Do those that believe in intelligent design believe we evolved from a different species?

Answer 1

We still need to figure that out

Answer 2

No. Intelligent design is the belief that God (specifically the Christian God) created the world as told in Genesis. The real debate is between those of intelligent design and Evolutionists, and/or Darwinists (survival of the fittest?)
Basically, according to Intelligent design, the world was created in Seven days. (Even allowing one for rest! I'm so hiring that construction company to build my house...) Evolutionists believe in the big bang and other theories that state that everything evolved on Earth from single celled organisms into what the world is today in the past few billions of years.

Therefore, humans were created by God in his likeness. No evolving necessary.

Answer 3

No, intelligent design is the theory that a higher power created humans and no evolution is involved. In fact, intelligent design is the exact opposite of evolution.

Answer 4

My question would be why would those who believe in intelligent design be trying to answer biology questions? In other words, why are they even here reading questions with the intent of answering?

Answer 5

Intelligent Design proponents like Michael Behe or Bill Dembski are not saying that there was no evolution, but that it could not have happened as described in the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution. As you can see, it gets technical, but bear with me.

To wrap up the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution in a nut shell, let's just say that according to the theory species evolve in a step-wise fashion trough a process of natural selection, which acts on random variation. Or in other words, within a population you find a variety of individuals with traits that differ within a certain range due to random processes such as genetic mutations or environmental influences (epigenetics). Natural selection, as a non-random, directed process acts on this population in such a way that only those with a particular set of traits will get to reproduce. Their genes will thus be present in future generations and through generations of selection certain traits will emerge and become prominent within this population. As the evironment is changing, so are the members of the population. At one point, the newly emerged population is so different from the original population that you actually have a new species. This, in a nut shell, is what most biologists would argue today as the process of evolution.

Here is the rub for the ID folks: For one, they believe that you can detect a design in nature which therefore must point at a designer. While people like Dembski or Behe never really come out to say it is God, they nonetheless suggest an intelligent designer. For you and me that most likely translates into ... God.

Michael Behe also argues that stepwise evolution is not possible since their exist strutures that are irreducibly complex. Sounds complicated, but Behe's argument is compellingly easy - and as you will see, amazingly wrong. Behe argues that there are structures like the flagellum of a sperm cell or complex biochemical cascades of enzymes, as in case of blood coagulation, that would not allow for a stepwise evolution. As soon as one part of these complex systems is missing, they cease to function and would thus lead to death. For example, if your blood clotting cascade would miss a certain enzyme, you would bleed to death. How then can there be a stepwise evolution when the absence of only one step would already lead to death?

The problem is that Behe ignores the fact that in biology already existing systems can be coopted into performing new functions. For example, one of the enzymes involved in blood coagulation is also involved in blood pressure regulation, reproduction, developement and possibly more. I a recent science paper, Joe Thornton showed very nicely how a system that seems to be irreducibly complex can actually evolve in a stepwise fashion.

So, what then is the problem with ID? Well, for one they get the science wrong. A s I just showed, stepwise evolution is possible even if at first sight it doesn't seem possible. Moreover though, they insist that during evolution certain major steps had to be caused by an intelligent designer, a divine influence, or else these new ordered systems - or species - wouldn't be possible. The problem with that is not the idea of a God being involved in evolution; at this point, ID is not doing science anymore but has moved into a natural philosophy. No, the problem is that now there is a solution being injected that is based not on scientific evidence. As such, it is not natural philosophy either, since natural philosophy requires to be based on scientific concepts.

So, it's not science and it's not philosophy, then it might be theology. This, however, is equally problematic, since the ID folks argue that design is scientifically detectable in nature and that one can scientifically deduce the designer. That's not theology... Theology might best be summed up as *fides quaerens intellectum* (St. Anslem of Canterbury: faith seeking understanding). It begins with a revelatory experience and tries to understand this experience through means of expressing it in religious symbols. Those symbols can be Scripture, tradition, doctrine. But theology does not try to get from understanding to faith, which in case of ID wouldn't work to begin with, since their science is wrong.

So, what are we left with? A position that is neither good theology nor philosophy, and certainly not science at all.

Perhaps a bit more than you wanted to know, but maybe you find it helpful.

Answer 6

I personally believe that there is evolution, but not from ape to man. If so, where are all the middle animals/humans? There are fossils of everything else and if evolution took millions of years, there should be living and fossilized middle stage beings all over. Why are the apes still here?

If evolution is still going on, we have to answer the politically unacceptable question: who is ahead, and who will die out due to inferiority?

Answer 7

ok here's how it went god dropped out of high school and went to a strip club he then met marry and "did it" with her then 9 months later mary spat us out the end :)