A lot of people talk about Intelligent Design, but no one says what it is!?

Question

I often hear proponents talk about teaching ID alongside evolution, but I have yet to see an ID textbook for students. When I ask what ID is about all I hear is people trying to poke holes in evolution, that's NOT how a scientific theory works. I've seen nothing that would represent ID as a complete, coherent theory of anything, even most of the people who are for it don't know what it is! The best I've gotten is 'ID states that the complexity of life is too great for random chance and there must have been a guiding intelligence in its creation'. That's a suggestion, not a theory. It doesn't explain anything, predict anything, and it certainly doesn't increase our understanding of anything. It's religion in a lab coat.

Answer 1

ID is an interpretation of observable facts. The theory of evolution is also an interpretation of facts. In the teaching of the evolution theory the fact of observable micro evolution within species and the fact that a multitude of different families of species exist, is interpreted that evolution was responsible to develop simple, primitive species into complex, higher species. This theory lacks observable facts.

ID on the other hand interprets the facts that a multitude of highly complex families of species exist, and evolution can only be observed within the boundaries of families, and never across families of species as evidence of intelligently designed original species that evolved successfully into families of adapted sub-species.

Also the fact the structure of information, its coding, decoding, copying and correction that was scientifically discovered in recent years gives very strong evidence that live is an intelligent design.

Today's battle against ID, with the unfair claim that ID is not scientific where evolution theory is scientific, qualifies the established science circle as "pseudo-religious" circle with zeal to exclude any Christian viewpoint in interpretation of facts, where the atheist interpretation is declared as scientific theory.

Is it a scientific way of searching for the truth to declare a theory claiming there is no intelligent being involved in creation of life (atheist viewpoint), and to declare another interpretation of the same facts as “no scientific theory” just because it does not follow the traditional atheist paradigm of science in the last 180 years?

So it is the popular science - the declaration of "scientific" theories of evolution that were grown entirely on a narrow-minded atheistic background, which is "religion in a lab coat".

Furthermore the theory of evolution will run against more and more contradiction in the foreseeable future as science will be able to decode more facts out of the encoded DNA information. Brace for impact.

Answer 2

ID is not a science and should not be taught alongside scientific theories like evolution because it is not falsifiable.

Any scientific theory has to have the ability to be tested. How could you possibly frame a scientific experiment to test whether or not an immortal, unfathomable deity made all the universe? There is no way to do that, therefore it is not science.

There might be a creator, or there might not. The point is that this kind of thing belongs in a philosophy class or a church, not in a science class, because it is not science. That doesn't mean it's dumb or even untrue, just that it's not scientific.

Answer 3

I think the truly religious people do believe in evolution, and not in ID. ID is for those so-called "religious" people who don't have enough faith to support their own religious beliefs. To compensate for their lack of faith, they look for excuses to convince them that God exists. Heck, if you are TRULY religious, why would you even BOTHER TRYING to find scientific evidence supporting religion? By definition, religion is based on faith.
If evolution can be linked to God in any way, then it's this: evolution is a test given by God to see who has faith and who doesn't. Unfortunately for all the ID people, they've failed God's test.

To those who really think that ID is a science, try to answer these questions:
1. Describe your theory of ID. First what happened, then what, and then, etc. Oh right, nobody knows; even the creator of this "theory" doesn't know what the theory is.
2. How does ID fit with current knowledge? Evolution does not contradict knowledge from other fields. But how many laws (from all areas, even physics) does ID violate? No other theory in scientific history has contradicted as many laws as ID alone.

Answer 4

you have it correct.

I would like to see something addressed by the ID supporters. I believe it to be bad religion. The creator is not named and is left to the interpreter. Many people will use this to give support to space aliens as creators. Most importantly it allows sicience breakthroughs to question faith. This can be dangerous.

Here is an example brought up by others. One of the arguments used by ID is that complex systems can not spontaneously arise.(too many independent parts) It has been found that the eye has two very different "designs". Our eye has what may be a flaw, you know it as your blind spot. The nueral connections are placed in front of your photoreceptors. Other species have it the opposite and have a better designed eye.

This leads to a questioning of the ability of the designer.

Bad religion, not a science at all. Keep them seperate where they belong.

Answer 5

To me, ID has been used as a way for fundamentalist christians to attempt to prove the existance of god. Why you need proof beyond faith for that is beyond me.

I think a lot of scientists believe in some form of a designer to merge their belief in a god with their understanding of evolution, but I don't see ID as ever competing with evolution as a theory. In a religious study class, as a way to merge belief in a superior being with scientific studies I can see it being taught, but it is not really science in my mind. The main statement behind ID is that things are too complex to have randomly evolved, which to me is a cop-out, if things are complex then we need to study them more to better understand them, not just go with the idea that god designed it that way so we don't need to understand it.

The main ID example that I've seen, is the formation of the bacterial flagellum, which has a large number of parts and which won't work if any are missing. There are many counterarguments to this in the scientific community though, which explain away all ID points.

Really your last point is best, it's religion in a lab coat.

Answer 6

After studying Darwinian Evolution for years; I have the same opinion of it, that you have of ID.
There are many conflicting theories of evolution!
What are a couple theories of ID?
!. The geneom has the built in ability, to rewrite the information in the DNA; and pass that information through genetic inherentance.
2. New information is downloaded to the DNA form an over ridding mind; that rules the universe. That causes the life to pass new traits on, to succeeding generations. Causing them to adapt to changes in their environment.
3. The geneom has all the information within it, to allow for many varieties with in a family (kind), so that each family can adapt to many different environments and challenges that nature troughs at it.
Just three ideas off the top of my head!

Answer 7

ID is the idea that evolution hasn't been proven 100%, so the gaps must be filled in with the phrase: "God did it." So, for example, the missing link has not been found. Therefore, we should assume that speciation occured not by natural selection and mutations, rather it was God who turned monkeys into humans.
Realistically, ID is just a way for people who interpret the bible literally to reconcile the bible with evolution. These people feel threatened by a single part of the thousands of portions of the bible being disproven, so they insist that evolutionary theory include a mention of god.
ID cannot be tested because god is not thoroughly defined by any source and god is supernatural. Science, by definiton, deals exclusively with the laws governing the natural world. (ID doesn't actually use the word "god," but it says that an inteligent supernatural force is involved. No, I don't see the difference either.)
ID may actually be a detriment to medicine. Many ways to treat AIDS involve dealing with HIV after exposure to drugs. Evolution tells us that by changing one's internal conditions through the use of medicines, HIV with drug resistance survive, causing evolution to occur. As a result, the remaining viruses are antibiotic-resistant and can be delt with accordingly. With ID, the explanation would be that God is altering the genes of the viruses, but since God works in mysterious ways, the proper way to deal with the HIZ would be unknown. Therefore, evolution can help to treat disease, but ID just makes doing so more difficult.

Evolution has yet to be disproven and is supported by science. ID is just a sneaky way to make creationism sound somewhat scientific.

Answer 8

That's right, but ID theorists do have a point. It does seem that the world was "designed" if you will to work the way it does. Trying to imagine another configuration for reality seems impossible, but that's based on the fact that we base our understandings on this reality. If ID is right or wrong though, it doesn't matter, nothing will change nor will it allow us to predict anything. ID certainly won't be encouraging any scientific breakthroughs.

Answer 9

Intelligent Design is a speculation, not a scientific theory.

Intelligent Design states that there are biochemical systems and structures that are so complex that it is impossibly unlikely for them to have evolved, and so intelligence must have been involved in their design.

It's not good science until such point as we get some direct corroborating evidence of the Intelligent Designer(s). It should be taught in science classes as an example of what science isn't.

Answer 10

Read all of the information available. Google Darwin, Evolution, Creation, etc.
Then, form your own opinion.
What Darwin stated was, life generally evolves to fit it's environment. He was looking at various fauna in the Galapagos. In example, there were new species of finches that had evolved with different shaped beaks....suited to different types of food.
Darwin never stated we evolved from apes. He suggested that changes occur gradually in species. The changes that help a species survive will go on.
One modern day example would be a study I read on Asian-Americans and their diets. On average, Asian-Americans are a few inches taller than their grandparents. In the study, this was linked to our American diet with lots of milk and cheese (In china, cheese would be considered rotted milk). This is an example of a change in a group brought about by a change in diet. Now, imagine ten generations later......twenty generations later, etc.
The above is an argument for evolution.
Personally, I very much believe in God. I don't literally believe in the book of Genesis. To me, much of that book is like poetry. It does explain some things, but in a way most people could understand at the time (3,000 years ago).
I also don't believe that religion is a bad thing. It's when it's taken to the extremes that it can become a bad thing. If it's forced down anyone's throat, it's definitely a bad thing.