In an article written by Eugenie C. Scott and Glenn Branch in 2002 for the National Center for Science Education, many misconceptions are used as reasons for not including the theory of intelligent design (ID) in educational curriculums. It is my purpose to explain what the theory is by correcting these misconceptions.
Many believe that ID is, for all intents and purposes, creationism. This point is made in the article, “ID and creation science…both involve an intervening deity”. This is only true if you believe that intelligence is equivalent to deity, in which case you must believe the average human to be divine. ID is the theory 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.” As you can see from this statement no deity is invoked.
The authors also make the point that... “ID proponents are tactically silent on an alternative to common descent”. While the statement is true, it mischaracterizes the theory by implying that the theory seeks to explain common descent. As stated above the theory is applied only to certain features of living things, not to the origin of species. The best application for the theory of which I know, is the explanation of the origin of DNA. Dr. Stephen C. Meyer has written an excellent book on this topic entitled Signature in the Cell.
“ID has been called an ‘argument from ignorance,’ as it relies upon a lack of knowledge for its conclusion”. This statement was also made in the article. However, in reality the opposite is true. ID is an inference to the best explanation using available evidence. Inference is how broad theories are made to explain large quantities of deducted facts. This is the same method that was used by Charles Darwin, and that continues to be used by current evolutionary biologists. This evidence, as far as the origin of life is concerned, is explained in the aforementioned book by Dr. Meyer using the principles published in The Design Inference, by Dr. William Dembski. Basically these principles are specified events of small probability, and are only observed in two types of systems: the genetics of life and intelligently designed information (computer codes, language, etc.). Thus, the best explanation we have for the origin of life is intelligence.
In reality, the impossibility of life having arisen on this planet by undirected processes is widely accepted by even the greatest champions of evolution theory, as evidenced by this short video. Dr. Dawkins concedes the presence of an intelligent signature in the details of molecular biology and biochemistry, but gives a caveat that the seeding intelligence itself must have evolved in a Darwinian fashion. Unless he is withholding evidence gathered from extra-terrestrial life forms, this caveat is scientifically unfounded.
A tenured professor teaching Cell Biology at Arizona State complained in class about “towing the party line” when dealing with evolution. He was a closet ID advocate. His main argument was life is too complex to have evolved by chance over billions of years on a constantly changing planet in a cold and dangerous universe. If you’ve ever checked out online videos of DNA replication in real time it is amazingly fast and accurate. Other professors and students are dumbfounding by these mysterious and magical processes. It must be because of an outside intelligence to produce something so incredible! “It can’t be by chance” would be the ASU professor’s reply. Maybe life isn’t that entirely complex after all, we just know so little about it. When he couldn’t answer a question he would go to the phone on the wall and dial 1-800-GOD. This happened many times even though he wasn’t religious. He was an advocate of the watchmaker analogy when dealing with life and the universe. He would argue there is a designer of the universe, not something that arose out of nothing with no thought behind it. I actually appreciated his views and he should be able to make his point. Maybe there is no thought behind evolution or intelligent design. The universe just does what it does.
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