Intelligent Design - Part Two

"You contain a trillion copies of a large, textual document written in a highly accurate, digital code, each copy as voluminous as a substantial book," explains renowned scientist Richard Dawkins, commenting on our DNA makeup. As Dawkins himself would admit, any minor adjustment in this "textual document" would have dramatic consequences.

Yet, Dawkins doesn't believe this complex DNA bears the imprint of a divine, supernatural power. According to Dawkins, science itself "offers us an explanation of how complexity (the difficult) arose out of simplicity (the easy). The hypothesis of God offers no worthwhile explanation for anything, for it simply postulates what we are trying to explain."

The explanation for the existence and complexities of the universe, including conscious life, that atheists such as Dawkins prefer is naturalism. Dawkins' most recent book The God Delusion is a literary declaration of war against religion and proponents of Intelligent Design. Rather, argues Dawkins, Darwin's theory of natural selection is more than sufficient to explain such wonders as our voluminous DNA makeup.

Is Dawkins' dismissal of theism and Intelligent Design justified?

What is "Intelligent Design"?

For years, the leading alternative theory to evolution was creationism, typically understood according to the biblical book of Genesis (although many within the various faith groups differed as to the interpretive details of the Genesis account). By the 1960s and 70s, naturalism had, for all intents and purposes, completely displaced biblical creationism in the scientific community and mainstream academia.

The decisive victory of naturalism was made possible by the fact that creationism was primarily a religious explanation. And, beginning in the 1960s, religion was ruled out of the classroom and seriously restricted in the public square by an exuberant Supreme Court.

Then came Intelligent Design. According to the Intelligent Design Network, the theory of Intelligent Design (or "ID" for short) represents a "scientific disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary theory that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion." It is a disagreement fiercely unwelcome by the mainstream scientific community.

ID is not synonomous with biblical creationism. While biblical creationism would arguably fit within the large ID umbrella, there are many (and perhaps a majority of) ID proponents who reject Creationism. Nevertheless, one does not have to believe the Bible is inerrant or embrace a six-day Creationist model in order to respect the ID position.

So what is it? Dr. Stephen Meyer, one of the architects of ID and a leader of the Discovery Institute, explains that the "theory of intelligent design holds that there are tell-tale features of living systems and the universe that are best explained by an intelligent cause."

According to the Intelligent Design Network, ID claims that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection."

Thus, ID is more in keeping with philosopher William Paley than with Genesis. Paley, an Enlightenment-era religious philosopher, developed the most famous argument for a divine designer in his landmark book Natural Theology. In its pages, Paley lays out his famous watchmaker analogy as follows:

. . . when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive. . . that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e.g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, or placed after any other manner or in any other order than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it. . . . the inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker -- that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer, who comprehended its construction and designed its use.

Naturalistic evolution is a direct challenge to Paley's watchmaker theory, in that it holds that the complex universe and the reality of conscious life came about by natural selection - a grand, cosmic progression committed to the survival and continuance. Where theists argue that it is highly improbable, if not impossible, for a complex world to evolve from chance, naturalists counter that incremental, evolutionary progression can get the job done just fine.

Dawkins is a huge proponent, of course, of natural selection. "[N]atural selection is a cumulative process which breaks the problem of improbability up into small pieces," explains Dawkins in his latest book. "Each of the small pieces is slightly improbable, but not prohibitively so. When large numbers of these slightly improbable events are stacked up in series, the end product of the accumulation is very, very improbable indeed, improbable enough to be beyond the reach of chance." Beyond the "reach of chance," that is, if the end product were expected to come all at once.

Boiled down to its essentials, Dawkins and other atheists argue that incrementalism (small steps in evolutionary progress) make natural selection the most compelling scientific explanation for the universe. The credibility of this evolutionary arguments rests, of course, on its plausibility. And that is something the author of Origin of the Species himself recognized.

Charles Darwin once 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 other words, according to its founder, the theory of evolution rests on the possibility of complex organs evolving to their present form through successive modifications or mutations.

Never mind the self-serving audacity of Darwin here. He puts the burden of proof on his critics, rather than accepting it for himself. He, after all, was the one proposing a new theory. But never mind that. The point is that, if Darwin's standard is at all meaningful, evolution has been disproven. You read that right. If the standard is fair, Darwin and Dawkins have long been proven wrong.

Biochemist Michael Behe, one of the most influential proponents of ID, examined various complex organisms, including the human eye and even the flagellum. He found these organisms to be intricate, detailed, and "irreducible." This creates an insurmountable problem for Darwin - one that, by his own standard, decimates his theory. Behe explains: "An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced gradually by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, since any precursor to an irreducibly complex system is by definition nonfunctional." And a nonfunctional system would never survive in an extended timeline where "survival of the fittest" was the rule.

The complexity of the universe, the nature of life, and the "irreducible complexity" of numerous basic organisms all point to the work of a designer, according to ID theorists. Says the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center: "...we use observations about how intelligent design works in the present to look at aspects of the natural world to see if they are designed." Accordingly, the ID theory derives solely from "applying observations about intelligent action and principles of information theory to the construction of biological systems, and nothing more."

Intelligent Design Criticized

The leading classical response to the "design" argument for a God of some kind came from the pen of philosopher David Hume. In his Dialogues on Natural Religion, Hume critically weighs the design argument through fictional characters. Through his fictitious skeptic, Philo, Hume seeks to pick apart Haley's 19th century intelligent design argument.

He dismisses as unconvincing any claim that human planning on earth might resemble divine planning of the cosmos. He also points out that proving the existence of a divine designer, in no way, sheds light on that God's attributes. Hume also argued that the world was "faulty and imperfect," and this therefore undermines the concept of a perfect, flawless designer. According to Hume's Philo, "you must acknowledge that it is impossible for us to tell, from our limited views, whether this system [or creator] contains any great faults or deserves any considerable praise."

Hume's responses to Haley are strong enough to limit the distance one can go with ID. Hume does a good job of proving that ID doesn't get you to the God of the Bible, and that ID still leaves a lot of questions to be answered in its own right. However, aside from those accomplishments, Hume's argument fails to displace ID.

However, over time, naturalists began to see Paley's analogy of a watch as supportive of naturalistic evolution. As the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains: "[Paley's] idea of a complex, perfected organism dropping suddenly amidst foreign surroundings, as illustrated by the finding of a watch, was the dogmatic externalism the rebound from which gave birth to the subsequent hypotheses of natural selection and adaptation to environment and the theory of evolution as a whole."

Another line of criticism of ID is that it is merely a "theory of the gaps." Does ID merely "fill in the gaps" of Darwinian naturalism? Yes, answers Dawkins. In The God Delusion, he writes: "Creationists eagerly seek a gap in present-day knowledge or understanding. If an apparent gap is found, it is assumed that God, by default, must fill it.

Chris Toumay, writing for the American Anthropological Association, declares: "The core of intelligent design theory is the belief that, because we do not know the entire natural history of a complex phenomenon, it must be a miracle."

John Andrews, president of the American Phytopathological Society, agrees: "There is no scientific evidence for intelligent design, nor can there be because it is essentially a belief-based concept." No evidence?

Judging the merits of this critique rests on a more fundamental question: What evidence is admissible in the court of science?

According to the Intelligent Design Network, "ID is controversial because of the implications of its evidence, rather than the significant weight of its evidence. ID proponents believe science should be conducted objectively, without regard to the implications of its findings" (emphasis theirs). In other words, ID is rejected by the mainstream scientific community, because it appeals to the supernatural. And that is a big no-no.

Mainstream science today rests on the premise of naturalism. Steeped in modernism and now sprinkled with postmodernism, these scientists utterly reject the possibility of the supernatural. Miracles are out. Speculation is in, but only if it involves testable, natural explanations.

But what if the scientific evidence points to supernatural possibilities? What if that evidence is stronger for a supernatural explanation than for a natural one? ID is more than a "theory of the gaps." It's about observations. According to the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center:

Intelligent design theory makes inferences based upon observations about the types of complexity that can be produced by the action of intelligent agents vs. the types of information that can be produced through purely natural processes to infer that life was designed by an intelligence or multiple intelligences.

Darwin loyalists counter that ID's assessment of these observations amounts to a philosophical or religious conclusion. But is this any different than evolution? Didn't Darwin base his work on observation? Why is analysis of our observations okay for evolutionists but not for proponents of ID?

The answer: Naturalists only admit theories, analyses, or evidence that corroborates a naturalistic (indeed atheistic) hypothesis or conclusion. No other possibilities need apply.

Consequently, the logical, natural outcome of any study of the universe - any study, that is, based on such biased and restrictive policies - is naturalistic evolution. Biology professor Robert Durit lays it out clearly: "Biological order and design emerge from the workings of the evolutionary process and not from the hand of a designer." In other words, it was an accident. If you rule out any consideration of a supernatural possibility, this is your only option.

But is it fair to allow mainstream, modern science to get away with this? The effect of this naturalist-only position is to bar any question about a designer. So, if the universe appears designed, we are not even allowed to consider the possibility of a designer? Is that science?

And if modern science remains firmly naturalistic and closes all doors to investigating the possibility of an external, supernatural intelligent force, then it must restrict itself in its conclusive assertions. In other words, science has no right to claim that naturalistic evolution is factually correct, only that it is the best naturalistic explanation for the universe and all life.

Conclusion

Few argue with the fact that, overall, the universe and all life evince some design and systematic order. You, the reader, have a choice in explaining this condition. Either this came about by accident or it was deliberate. Atheists like Dawkins may sneer at the word "chance," but whether it's a sudden "pop" or a gradual climb, the underlying assumption of an atheistic view of evolution comes ultimately down to chance. Natural selection, if not guided by an intelligent, external force, is an accident of nature. So, in explaining the universe, it's either accident or design. There is no other alternative, Dawkins' protestations notwithstanding.

This article cannot prove Intelligent Design, not as a stand-alone. However, previous articles have shown the extreme likelihood that there is some supernatural cause to the universe. The theory of evolution, in fact, strengthens the case for a divine cause of some sort. Something, after all, had to initiate evolution.

If we accept the likelihood of a divine cause at the origin of the universe, then the theory of ID enjoys instant credibility. Weighing the evidence and arguments cumulatively, one can see that it is logical - even reasonable - to conclude that the universe was initiated and designed by a divine and intelligent cosmic force. While this does not bring us to the God of the Bible, it does get us one very important step closer.

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