Intelligent design

Intelligent design (ID) holds that it is possible to infer from empirical evidence that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." Intelligent design cannot be inferred from complexity alone, since complex patterns often happen by chance. ID focuses on just those sorts of complex patterns that in our experience are invariably produced by a mind that conceives and executes a plan. Intelligent design may be detectable in natural laws and the structure of the cosmos; it may also be detectable in at least some features of living things.

Intelligent design is not the same as creationism, since ID relies on scientific evidence rather than on Scripture or religious doctrines. ID makes no claims about biblical chronology, and a person does not have to believe in God to infer intelligent design in nature. ID does not tell us the identity of the designer, so it is not the same as natural theology, which reasons from nature to the attributes of God. ID is not an argument from ignorance; it cannot be inferred simply because the cause of something is unknown, any more than a person accused of willful intent can be convicted without evidence. ID does not claim that design must be optimal; something may be intelligently designed even if it is flawed (as are many objects made by humans). ID does not claim that all species of living things were created in their present forms, and it does not claim to provide a complete account of the history of the universe or of living things.

ID consists only of the minimal assertion that it is possible to infer from empirical evidence that some features of the natural world are best explained by an intelligent cause. It conflicts with views claiming that there is no real design in the cosmos (e.g., materialistic philosophy) or in living things (e.g., Darwinian evolution) or that design, though real, is undetectable (e.g., some forms of theistic evolution). Because of such conflicts, ID has generated controversy.

History

Inferring design from nature is at least as old as Plato and Aristotle, and Christian writers have used the inference for centuries to argue for God’s existence and attributes. The minimalist view described above, however, emerged in the 1980s.

In the 1970s, chemist Charles B. Thaxton had been impressed by chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi’s argument that the information in DNA could not be reduced to physics and chemistry. Something more was needed. In 1984, Thaxton joined with materials scientist Walter L. Bradley and geochemist Roger L. Olsen to publish The Mystery of Life’s Origin, which criticized “chemical evolution,” the idea that unguided natural processes produced the first living cells abiotically, from non-living materials. The authors distinguished between order (such as we find in crystals), complexity (such as we find in random mixtures of molecules) and “specified complexity” (the information-rich complexity in biological molecules such as DNA). Relying on the uniformitarian principle “that the kinds of causes we observe producing certain effects today can be counted on to have produced similar effects in the past,” the authors argued, “What is needed is to identify in the present an abiotic cause of specified complexity.” Thaxton, Bradley and Olsen concluded: “We have observational evidence in the present that intelligent investigators can (and do) build contrivances to channel energy down nonrandom chemical pathways to bring about some complex chemical synthesis, even gene building. May not the principle of uniformity then be used in a broader frame of consideration to suggest that DNA had an intelligent cause at the beginning?”

The following year (1985), molecular biologist Michael Denton published Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, which criticized the evidence for Darwin’s theory and defended the view that design could be inferred from living things. Since “living things are machines for the purposes of description, research, and analysis,” Denton wrote, it is legitimate to extend the analogy between living things and machines to attribute their origin to include intelligent design. He concluded: “The inference to design is a purely a posteriori induction based on a ruthlessly consistent application of the logic of analogy. The conclusion may have religious implications [though Denton did not draw any], but it does not depend on religious presuppositions.”

In 1989, biologists Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon (under the editorship of Charles Thaxton) published Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins. The book’s introduction explained that it was “not intended to be a balanced treatment” of the subject, but to present “a favorable case for intelligent design” in order “to balance the overall curriculum” in biology classes. The book concluded: “Any view or theory of origins must be held in spite of unsolved problems..., [but] there is impressive and consistent evidence, from each area we have studied, for the view that living things are the product of intelligent design.”

Two years later (1991), Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson published Darwin On Trial, which critically analyzed the logic and assumptions Darwinists use to rule out design in living things. Johnson concluded: “Darwinist scientists believe that the cosmos is a closed system of material causes and effects, and they believe that science must be able to provide a naturalistic explanation for the wonders of biology that appear to have been designed for a purpose. Without assuming those beliefs they could not deduce that common ancestors once existed for all the major groups of the biological world, or that random mutations and natural selection can substitute for an intelligent designer.”

A second edition of Pandas came out in 1993. The same year, Johnson hosted a small, private meeting of ID proponents at Pajaro Dunes, near Monterey, California. Participants included many of the scholars who later became prominent in controversies over ID, some of whom are described below. Some scenes from the Pajaro Dunes meeting are included in the 2002 film, Unlocking the Mystery of Life . Another, much larger meeting was held in 1996 at Biola University in La Mirada, California, and the proceedings were later published.

In 1996, geologist and philosopher of science Stephen C. Meyer (a participant of the 1993 Pajaro Dunes meeting) and political scientist John G. West started the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC) as a project of the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington. The Discovery Institute, a nonprofit public policy organization focusing on a variety of political, social and economic issues, had been founded in 1990 by Bruce K. Chapman, formerly Secretary of State for Washington, Director of the U. S. Census Bureau under President Ronald Reagan, and U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations Organizations in Vienna.

The same year (1996), biochemist Michael J. Behe (who also attended the Pajaro Dunes meeting) published Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. In it, Behe argued that some features of living cells are characterized by an “irreducible complexity” that cannot be explained by Darwinian processes but points instead to intelligent design. Behe’s views are described in more detail below.

Between 1996 and 2000, scholars who had attended the Pajaro Dunes and Biola University meetings published many other books important to ID. Johnson alone published four. In 1998, mathematician and philosopher William A. Dembski published The Design Inference, which formalized and quantified the way people routinely infer design and extended the same reasoning to features of the natural world. Dembski also established the Michael Polanyi Center at Baylor University to study intelligent design. Dembski’s work is described in more detail below.

In 1999, a conference was held in Kunming, China, at which American, European and Chinese scientists discussed the implications of fossils that had been found at nearby Chengjiang. The Chengjiang fossils documented in great detail the abrupt appearance of most major animal body plans (phyla) in the Cambrian Explosion, a feature of the fossil record that differs from the branching-tree pattern expected from Darwin’s theory. Michael Denton, along with philosopher of biology Paul A. Nelson and molecular biologist Jonathan Wells (both of whom had attended the 1993 Pajaro Dunes meeting) presented controversial papers challenging Darwinian hypotheses of the origin of animal body plans.

In 2000, the Michael Polanyi Center at Baylor hosted an international “Nature of Nature” conference at which several hundred scholars (including several Nobel laureates) discussed the pros and cons of ID. The same year, the CRSC changed its name to the Center for Science & Culture (CSC), which counted among its fellows most of the people prominent in the ID movement. CSC fellow Jonathan Wells published Icons of Evolution, which criticized the way biology textbooks exaggerate the evidence for Darwin’s theory and misuse it to promote materialistic philosophy. In 2001 the U. S. Congress adopted the No Child Left Behind Act, accompanied by a House-Senate report stating that “a quality science education should prepare students to distinguish the data and testable theories of science from religious or philosophical claims that are made in the name of science. Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist.” Although the report did not mention (much less advocate teaching) intelligent design, it was widely regarded as a major victory for ID.

By then, ID had become front-page news in The New York Times. It has since generated considerable controversy in science, education, religion and law (see below).

Ideas of Some Leading ID Theorists

Michael J. Behe

In The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin wrote: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” In his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box, biochemist Michael J. Behe wrote: “What type of biological system could not be formed by 'numerous successive, slight modifications? Well, for starters, a system that is irreducibly complex. By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.”

Behe described several features of living cells – features unknown to Darwin – that are irreducibly complex. These include the light-sensing mechanism in eyes, the human blood-clotting system, and the bacterial flagellum.

When light strikes a photosensitive cell in an animal eye, it is absorbed by a molecule that alters an attached protein, which then initiates what biochemists call a “cascade” – a precisely integrated series of molecular reactions – that in this case causes a nerve impulse to be transmitted to the brain. If any molecule in the cascade is missing or defective, no nerve impulse is transmitted; the person is blind. Since the light-sensing mechanism doesn't function at all unless every part is present, it is irreducibly complex.

A second example of irreducible complexity is the human blood-clotting cascade. A clot itself is not all that complicated, but the blood-clotting cascade consists of more than a dozen protein molecules that must interact sequentially with each other to produce a clot only at the right time and place. Each protein is extremely complex in its own right, but it is the cascade that Behe identified as irreducibly complex, because all of the molecules must be present for the system to work. If even one is missing (as in the case of hemophilia), the system fails. Thus it is irreducibly complex.

A third example of irreducible complexity is the motor of the bacterial flagellum, a long, hair-like external filament. The common intestinal bacterium E. coli has several flagella; when they turn in one direction they bundle together to form a long, rapidly rotating whip that propels the organism through the surrounding liquid, and when they reverse direction the whip unravels and the organism stops abruptly and tumbles. At the base of each flagellum is a proton-driven motor that can turn thousands of times a minute and reverse direction in a quarter turn. The motor's drive shaft is attached to a rotor that turns within a stator, and the entire assembly is anchored in the cell wall by various bushings. The filament itself is attached to the drive shaft by a hook that functions as a universal joint so the flagellum can twist as it turns. By knocking out genes and screening for cells that can no longer move, researchers have identified several dozen gene products (proteins) required for assembly and operation of the flagellum and its motor. Remove any one of them, and the apparatus stops working. Like the light-sensing mechanism and the blood-clotting cascade, the bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex.

Behe searched the scientific literature but found no articles proposing detailed, testable explanations of how these and other irreducibly complex systems originated through Darwinian evolution. “There is no publication in the scientific literature,” he wrote, “that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred. There are assertions that such evolution occurred, but absolutely none are supported by pertinent experiments or calculations.”

Behe argued that biochemists know what it takes to build irreducibly complex systems such as these; it takes design. He wrote: “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.”

William A. Dembski

In The Design Inference (1998), mathematician and philosopher William A. Dembski formalized, quantified, and generalized the logic of design inferences. According to Dembski, people infer design by using what he calls an “Explanatory Filter.” He wrote: “Whenever explaining an event, we must choose from three competing modes of explanation. These are regularity [i.e., natural law], chance, and design.” When attempting to explain something, “regularities are always the first line of defense. If we can explain by means of a regularity, chance and design are automatically precluded. Similarly, chance is always the second line of defense. If we can't explain by means of a regularity, but we can explain by means of chance, then design is automatically precluded. There is thus an order of priority to explanation. Within this order regularity has top priority, chance second, and design last.” According to Dembski, the Explanatory Filter “formalizes what we have been doing right along when we recognize intelligent agents.”

Of course, different aspects of the same thing can be due to different causes. For example, an abandoned car will rust according to natural laws, though the actual pattern of rust may be due to chance. Yet the car itself was designed. So regularity, chance, and design, though competing, can also be complementary.

When inferring design, ruling out regularity is the easiest step. Ruling out chance is more difficult, since mere improbability (i.e., complexity) is not sufficient to infer design. Something that is complex could easily be due to chance. For example, if several dozen letters of the alphabet were randomly lined up it would not be surprising to find a two-letter word such as “it” somewhere in the lineup. A two-letter word is not improbable enough to rule out chance. So, how complex must something be? Dembski sets a quantitative limit on what chance could conceivably accomplish with his “universal probability bound.” The total number of events throughout cosmic history cannot possibly exceed the number of elementary particles in the universe (about 10^80) times the number of seconds since the Big Bang (much less than 10^25) times the maximum rate of transitions from one physical state to another (about 10^45, based on the Planck time). Thus the total number of state changes in all elementary particles since the Big Bang cannot exceed 10^150, and anything with a probability of less than 10^-150 cannot be due to chance.

In practice, however, the universal probability bound is not always useful, so Dembski introduces another criterion, “specificity,” or conformity to an independently given pattern. For example, if we see twenty-eight letters and spaces lined up in the sequence WDLMNLT DTJBKWIRZREZLMQC O P we would not infer design, even though the exact sequence is highly improbable (and thus complex). But if we see twenty-eight letters spaces lined up in the sequence METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL, we would immediately infer design, because the sequence conforms to an independently given pattern (namely, a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet). So in order to infer design the Explanatory Filter requires answering “Yes” to all three of the following questions: Is the feature contingent (i.e.. not due to natural law or regularity)? Is the feature complex (i.e., highly improbable)? And is the feature specified (i.e., does it conform to an independently given pattern)?

The hallmark of design is thus “specified complexity.” According to Dembski, it is our universal human experience that whenever we encounter specified complexity it is a product of an intelligent agent. If specified complexity can be found in nature, then it, too, must be due to intelligent agency. As Dembski put it in The Design Revolution (2004): “The fundamental claim of intelligent design is straightforward and easily intelligible: namely, there are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence.”

Stephen C. Meyer

Irreducible complexity and specified complexity are not the only ways to formulate a design inference. According to philosopher Paul Thagard: “Inference to a scientific theory is not only a matter of the relation of the theory to the evidence, but must also take into account the relation of competing theories to the evidence. Inference is a matter of choosing among alternative theories, and we choose according to which one provides the best explanation.”

Geologist and philosopher of science Stephen C. Meyer uses this “inference to the best explanation” approach to supplement the Explanatory Filter. According to Meyer, the subunits of DNA are like a four-letter alphabet carrying information “just like meaningful English sentences or functional lines of code in computer software.” This information cannot be reduced to the laws of chemistry and physics. In 2003, Meyer wrote: “The information contained in an English sentence or computer software does not derive from the chemistry of the ink or the physics of magnetism, but from a source extrinsic to physics and chemistry altogether. Indeed, in both cases, the message transcends the properties of the medium. The information in DNA also transcends the properties of its material medium.” So biological information is not due to natural laws or regularities.

Since a typical gene contains hundreds of such subunits, and an organisms contains hundreds of genes, the information carried in an organism’s DNA is extremely complex. Furthermore, a living cell needs not just any DNA, but DNA that encodes functional proteins. To be functional, a protein must have a very specific sequence, so the information in DNA is not only contingent and complex, but also specified.

Historical science typically relies on a uniformitarian appeal to causes that can be observed in the present to explain events in the past. Following this line of reasoning, Meyer formulated a scientific inference to the best explanation for the origin of information in DNA. “We know from experience,” he wrote, “that conscious intelligent agents can create informational sequences and systems.” Since “we know that intelligent agents do produce large amounts of information, and since all known natural processes do not (or cannot), we can infer design as the best explanation of the origin of information in the cell.”

“Inferences to the best explanation,” according to Meyer, “do not assert the adequacy of one causal explanation merely on the basis of the inadequacy of some other causal explanation. Instead, they compare the explanatory power of many competing hypotheses to determine which hypothesis would, if true, provide the best explanation for some set of relevant data.” The principal hypothesis competing with ID to explain the origin of biological information is that the molecular subunits of DNA self-assembled to form primitive cells. Yet although scientists have shown that some of the molecular building-blocks of DNA, RNA and protein can form under natural conditions, without pre-existing cells or intelligent design those building-blocks do not spontaneously assemble into large information-carrying molecules. Since the only cause known to be capable in the present of producing such molecules outside of living cells is intelligent design, Meyer argues that it is reasonable to infer that an intelligence acted somehow in the past to produce the existing information-rich sequences in living cells.

In 2004, Meyer published an article in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington titled “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories.” Arguing that the origin of major animal body plans in the Cambrian explosion required an enormous increase in complex specified information, Meyer wrote: “Analysis of the problem of the origin of biological information... exposes a deficiency in the causal powers of natural selection that corresponds precisely to powers that agents are uniquely known to possess. Intelligent agents have foresight. Such agents can select functional goals before they exist.” Intelligent design theorists “are not positing an arbitrary explanatory element unmotivated by a consideration of the evidence. Instead, they are positing an entity possessing precisely the attributes and causal powers that the phenomenon in question requires.”

Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards

Although most ID arguments currently focus on design in living things, some focus on design in the cosmos. In The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery (2004), astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez and philosopher Jay W. Richards argued that the universe and our place in it are designed not only for life, but also for science.

The authors reiterate a point made by others – that over a dozen universal constants (including the strength of gravity, the strength of the electromagnetic force, and the ratio of the masses of the proton and electron) are remarkably fine-tuned for life. If any of these constants were even slightly different, the universe would be inhabitable. Gonzalez and Richards also point out that the Milky Way is just the right kind of galaxy to support life, and our solar system is situated in a relatively narrow “galactic habitable zone” in the Milky Way that minimizes threats from dangerous radiation and comet impacts, and also ensures the availability of heavy elements needed to form large rocky planets.

Our Sun is just the right size and has the necessary stability to support life. Unlike the other planets in our solar system, the Earth is in a “circumstellar habitable zone” that permits moderate temperatures and liquid surface water. Furthermore, the Earth is just the right size to hold an atmosphere, consist of dry land as well as oceans, and produce a protective magnetic field. Finally, the Moon is just the right size and distance from the Earth to stabilize the tilt of the latter and thereby prevent wild fluctuations in temperature. It also helps to generate tides that mix nutrients from the land with the oceans.

Not only is the Earth especially suited for life, but it is also well situated for scientific discovery. Because the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, it is relatively flat, so that from our vantage point midway from its center to its edge we can enjoy clear views of distant galaxies and the subtle cosmic background microwave radiation that provided evidence for the Big Bang. Our solar system is also well suited to scientific discovery. The simple near-circular orbits of the planets, and the large Moon orbiting the Earth, have guided scientists to an accurate understanding of gravity.

The same parameters also make possible total solar eclipses, which have played a crucial role in astronomy. During a total solar eclipse the Moon exactly covers the face of the Sun, leaving only its tenuous outer atmosphere visible from the Earth. Studying that outer atmosphere has enabled astronomers to make discoveries about the composition of the Sun and other stars. Total solar eclipses have also provided tests of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. If the Moon were smaller or larger, or closer or farther away, such discoveries and tests would have been delayed, perhaps indefinitely. To Gonzalez and Richards, it seems as though the size and orbit of the Moon were tailor-made for science.

So the most habitable places in the universe are also the best places to make scientific discoveries about it. According to Gonzalez and Richards: “There's no obvious reason to assume that the very same rare properties that allow for our existence would also provide the best overall setting to make discoveries about the world around us. We don't think this is merely coincidental. It cries out for another explanation, an explanation that suggests there's more to the cosmos than we have been willing to entertain or even imagine.” They conclude that the correlation between the factors needed for complex life and the factors needed to do science “forms a meaningful pattern” that “points to purpose and intelligent design in the cosmos.”

See also

Argument from evolution Argument from poor design Clockmaker hypothesis Cosmological argument Creation science Creationism Evolutionary algorithm False analogy Flying Spaghetti Monsterism

Intelligent design movement Intelligent falling Junk science List of scientific societies rejecting intelligent design List of works on intelligent design Natural theology Neo-Creationism Orgel's rule

Omphalos (theology) Project Steve Pseudoscience Santorum Amendment Teach the Controversy Teleological argument Wikisource:Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District et al.

External links

ID perspectives

• Discovery Institute, Center for Science and Culture
• Access Research Network
• Evolution News and Views
• Intelligent Design the Future
• International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID)
• Intelligent Design Network
• Design Inference: The website of William A. Dembski
• Uncommon Descent: William Dembski's blog
• Post-Darwinist: Denyse O'Leary's blog
• Telic Thoughts: Mike Gene's blog

Non-ID perspectives

• ACLU site on Intelligent Design
• Intelligent Design? special feature in the Natural History Magazine
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Design Arguments for the Existence of God
• National Center for Science Education articles and other resources about Intelligent Design
• Resolution from the American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences Second Edition (1999)
• Talk Origins Archive (Archive of a UseNet discussion group)
• 139 page in-depth analysis of intelligent design, irreducible complexity, and the book "Of Pandas and People" by the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District judge
• Kitzmiller: An Intelligent Ruling on 'Intelligent Design', JURIST
• ID and Creationism
• The Design Argument Elliot Sober, 2004.
• Short discussion on Natural Knowledge and Natural Design as a contrast to Intelligent Design by Richard Dawkins

Media articles

• Discovery's Creation An overview of the origin of the intelligent design movement. (Seattle Weekly)
• Intelligent Design Deja Vu What would "intelligent design" science classes look like? All we have to do is look inside some 19th-century textbooks. (Washington Post)
• How the media have covered ID (Columbia Journalism Review)
• Judge Rules Against Pa. Biology Curriculum (Associated Press)
• Banned in biology class: intelligent design (Christian Science Monitor)
• Devolution (The New Yorker)
• The Evolution Debate (The New York Times)
• Debating Evolution in the Classroom (NPR)
• Darwin Victorious (Time)
• Intelligent Design: Scientific Inquiry or Religious Indoctrination? (Justice Talking)
• Intelligent Judging — Evolution in the Classroom and the Courtroom (New England Journal of Medicine)

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