Jason, this reason is explained very well in the article that I have provided above.

[Quote from Slate:

The key trial witness for the theory of intelligent design said it "does not propose a mechanism" to explain evolutionary developments that have not been explained by Darwinism. He said the mechanism of such intelligent activity was "intelligent activity."]

It is startlingly obvious, Jason, that ID has no explanatory power. Its supporters can of course challenge some aspects of evolution (as scientists should and have done, in order to further improve our understanding of this process), but they then infer an arbitrary conclusion that is never fully explained or substantiated.

In essence, ID suddenly jumps to an unjustified and untestable conclusion – the existence of an intelligent supernatural being. It discards the laws of nature by simply arguing that (our current understanding of) evolution has some minor holes, thus making a huge logical misstep – even if Darwinism is completely and utterly wrong, why can there not be alternative natural explanations?

A closer look at history would show you that this is how pseudo-science always works; by using gray-areas of knowledge to infer arbitrary and unsubstantiated conclusions. (For example, I am sure you would not argue that thunderbolts are in any way related to the mood swings of said supernatural being, would you?)

So yes, every aspect of the evolutionary process that has still not been adequately explained by Darwinism can and needs to be discussed (as it has been the case over the last two centuries, in which our understanding of Darwinism has changed). And as the article clearly stated, science teachers can and should do that in their classrooms.

But it is also a fact that ID offers no alternative mechanism. It only seeks to use some ever-decreasing gray-areas of knowledge, in order to jump to an unexplained, unsubstantiated and untestable alternative ‘conclusion’.

In other words, ID doesn’t actually explain anything and it is most certainly not science. Science entails experimentation and observation, not personal opinion or untestable assumptions. For that reason, teaching ID in a science class qualifies as nothing else than theistic indoctrination.

The pretense of ‘scientific explanation’ may be reassuring to some theists seeking self-justification, but this is not enough to change ID’s unscientific nature.

That’s exactly the problem. It is imperative that evolution is discussed, the current flaws/problems discussed and alternative reasons explored – but it is likewise imperative to do the reverse. And, for whatever reason, many pro-ID or pro-creationism individuals don’t open into full explanations, debates or discussions. It’s a real shame.

Evolution is an observable fact, Evolutionary theory is the body of research and hypothesis which explain that fact (a theory which is falsifiable yet has resisted an almost unparalled body of research which could have proven it false. It’s a more accurate theory than Gravitation, which we know to be erroneous, yet presumably you would not advocate “intelligent falling theory”. . .).

You have to remember people these are THEORIES. They are not facts. To ignore one theory with so much scientific support just because it mentions the possibility of a creator is not science at all. Science is about examining all possibilities and reaching a truth. By eliminating the IDT and teaching evolution like its a fact, we are making a mockery to science.
ANYWAYS… here’s the link to the other article…. if u can read that and still say there is no science biases for IDT you are truly an idiot…
http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9403/evidence.html

It is gap theory at its best.

It is similar to those who believe in alien landings. There’s science behind plotting up UFO reports with regions, looking for reasons that they would be hotspots other than aliens, etc. There’s not science behind believing every report. But there’s no way to prove that they’re ALL not aliens and there’s no way to prove that they are aliens either. The science is in the data collection and interpretation and intelligent design’s science is as adequate as any.

Oh and ” “Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals.” ” is again putting ID inside creationism, which is plain silly.

In addition, appeals to the majority are rediculous.

“That is to say, lack of a satisfactory scientific explanation of some phenomena (a ‘gap’ in scientific knowledge) is claimed by some to be evidence of an intelligent designer – God.”

“Intelligent design lies wholly outside of science. Sometimes examples are quoted that are said to require an ‘intelligent designer’. However, many of these have subsequently been shown to have a scientific explanation, for example, the immune system and blood clotting mechanisms.” (14)

These are two different strands of ID. The first subscribes to the doctrine of a lack of satisfactory scientific knowledge; which holds that there is an explanatory gap, as you correctly say. Or possibly:

Phenomena + Scientific Explanation != World.
Phenomena + intelligent designer = World

And more importantly, it is possible, without contradiction or offence to the principles of science, for a SCIENTIST to believe:

Phenomena + Scientific Explanation + intelligent designer = World.

The second relies on the requirement of an intelligent designer to explain phenomena; this is not to say that it is just the science that produces a gap, but it also rules out any explanation other than an intelligent designer. It ‘requires’ an intelligent designer.

World if and only if (iff) intelligent designer

or

Phenomena iff intelligent designer

Although these might look like part of the same claim, this is not necessarily the case. That is, an ID proponent may hold both of these claims, but not all must do.

In the second example (14): that some claims of the ID movement have been countered does not mean that ID is false. It provides evidence that ID might be/or is false. It does not ‘refute’ this however; it may even be impossible to provide a successful refutation.

So, “Science does not fully explain the phenomena” and “The world is only explained by an intelligent designer” are two different claims. It is important to make this distinction because otherwise we risk running together different versions of ID.

Prof. Fuller’s point is generally that the claims given in the Dover trials are not a fully accurate reflection of the most competitive strands of ID. If some of the foremost proponents of a theory are saying this; it is wise to listen to this and then respond. There may be some features of ID that are similar to Creationism, but ID is not Creationism. If you just say ‘ID is just Creationism, and Creationism is wrong’ then you are attacking Creationism and only obliquely attacking ID.

In short you appeared to give a general counter to ID, and yet only provided one formulation of the argument, and of the position. This was even though some of the references you gave suggested that there are many different, even if only subtly so, versions of ID. To attack one may not be to attack all.

Intelligent Design:

“The idea was developed by a group of American creationists who reformulated their argument in the creation-evolution controversy to circumvent court rulings that prohibit the teaching of creationism as science.[4][5][6] Intelligent design’s leading proponents, all of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute, a politically conservative think tank,[7][8] believe the designer to be the God of Christianity.[9][10]

Advocates of intelligent design argue that it is a scientific theory,[11] and seek to fundamentally redefine science to accept supernatural explanations.[12] The consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science.[13][14][15][16].

With the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture serving a central role in planning and funding, the “intelligent design movement” grew increasingly visible in the late 1990s and early 2000s, culminating in the 2005 Dover trial which challenged the intended use of intelligent design in public school science classes.[7]

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science, that it “cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents”, and that the school district’s promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[23]”

4: Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., Context pg. 32 ff, citing Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578)

5: “ID is not a new scientific argument, but is rather an old religious argument for the existence of God. He traced this argument back to at least Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, who framed the argument as a syllogism: Wherever complex design exists, there must have been a designer; nature is complex; therefore nature must have had an intelligent designer.” “This argument for the existence of God was advanced early in the 19th century by Reverend Paley” (the teleological argument) “The only apparent difference between the argument made by Paley and the argument for ID, as expressed by defense expert witnesses Behe and Minnich, is that ID’s ‘official position’ does not acknowledge that the designer is God.” Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., Ruling, p. 24.

6: Forrest, Barbara (May 2007). “Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement: Its True Nature and Goals.” Center for Inquiry, Office of Public Policy. http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uploads/attachments/intelligent-design.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-08-06.

7: “Q. Has the Discovery Institute been a leader in the intelligent design movement? A. Yes, the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Q. And are almost all of the individuals who are involved with the intelligent design movement associated with the Discovery Institute? A. All of the leaders are, yes.” Barbara Forrest, 2005, testifying in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial. “Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Trial transcript: Day 6 (October 5), PM Session, Part 1.”. TalkOrigins Archive. 2005. http://www.toarchive.org/faqs/dover/day6pm.html. Retrieved on 2007-07-19.

8: “Science and Policy: Intelligent Design and Peer Review”. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 2007. http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser/03_Areas/evolution/issues/peerreview.shtml. Retrieved on 2007-07-19.

9: “the writings of leading ID proponents reveal that the designer postulated by their argument is the God of Christianity”. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., Ruling p. 26.

10: William A. Dembski, when asked in an interview whether his research concluded that God is the Intelligent Designer, stated “I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God”. Devon Williams (December 14, 2007). “CitizenLink: Friday Five: William A. Dembski”. Focus on the Family. http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000006139.cfm. Retrieved on 2007-12-15.

11: Top Questions about intelligent design”. Discovery Institute. http://www.discovery.org/csc/topQuestions.php. Retrieved on 2007-05-13.

12: Stephen C. Meyer and Paul A. Nelson (May 1, 1996). “CSC – Getting Rid of the Unfair Rules, A book review, Origins & Design”]. http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=1685. Retrieved on 2007-05-20.

13: 1) List of scientific societies rejecting intelligent design. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientific_societies_rejecting_intelligent_design
2) Kitzmiller v. Dover page 83. 3) The Discovery Institute’s A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism petition begun in 2001 has been signed by “over 700 scientists” as of August 20, 2006. A four day A Scientific Support for Darwinism petition gained 7733 signatories from scientists opposing ID. The AAAS, the largest association of scientists in the U.S., has 120,000 members, and firmly rejects ID. More than 70,000 Australian scientists and educators condemn teaching of intelligent design in school science classesList of statements from scientific professional organizations on the status intelligent design and other forms of creationism. According to The New York Times “There is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on earth”. Dean, Cordelia (September 27, 2007). “Scientists Feel Miscast in Film on Life’s Origin”. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/science/27expelled.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin. Retrieved on 2007-09-28.

14: “Teachernet, Document bank”. Creationism teaching guidance. UK Department for Children, Schools and Families. September 18, 2007. http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/docbank/index.cfm?id=11890. Retrieved on 2007-10-01. “The intelligent design movement claims there are aspects of the natural world that are so intricate and fit for purpose that they cannot have evolved but must have been created by an ‘intelligent designer’. Furthermore they assert that this claim is scientifically testable and should therefore be taught in science lessons. Intelligent design lies wholly outside of science. Sometimes examples are quoted that are said to require an ‘intelligent designer’. However, many of these have subsequently been shown to have a scientific explanation, for example, the immune system and blood clotting mechanisms.

15: Nature Methods Editorial (2007). “An intelligently designed response”. Nat. Methods 4 (12): 983. doi:10.1038/nmeth1207-983.

16: Mark Greener (2007). “Taking on creationism. Which arguments and evidence counter pseudoscience?”. EMBO Reports 8 (12): 1107–1109. doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7401131.

17: “Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences”. National Academy of Sciences. 1999. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309064066&page=25.

23: Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., Conclusion of Ruling.

“it is not best described by … fundamental, literal, scientific interpretation of Genesis… Rather, he stresses, God acts as a parent toward the universe, nurturing, encouraging and working with it.”

That’s INTELLIGENT DESIGN STILL. I don’t know what his idea is but nurturing the world towards the design you have for it is still design! He’s still arguing against God creating the world in 6 days, against God being the replacement for natural science within evolution (i.e. against God being the person who evolves life as opposed to God guiding the process) and as much as he makes valid points on this subject (though some of his science (during his career) has been twisted a little to suit his own conclusions) he still gets intelligent design confused!

Intelligent design as an alternative to evolution is about how God created each type of life; maybe out of dust, maybe by simply reshaping genes. That would explain why the number of chromosomes differs so randomly etc.

But the evolution that science has essentially proven can, to Christians, still be a form of intelligent design. If it is believed that the earth was chosen by God, there is a strand of intelligent design there. If it is believed that humankind are made in his image, there is a strand of intelligent design there. I suppose if you believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God then you also believe in a form of historical intelligent design, though that’s not really about evolution.

But it’s still important to separate the creationism that is frowned on by all but fundamentalist Christians and the intelligent design that is most definitely the “default” value of Christian belief – and it’s also important to note that intelligent design isn’t mutually exclusive to the scientific evidence that has so far been gathered!

And I would argue most vehemantly that it is the default position for Christians. I wouldn’t argue that it’s the only position or the most popular but I would suggest that most Christian institutions would as a whole argue that the world was designed by God, whether by guiding evolution, putting into motion the big bang or whether through a more recent creation.

a good little quote
‘John Henry Newman who said in 1868, “the theory of Darwin, true or not, is not necessarily atheistic; on the contrary, it may simply be suggesting a larger idea of divine providence and skill.”’

(http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=18503)

Though I thought I did cite all previous sources in my last post :-\

And yes, Anon, you can understand that evil may be a problem – but it depends on what you define as evil. A) there isn’t any clause in intelligent design that says the designer is good, even if the vast majority of ID people say so (i.e. evil could well be part of the intelligent designers plan if you’re talking expressly about the theory). B) “evil” as we call it is often simply selfishness taken to an extreme level.

I’m sure there are millions of well-written books out there but here goes an attempt at providing a reasonable theory (not one that I believe, I might add). As part of the intelligent design, self-consciousness was added to help the species protect themselves: i.e. the intelligent designer doesn’t have to watch out all the time because humans will see a lion and climb a tree or whatever. Emotions are added to provide extra protection clauses – lust continues the lineage, anger helps defend against the wild, crying shows sadness and sympathy enables protection of those crying etc. etc.

These also enable the individual to know what they want and gain personal power. When you think about a definition of evil, smoking is really a form of evil because they are putting their own want above the protection of those around them. I can’t think of a definition of evil (that isn’t vague) that wouldn’t include smoking. But the point is that there are many people who do what they want – and it’s from the past, really. If everyone had said “nah, you go on and run – I’ll stay and get eaten” then the human race would have been gone pretty quickly.

So people go with basic instincts. This would include revenge, where “hitting on your woman” gets returned with violence as a form of self-made justice that escalates up to, potentially, death. Lust could potentially lead to rape and greed (which can be helpful in small doses) could lead to theft or addiction.

What’s important is that you don’t see the world as being evil but see the world as being either good or neutral. For every rape there are the vast majority of people who feel lust towards someone and don’t try to force it. For every murder there are the vast majority of people who don’t want to take a life and hold back their anger. Etc. If there weren’t (Freud’s) egos to hold our wants in check then we would have destroyed our own species through murder and selfishness etc.

So you can potentially see how “animal instincts” are useful but potentially harmful – and how a logical mind, with other “animal instincts” (the first set including defence by violence, lust etc. and the latter set including empathy and fear of revenge), is able to hold most of those instincts in check. The fact that those “evil” deeds exist is actually a pretty good argument for both evolution and intelligent design. If a creature doesn’t have those selfish instincts it will die and whether through survival of the fittest or through a designer all creatures should have some level of it. Creationism could be argued against by this point – humankind doesn’t really need those instincts when it has a high enough intelligence to think around murder etc. – but I’m sure creationists would attribute it to Satan and the fact that there was The Fall in the garden of Eden.

But there are billions of theories regarding why evil exists. I’m sure most theologists have come up with their own – I bet that Plato, Constantine, Thomas Aquinas and various middle ages bishops have their own, at least so why not read about it? The existance of “evil” is only really one of morality, which could mean that simply arguing about it is supporting ID – but either way it is by no means proof that evolution has triumphed as a theory over intelligent design!

As I said, there will need to be some massive leaps in our understanding of evolution before intelligent design can be even remotely discounted as a viable alternative. That or a *better* alternative to evolution must be found somehow.

Have you been reading what Jason has been writing? Do you know what ID is? ID has never identified the intelligent designer as the Christian God. Sure, many Christians may do so, this does not detract from the fact that ID is merely an alternative scientific approach to evolution. Good and evil have nothing to do with it.

A.

Apparently though I cannot spot whether you have replied or not…

Congratulations on producing a pie chart that looks exactly like a certain lovable video game character called ‘pac-man’:

http://weblogs.newsday.com/sports/watchdog/blog/385px-Pac_Man_svg.png

http://i44.tinypic.com/68ho2d.jpg

This put me in something of a quandary as I really hate disagreeing with pac-man.

At least part of your argument is ambiguous between:

Disambiguation 1:

Monotheists that believe in an absolute creator of the world are either creationists or support intelligent design.

“ID is supported by 84% of the planet”

Disambiguation 2:

Monotheists that believe in an absolute creator of the world are either creationists or would lend support to Intelligent Design.

“[but my point remains valid that the vast majority of the planet believes in a God and out of these], a large amount will believe in intelligent design”

Ignoring for the moment the vagueness of the term ‘world’ or ‘universe’ or whatever else, I thought you appear to use both of these claims.

The problem occurs when one moves from D2 to D1, that is: the attempt to use D2 to justify D1. Firstly, I do not think that this move is justifiable, because there is a gap between what monotheists would do given a choice between creationism and ID; and what they do ordinarily, or actually, subscribe to.

The trouble is that usually ‘creationism’ is the umbrella term for belief in an absolute creator and ‘ID’ is not. And what we have been trying to establish is that Creationism is not equal to Intelligent Design.

Though of course you use ‘Intelligent Design’ and ‘intelligent design’, and if these are different, then, we might think that you have equivocated between ID as a doctrine or a position, and ‘id’ as used to refer to a general way of affirming an absolute creator of the world, and yet still denying the, as you say traditional, view of creation as found in the bible, or variations thereof.

If your claim is about id (as constructed here), then, yes perhaps I’ll agree that this is the dominant worldview. I do not agree however that the dominant worldview is ID. Possibly if this were the case, then, we would be having the discussion “should Evolution be taught as a viable alternative to ID?” and not the other way around.

All this is of course based on my reading of your post, and I’m open to correction. Ultimately, I am saying that ‘Intelligent Design’ is not always equal to ‘intelligent design’. This is probably as important as the distinction between Creationism and Intelligent Design. Indeed in some cases: this is the distinction.

But what about the source for your earlier statistical claims?

Where did you get them from?

Surely you can’t think it is ok to provide stats and then not say where they came from?