Why is Intelligent Design mocked by the scientific community?

Question

Scientists have not always approached their work as practical atheists ("God may or may not exists, but I'm going to assume he doesn't while I work").

Is the ID movement different? Or has the scientific community changed?

Answer 1

Eleventy you sarcastic so and so.Why indeed?Let me think........all of the reasons you already know,perhaps?!!!

Answer 2

The scientific community indeed has changed. This has to do more with the geological revolution of the nineteenth century than anything else. In the time shortly before Darwin started his voyage on the Beagle, the theory of tektonic plate movement was developed, and the idea that the earth might be millions or indeed billions of years old followed. This was one of the key moments where the bible was concluded not to be a good reference to the history of the universe. Of course the whole copernican revolution was important too, but that was more limited in its implications. If you accept the idea that the earth is over 4 billion years old and that there have just been humans for about 130.000 years, genesis just does not make sense anymore, it has to be explained instead of explaining anything. ID seems to try and turn back the clock on that... it eventually has to challenge a staggering amount of scientific research in the past two hundred years to make any sense at all. The only plausible reason to actually do that is because the bible says so. So yeah, that does lead to some mocking and legitimate concern, because ID tends to have considerable political clout and it is not harmless.

By the way, here's a christian scientist who's not too happy about the way ID is spreading its message in schools:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg

Answer 3

I don't know if it's mocked. You're probably getting that idea from that fact that almost no atheists can answer these types of questions without being insulting. Yet I doubt many of them are scientists. They believe that religion is incompatible with science, which shows how little they know about something they completely reject. Ironically that doesn't exactly follow any kind of scientific method I know of.

The thing about ID, though, is that it is not science. And as one of the insulting atheists correctly pointed out, it simply cannot be proven. That doesn't necessarily mean ID is false, just that it can't be proven scientifically.

Personally I don't believe in ID, rather I believe that God started the scientific process and that's it. Nevertheless, as far as creation goes, I don't think anything was created that God did not intend.

Answer 4

Intelligent Design is basically the argument from ignorance -- if we can't explain today how this or that feature evolved buy natural selection, then it must be the result of intelligent design. And if tomorrow someone sketches out a plausible scenario for the evolution of that feature, they can say, "Okay, THAT feature may have evolved but there are others that were the result of ID."

It's the old, discredited God-of-the-gaps. That's not just bad science, it's bad theology. If your god is whatever science hasn't explained today, then it's obvious your god is going to get smaller with every new discovery.

As a scientific hypothesis, Biblical literalism is vastly prferable to ID, because Biblical literalism allows us to make testable predictions -- the earth should be about 6000 years old, all species appeared at the same time, etc. However, those predictions have been amply falsified.

Intelligent Design seems less intuitively satisfying than either of the other two alternatives. If God can make a bacterial flagellum, why not make a whole camel? Why not just go poof and create the world in an instant?

Michael Behe, The only proponent of ID who actually has legitimate credentials as a biologist, actually allows for a great deal of cladogenesis. In plain English, he believes that we came from monkeys. The people who reject evolution because they don't want to believe we came from monkeys would reject ID, if they had any integrity at all. But they don't. ID isn't a scientific theory at all -- it's a cynical attempt to discredit the theory of evolution, and replace it, not with another scientific theory, but with ancient superstitions. The proponents of ID know a lot of big words, and sometimes they even use them correctly, but their target audience is not scientists -- it's ignoramuses who don't now anything more about the "theory" of intelligent design than they about the theory of evolution, but who take comfort in knowing that someone who calls himself a scientist tells they they don't have to worry about coming from monkeys, that they don't have to worry about learning all that boring and confusing junk.

Answer 5

I am always amazed at the evolutionary bigoted (and often scientifically ignorant) answers that appear on here. Clearly the dismissal of ID theory demonstrates that most have not seriously considered it.

I am unashamedly a creationist and whilst I appreciate the science behind ID theory (and yes I use the term science advisedly) I think it is a cop out to fail to recognise God as the Intelligent Designer.

Contrary to popular belief in respect of Creationists, I am neither completely stupid nor completely ignorant about scientific method and practise. I like to think rationally and logically and this is not in conflict with my Christian faith.
Intelligent Design is quite consistent with the available evidence; their problem lies in not acknowledging the Designer.

And yes the scientific community is changing; evolution is becoming the white elephant of science and is quickly being discredited in purely scientific terms. It has only lasted this long because it is the only option for doing without a Creator.

Answer 6

I think there are some problems with scientific design....one is that time and space are made of the same "stuff" Space-time and that stuff was created in the big bang so the concept of time existing before that doesn't make sense. Then if there is a creator it begs the question who created the creator. How could a fully fledged God come into existance out of nothing? Wouldn't he need a Daddy God or something?
Another problem with intelligent design is the apparent lack of an intelligent designer in the universe. What's intelligent about people being born without brains, missing a limb, blind etc. Oops I made a boo boo says the mighty God?!!!!!

Answer 7

ID is mocked more than most "theories" because it's one of the only ones that actually tries to dress itself up as a scientific theory. Science and religion were sitting there, each doing their own thing, and then ID, an undeniably religious concept, came along and said, "Look! I'm a science too!" and dressed up in a lab coat and started cavorting around. I'm sure a lot of scientists would be content if proponents of ID were to just admit that it isn't science.

Answer 8

Creationism, in any form, makes statements without facts to back it up. It makes assumptions without research. If it was really intelligent design, why are all the mountains uneven, even jagged, why are there birth defects, why does everything die.

The truth is the Universe is just fine as it is and it didn't need a designer. It just happened the way it did because that is the way it just happened.

No other explanation needed.

Answer 9

Let me tell you a story...A documentary film titled "the Privileged Planet" was made and slated for showing at the Smithsonian Institute,
until it was determined by some as having theistically suggestive information and therefore unworthy of display in the Smithsonian.
Not the the information was inaccurate, not the the scientists were proselytizing, not that any items were out and out untrue....it was too convincing that God had His hand in the creation of the universe!!!!!

Answer 10

ID is just Creationism under another name.

ID is a misnomer, ther's nothing intelligent about it. It tries to bring God (or the "Designer") into Science classrooms.

Leave God in Religious Studies where it belongs and teach only proven theories (evolution, Gravity, etc) in Science.

Answer 11

it's because intelligent design is a poor attempt by religious people to preserve some of the myths from the bible, in a so called scientific cover, an attempt to somehow recycle the primitive myths from Genesis.
But scientifically it is a nonsense theory, with no evidence whatsoever, except for the will of some people to find something to protect the belief in creation.