design Have Merit?

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In 2002, the board of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science issued a statement saying in part that, "the ID movement has not proposed a scientific means of testing its claims ... the lack of scientific warrant for so-called 'intelligent design theory' makes it improper to include as a part of science education." Similarly, the American Astronomical Association stated in 2005, "'Intelligent Design' fails to meet the basic definition of a scientific idea: its proponents do not present testable hypotheses and do not provide evidence for their views that can be verified or duplicated by subsequent researchers. Since 'Intelligent Design' is not science, it does not belong in the science curriculum of the nation's primary and secondary schools." And in 2004, the Association of Southeastern Biologists stated that "Creationism and intelligent design offer a mixture of empirically untestable and empirically non-scientific hypotheses, which their proponents fail to retract or modify in the light of contrary evidence. Thus, they do not conform to accepted scientific protocols." Many other scientific societies have echoed these statements, which NCSE compiled in Voices for Evolution along with statements by religious, educational, and civil liberties organizations speaking in favor of evolution and against ID and other forms of creationism in science classes.

ID promoters and other creationists occasionally promote their ideas by trotting out lists of scientific supporters. The public can feel torn between competing lists. While it is possible to discredit many of those lists, as seen in the video below, these detailed rebuttals can miss the big problem with these lists. For several years, NCSE has organized a project that may help the public evaluate claims of widespread scientific support. Since 2003, nearly 900 scientists have signed a statement explaining that "Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry," and adding that "It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to 'intelligent design,' to be introduced into the science curricula of the public schools."

While 900 PhD scientists may seem like a comparatively poor showing, it becomes more impressive when you realize that all the scientists are named Steve (or Stephen, Stephanie, or other versions of that name). Census records show that people with those names represent about 1% of the US population, which means that those 900 scientists stand in for at least 90,000 scientists who find no merit in ID. Next time an ID promoter claim enormous scientific support, ask how many Steves they've got.