Even with all the national news about Intelligent Design (ID),
many are still getting it wrong. Previously, I cautioned against
the bad thinking of the Straw Man fallacy (reshaping your
antagonist’s argument into something foolish, then mocking it).
Editor,
Even with all the national news about Intelligent Design (ID), many are still getting it wrong. Previously, I cautioned against the bad thinking of the Straw Man fallacy (reshaping your antagonist’s argument into something foolish, then mocking it). In one response, Bob Cheslow said ID slips in religion because it uses the term ‘design.’ He then discusses the ‘designers’ of archaeology’s artifacts, of forensic science’s criminal actions, of modern human inventions and even of the intelligence on radio signals sought by SETI. Mr. Cheslow claims that ID offers that ‘a God-like being miraculously created life.’ His comments reflect a common, but wrong, understanding of ID. See Cory Finch’s and Dale Morejon’s comments for other recent examples.
First, ID never seeks to explain the designer, by character or intention. That is beyond the scope of a scientific tool. ID seeks to identify designed entities – not their designers – so we can more effectively pursue such endeavors as medical research, endangered species, genetic engineering and disease control.
Further, ID makes no a priori claim that anything is designed. I pointed out previously that ID simply provides a research methodology to distinguish between events which are constrained to a single outcome by natural law (necessity), those which occur randomly from a set of outcomes with calculable probabilities (chance) and those which exhibit specified complexity – something that neither necessity nor chance can produce (design). The ID process has no more proclivity for selecting design than a microscope does for revealing ribosomes and mitochondria in a living cell or than a radio telescope does for detecting microwaves in a particular region of the sky. These are tools, nothing more.
Turning again to William Dembski (The Design Revolution) for clarification: “Creation is always about the source of being of the world. Intelligent Design is about arrangements of preexisting materials that point to a designing intelligence. Creation and intelligent design are therefore quite different. One can have creation without intelligent design and intelligent design without creation.”
So why is there such a strong reaction by Darwinists in attacking ID as a deceptive tactic for pushing religion? Dembski once more: “I submit that the preoccupation by critics of intelligent design with theology results not from intelligent design being inherently theological. Instead, it results from critics having built their own theology (or anti-theology, as the case may be) on a foundation of Darwinism. Intelligent design challenges that foundation, so critics reflexively assume that intelligent design must be inherently theological and have a theological agenda.” Thus, to those who have a theology built on Darwinism, any concept (or tool) which challenges that wholesale acceptance of Darwinism appears religious. As Dembski points out, simply because Darwinism has theological implications doesn’t make Darwinism a theological enterprise. The Big Bang model of origins also has theological implications, as does SETI. But these are not, therefore, theological enterprises. Why should ID be treated any differently?
What, then, is the justification for excluding ID from the tool bag of our thinking students?
Edward Huston, Hollister
