Does Intelligent Design Have Merit?

As I discussed in my rebuttals to the first two opening statements of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), some of their common debate tactics include:

• (1) Appealing to Authority
• (2) Blatantly Twisting and Misrepresenting ID
• (3) Puffing about the Glory of Evolution
• (4) Rewriting History
• (5) Promoting False Conspiracy Theories about ID
• (6) Hypocritically Harping on the Religious Associations of ID while Ignoring Their Own Side’s Use (and Abuse) of Religion
• (7) Evading the Real Issues

The NCSE’s third opening statement enlists such fallacies as #1, #2, #4, and #5. Most importantly, the NCSE has yet to convincingly argue that ID is not science; in fact ID meets the stated definition of science given by the NCSE.

Tactic #2: NCSE Blatantly Twists and Misrepresents ID: ID does not require appeals to the supernatural.
The NCSE twists ID’s claims, writing, “Intelligent design is an attempt to wedge claims about the action of a supernatural designer into science.” But as I discussed in my fourth opening statement, ID does not require appeals to the supernatural.

One of the earliest works on ID, the textbook Of Pandas and People (“Pandas”), explains that ID merely seeks to infer "intelligent causes" and is compatible with a wide variety of religious viewpoints, including pantheism and agnosticism:

“The idea that life had an intelligent source is hardly unique to Christian fundamentalism. Advocates of design have included not only Christians and other religious theists, but pantheists, Greek and Enlightenment philosophers and now include many modern scientists who describe themselves as religiously agnostic. Moreover, the concept of design implies absolutely nothing about beliefs normally associated with Christian fundamentalism, such as a young earth, a global flood, or even the existence of the Christian God. All it implies is that life had an intelligent source.”(1)

The text goes on to explain, “If science is based upon experience, then science tells us the message encoded in DNA must have originated from an intelligent cause. What kind of intelligent agent was it? ... We still would not know, from science, if the natural cause was all that was involved, or if the ultimate explanation was beyond nature, and using the natural cause.”(2)

While Pandas was a very early ID work, published long before many major ID ideas and concepts were formulated and published, Pandas’ non-identification of the designer has remained the consistent position of ID proponents throughout its history. For example, William Dembski explains that "Intelligent design is modest in what it attributes to the designing intelligence responsible for the specified complexity in nature. For instance, design theorists recognize that the nature, moral character and purposes of this intelligence lie beyond the competence of science and must be left to religion and philosophy."(3) Similarly, Michael Behe explains that ID remains silent on questions about whether the designer is natural or supernatural:

"[ID] is not an argument for the existence of a benevolent God, as Paley's was. I hasten to add that I myself do believe in a benevolent God, and I recognize that philosophy and theology may be able to extend the argument. But a scientific argument for design in biology does not reach that far. Thus while I argue for design, the question of the identity of the designer is left open. Possible candidates for the role of designer include: the God of Christianity; an angel--fallen or not; Plato's demi-urge; some mystical new age force; space aliens from Alpha Centauri; time travelers; or some utterly unknown intelligent being. Of course, some of these possibilities may seem more plausible than others based on information from fields other than science. Nonetheless, as regards the identity of the designer, modern ID theory happily echoes Isaac Newton's phrase hypothesis non fingo.”(4)

The NCSE misrepresents the arguments for ID when it claims that ID necessarily refers to the supernatural.

Tactic #2: NCSE Blatantly Twists and Misrepresents ID: ID has principled reasons for not addressing the identity or nature of the designer.
The NCSE alleges that ID proponents “maintain a strategic ambiguity about the supernatural details of their claims.”  In contrast to the NCSE’s claims, the refusal of ID proponents to use ID to draw scientific conclusions about the nature or identity of the designer is principled rather than merely rhetorical. ID's non-identification of the designer stems from a desire to take a scientific approach and respect the limits of scientific inquiry, and not inject religious discussions about theological questions into science. In short, ID does not identify the designer because under present knowledge and technology, there is no known scientific method for identifying the intelligent source responsible for design in nature. Thus, for the scientific theory of ID to address the identity or metaphysical nature of the designer would be to inappropriately conflate science with religion.

Thomas Woodward explains the principled reasons why the current biological evidence for ID is insufficient to allow us to identify the designer:

“There is no ‘Made by Yahweh’ engraved on the side of the bacterial rotary motor--the flagellum. In order to find out what or who its designer is, one must go outside the narrow discipline of biology. Cross-disciplinary dialogue must begin with the fields of philosophy, sociology, history, anthropology, and theology. Design itself, however, is a direct scientific inference; it does not depend on a single religious premise for its conclusions.”(5)

In other words, the empirical data, such as the information-rich, integrated complexity of the flagellar machine, may indicate that the flagellum arose by intelligent design. But that same empirical data does not inform us whether the intelligence that designed the flagellum is Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, Yoda, or some other type of intelligent agency. There is no known way to use such empirical data to determine the nature or identity of the designer, and since ID is based solely upon empirical data, the scientific theory of ID must remain silent on such questions.

ID is primarily a historical science, meaning it uses principles of uniformitarianism to study present-day causes and then applies them to the historical record in order to infer the best explanation for the origin of the natural phenomena being studied. ID starts with observations showing the effects of intelligence in the natural world. As Pandas explains, scientists have “uniform sensory experience”(6) with intelligent causes (i.e. humans), thus making intelligence an appropriate explanatory cause within historical scientific fields. However, the "supernatural" cannot be observed, and thus historical scientists applying uniformitarian reasoning cannot appeal to the supernatural. If the intelligence responsible for life were supernatural, science could only infer the prior action of intelligence, but could not determine whether the intelligence was supernatural.(7)

Tactic #5: NCSE Promotes False Conspiracy Theories: Misquoting William Dembski
After wrongly claiming that ID is ambiguous about the identity or nature of the designer, the NCSE further expounds upon its conspiracy theory: “There are reasons for this ambiguity. For one thing, it enables the ID movement to portray ID as scientifically respectable to the public, while still reassuring its fundamentalist base that it’s intended to promote sectarian religious beliefs.”

As evidence of its conspiracy theory, the NCSE claims that “William Dembski, a Discovery Institute fellow and prominent promoter of ID, tells secular audiences that ID is a thoroughly scientific endeavor. Yet in a book published by a Christian publisher he wrote that ID is ‘just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.’” Their conspiracy theory is contradicted by numerous facts.

First, books are freely available to anyone, and William Dembski is well aware that anything he published in any venue is eagerly tracked and recorded by his critics at the NCSE. It’s illogical to think that Dembski would assume that books published by Christian publishers would not be read by secular audiences, or by his critics.

Second, Dembski has published books by Christian publishers which clearly state that ID does not try to address religious questions about the identity or nature of the designer. For example, in his book The Design Revolution, published by InterVarsity Christian Press, Dembski writes:

"Intelligent design is modest in what it attributes to the designing intelligence responsible for the specified complexity in nature. For instance, design theorists recognize that the nature, moral character and purposes of this intelligence lie beyond the competence of science and must be left to religion and philosophy."(8)

This point is reiterated in Dembski’s 1999 book Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology, also published by InterVarsity Christian Press, a book clearly aimed at religious audiences:

“By contrast, intelligent design nowhere attempts to identify the intelligent cause responsible for the design in nature, nor does it prescribe in advance the sequence of events by which this intelligent cause had to act. . . . Intelligent design is modest in what it attributes to the designing intelligence responsible for the specified complexity in nature. For instance, design theorists recognize that the nature, moral character and purposes of this intelligence lie beyond the remit of science. As Dean Kenyon and Percival Davis remark in their text on intelligent design: ‘Science cannot answer this question; it must leave it to religion and philosophy.’”(9)

If the NCSE’s conspiracy theory were correct, Dembski would never have made these statements in books aimed at religious audiences.

So what are we to make of Dembski’s quote? My third point in rebuttal to the NCSE’s conspiracy theory is that they have blatantly quoted Dembski out of context.

This “Logos quote" originally comes from an article that Dembski published in Touchstone Magazine in 1999.(10) In this article, Dembski explains that design is detected through purely scientific methods without any reliance upon faith using an explanatory filter. As Dembski writes, “to recognize intelligent agency we must observe an actualization of one among several possibilities, note which possibilities were ruled out, and then be able to specify the possibility that was actualized.” Dembski calls this the “complexity-specification criterion.”

The “Logos quote” quoted by the NCSE comprises the last sentence of this entire article and comes in a section at the very end titled “Design, Metaphysics, & Beyond.” Clearly in this section, Dembski is looking at design in a much broader context than its mere scientific implications. Is it legitimate for Dembski to do this?

Dembski holds Ph.Ds in both Mathematics and Philosophy. This provides him with an ideal background provide giving a rigorous mathematical methodology for detecting design without any reliance upon the supernatural. Yet Dembski also holds a Master of Divinity degree from the prestigious Princeton Theological Seminary. As one trained in both mathematics and theology, Dembski can investigate ID from a scientific perspective, and at other times assess ID as a prestigiously trained theologian. The fact that Dembski has interpreted the religious implications of ID through his Christian faith and training as a theologian does not thereby mean that ID is religiously based.

There is nothing wrong with scientists interpreting a scientific theory within the context of their personal religious beliefs.? In fact, theistic evolutionists have interpreted neo-Darwinian evolution from their religious perspective on multiple occasions. For example, in his volume Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, theistic evolutionist paleontologist Keith B. Miller writes regarding evolution:

“Seeing the history of life unfolding with each new discovery is exciting to me. How incredible to be able to look back through eons of time and see the panorama of God’s evolving creation! God has given us the ability to see and watch his creative work unfold.”(11)

Similarly, the theistic evolutionist biologist Dr. Kenneth R. Miller says about God in his book Finding Darwin’s God about how he believes evolution coheres nicely with his personal Catholic faith:

“But this much I think is clear: Given evolution’s ability to adapt, to innovate, to test, and to experiment, sooner or later it would have given the Creator exactly what He was looking for—a creature who, like us, could know Him, and love Him…”(12)

These writings do not disqualify evolution from being science, just as Dembski’s writings interpreting ID within the context of his own Christian faith should not make ID unscientific. Indeed, during the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, plaintiffs’ expert witness, the theistic evolutionist biologist Kenneth Miller, justified his religious discussions about science by observing, “Everything that a scientist writes or says is not necessarily a scientific statement or a scientific publication.”(13) If only ID-critics at the NCSE would extend the same courtesy to ID proponents.

The NCSE’s conspiracy theory about ID proponents' public discussions of the designer is flatly contradicted by the facts.

Tactic #4: NCSE Rewrites History: ID is not a relabeling of creationism.
The NCSE claims, “The history of ID shows that it is merely a relabeling of older forms of creationism.” For a full rebuttal to the NCSE on this point, see my rebuttal to the NCSE’s fourth opening statement.

Tactic #1: NCSE Appeals to Authority, Making Dubious the Argumentum Ad Judge Jones.
Finally, the NCSE observes that “a federal judge ruled that ID’s religious content makes it unconstitutional in public school science classes.” But federal judges can get things wrong all the time. Just because a judge ruled something does not therefore make it so. We have to think for ourselves and carefully scrutinize Judge Jones’ claims in his ruling. As I discuss in my fifth opening statement, there were many problems with this Kitzmiller v. Dover ruling, not the least of which include the fact that Judge Jones’ Kitzmiller ruling:

• Employed a false definition of ID that presumed that ID requires “supernatural creation” – a position that ID proponents who testified in court refuted during the trial;
• Ignored the positive case for ID and falsely claimed that ID proponents make their case solely by arguing against evolution;
• Overstepped the bounds of the judiciary and engaged in judicial activism by declaring that ID had been refuted when in fact the judge was presented with credible scientific witnesses and publications on both sides showing evidence of a scientific debate;
• Used poor philosophy of science by presuming that being wrong precludes being scientific;
• Dangerously stifled scientific advance by taking the level of support for a theory as a measure of whether an idea is scientific;
• Blatantly ignored and denied the existence of pro-ID peer-reviewed scientific publications that were in fact testified about in his own courtroom;
• Blatantly ignored and denied the existence of pro-ID scientific research and data that was in fact testified about in his own courtroom;
• Adopted an unfair double-standard of legal analysis where religious implications, beliefs, and motives count against ID but never against Darwinism;
• Violated a fundamental cardinal rule of constitutional law by declaring a religious belief to be false from the bench of a U.S. government court;
• Engaged in judicial activism by presuming that it is permissible for a federal judge to define science, settle controversial social questions, settle controversial scientific questions, settle issues for parties outside of the case at hand so that his ruling would be “a primer” for people “someplace else,” and declare certain religious beliefs to be false.

The NCSE wants you to take the “Judge Jones Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It” approach to intelligent design, not think for yourself and ask whether Judge Jones got key claims wrong in his ruling.(14)

Final Point: ID Meets the NCSE’s Stated Definition of Science.
The NCSE claims, “For a claim to be scientific, it must be possible to investigate using scientific methods. Claims about the supernatural are inherently untestable by those methods, leaving such supernatural claims outside the realm of science as a matter of practice.” Actually, I agree with this claim. The problem with the NCSE’s argument is that ID doesn’t violate these conditions.

ID is not an appeal to a supernatural cause, nor does it employ miracles. As William Dembski and Jonathan Wells explain, “Supernatural explanations invoke miracles and therefore are not properly part of science. Explanations that call on intelligent causes require no miracles but cannot be reduced to materialistic explanations.”(15) At one point, the Pandas textbook even seems to adopt methodological naturalism, stating that "intelligence . . . can be recognized by uniform sensory experience, and the supernatural . . . cannot."(16)

According to the NCSE’s executive director Eugenie Scott, science must operate under methodological naturalism (MN) which “simply requires that, in trying to explain any particular observation or experimental result, an investigator may not resort to miracles.”(17)  The most common justifications for making MN a requirement of science is that MN ensures that scientific claims are based upon observable, predictable, and reliable empirical data. For example, biologist John A. Moore argues that science cannot invoke miracles because, "the relationship of the natural and the supernatural are unpredictable … [if] the cause of a natural event is the whim of a deity, the event is neither predictable nor fully understandable."(18) But ID does not invoke supernatural explanations that are, in Moore’s words, subject to the “whim of a deity” nor do they, in Scott’s words, “resort to miracles.”

ID makes reliable inferences. ID is based upon a simple observation-based cause-and-effect relationship between mind and the origin of information. To reiterate, I quoted Stephen Meyer arguing in my first opening statement:

“[W]e have repeated experience of rational and conscious agents-in particular ourselves-generating or causing increases in complex specified information, both in the form of sequence-specific lines of code and in the form of hierarchically arranged systems of parts. … Our experience-based knowledge of information-flow confirms that systems with large amounts of specified complexity (especially codes and languages) invariably originate from an intelligent source from a mind or personal agent.”(19)

ID explanations are thus based upon our predictable, empirically-based understanding of the types of information produced by the action of intelligence. As William Dembski explains, the methods of detecting design have the reliability required by science:

"What has kept design outside the scientific mainstream these last 130 years is the absence of precise methods for distinguishing intelligently caused objects from unintelligently caused ones. For design to be a fruitful scientific theory, scientists have to be sure they can reliably determine whether something is designed. Johannes Kepler, for instance, thought the craters on the moon were intelligently designed by moon dwellers. …. With precise methods for discriminating intelligently from unintelligently caused objects, scientists are now able to avoid Kepler's mistake "(20)

In its booklet Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science, the U.S. National Academy of Science (NAS) provides the following definition of science:

“Science is a particular way of knowing about the world. In science, explanations are restricted to those that can be inferred from the confirmable data—the results obtained through observations and experiments that can be substantiated by other scientists. Anything that can be observed or measured is amenable to scientific investigation. Explanations that cannot be based upon empirical evidence are not part of science.”(21)
ID plainly satisfies this definition of science from the NAS. Intelligent causes can be inferred through confirmable data. The types of information produced by intelligent causes can be observed and then measured. Scientists can use observations and experiments to base their design inferences upon empirical evidence. ID limits its claims to those which can be established through the data. In this way, ID does not violate the mandates of predictability and reliability laid down for science by methodological naturalism (whatever the failings and limitations of methodological naturalism).(22)

Similarly, the NCSE offers the following requirements of science: “For a claim to be scientific, it must be possible to investigate using scientific methods. … unless intelligent design produces research and new insights, it cannot be considered a valid science.” Again, ID meets this definition of science.

The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion.(23) ID begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information.(24) One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can tested and discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures through genetic knockout experiments to determine if they require all of their parts to function.(25) When experimental work uncovers irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.

Design proponents thus use standard uniformitarian reasoning of historical sciences to apply an empirically-derived cause-and-effect relationship between intelligence and certain types of informational patterns to the historical scientific record in order to account for the origin of various natural phenomena.(26) ID uses the scientific method, and it does not offend the requirements of methodological naturalism that science be repeatable, predictable, and reliable.

ID has also provided new insights into biology, not the least of which include forcing biologists to grapple with the origin of complex and specified information, or irreducible complexity within biochemical systems. ID proponents have conducted and published research that promotes these insights to the scientific community.(27) ID meets the NCSE’s definition of science.