Intelligent design
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What is intelligent design?
Intelligent design (ID) is an argument that suggests living organisms were created in their present forms by an "intelligent designer". It was developed in the 1990s in the United States as a refutation of Charles Darwin's theory of biological evolution.
Proponents of intelligent design argue that living organisms have parts and systems that are "irreducibly complex," meaning that if any component part is removed, the entire system ceases to function. They infer that such systems could not have arisen through the gradual alteration of functioning precursor systems via random mutation and natural selection. Instead, organisms must have been created all at once by an intelligent designer. Critics, however, argue that intelligent design misunderstands natural selection and ignores precursor systems in organisms' evolutionary history.
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How is intelligent design different from evolution by natural selection?
Intelligent design (ID) emerged in the 1990s in the United States, explicitly challenging Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. ID posits that living organisms are too complex to have evolved through natural processes, requiring an "intelligent designer" to account for their present forms.
Critics argue that ID misunderstands natural selection, which explains adaptation through the preservation and multiplication of advantageous genetic variations over generations. Natural selection emphasizes that species evolve through small, successive modifications, while ID invokes a designer to explain the origins of complex systems in a single step.
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What are some examples supporters use to argue for intelligent design?
Proponents of intelligent design (ID) often argue that living organisms are "irreducibly complex," meaning that if even one component of a system is removed, the entire system would cease to function. They infer that such systems could not have arisen through gradual alterations via random mutation and natural selection. Instead, ID posits that living organisms must have been created all at once by an intelligent designer.
Molecular biologist Michael Behe, a leading ID spokesperson, cites the bacterial flagellum, blood clotting, and the immune system as examples of irreducibly complex systems that allegedly cannot be explained by natural means. ID also draws upon William Paley's arguments for the obvious design of humans and their parts, as well as the design of all sorts of organisms, in themselves and in their relations to one another and to their environment.
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Why do some scientists disagree with intelligent design?
Scientists disagree with intelligent design (ID) because it misunderstands natural selection and ignores precursor systems in organisms' evolutionary history, an argument Charles Darwin refuted in response to William Paley. ID proponents claim that organisms are irreducibly complex, inferring they were created at once by an intelligent designer, not gradually through natural selection.
However, conceptual advances in molecular biology demonstrate how irreducible complexity arises naturally through self-organizing biochemical systems, redundancy in organic structures, and versatile exploratory processes. ID lacks a scientific research program, widening the gap between it and established scientific norms. The existence of imperfections, dysfunctions and cruelties in nature also contradict the notion of an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent designer.
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In which school subjects or classes might intelligent design be taught or discussed?
Intelligent design (ID) is an argument that living organisms were created by an "intelligent designer". ID is explicitly a refutation of biological evolution and is widely perceived as being allied with scientific creationism.
ID might be discussed in science classes, specifically biology, when evolution is taught. It may also be discussed in philosophy or comparative religion courses when discussing arguments for the existence of God.
However, the teaching of ID in public schools has been contentious, with the U.S. courts ruling that it should be excluded from the curriculum because it is not distinct from creationism and is therefore a religious viewpoint. Some argue that ID does not hold up to scientific inquiry and should not cloud the teaching of science.
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How has intelligent design influenced debates about science and religion?
Intelligent design (ID), formulated in the 1990s, argues that living organisms are too complex to have evolved through natural selection and must have been created by an "intelligent designer".
ID is viewed as connected to scientific creationism, which posits scientific support for the divine creation of life. ID proponents, however, avoid biblical literalism, not contesting Earth's age or minor evolutionary changes.
Critics argue ID misunderstands natural selection and ignores precursor systems in organisms' evolution, a refutation noted by Darwin himself. They add that ID has not generated a scientific research program, widening the gap between it and established science.
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Intelligent design (ID), argument intended to demonstrate that living organisms were created in more or less their present forms by an “intelligent designer.” Intelligent design was formulated in the 1990s, primarily in the United States, as an explicit refutation of the theory of biological evolution advanced by Charles Darwin (1809–82).
Irreducible complexity
Building on a version of the argument from design for the existence of God advanced by the Anglican clergyman William Paley (1743–1805), supporters of intelligent design observed that the functional parts and systems of living organisms are “irreducibly complex,” in the sense that none of their component parts can be removed without causing the whole system to cease functioning. From this premise, they inferred that no such system could have come about through the gradual alteration of functioning precursor systems by means of random mutation and natural selection, as the standard evolutionary account maintains; instead, living organisms must have been created all at once by an intelligent designer.
In Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (1996), the American molecular biologist Michael Behe, the leading scientific spokesperson for intelligent design, offered three major examples of irreducibly complex systems that allegedly cannot be explained by natural means:
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- the bacterial flagellum, used for locomotion
- the cascade of molecular reactions that occur in blood clotting, or coagulation
- the immune system.
Intelligent design and creationism
Intelligent design is widely perceived as being allied with scientific creationism, the notion that scientific facts can be adduced in support of the divine creation of the various forms of life. Supporters of intelligent design have maintained, however, that they take no position on creation and are unconcerned with biblical literalism. Consequently, they do not contest the prevailing scientific view on the age of Earth, nor do they dispute the occurrence of small evolutionary changes, which are amply observed and seemingly work by natural selection.
Like earlier proponents of creationism, they have written statutes or initiated lawsuits designed to permit the teaching of their view as an alternative to evolution in American public schools, where instruction in any form of religion is constitutionally forbidden. In the major case on the issue, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005), concerning a school district in Dover, Pennsylvania, a federal court ruled that intelligent design was not clearly distinct from creationism and therefore should be excluded from the curriculum on the basis of earlier decisions, notably McLean v. Arkansas (1982).
Criticisms
Opponents of intelligent design argued that it rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of natural selection and that it ignores the existence of precursor systems in the evolutionary history of numerous organisms. Some noted that the argument had been refuted by Darwin himself in direct response to Paley. Beginning in the 1990s, conceptual advances in molecular biology shed additional light on how irreducible complexity can be achieved by natural means. Evolutionary biologists proposed various approaches to explain Behe’s three examples of complexity, including: (1) the self-organizing nature of biochemical systems, (2) the built-in redundancy of complex organic structures (if one crucial step is absent, other processes can achieve the same result), and (3) the role of versatile exploratory processes that, in the course of their normal physiological functioning, can help give rise to useful new structures of the body. Meanwhile, intelligent design has appeared incapable of generating a scientific research program, which has inevitably broadened the gap between it and the established norms of science.