# What are the arguments for intelligent design? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 11, 2011, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929 "2011-09-11T10:57:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gladtobeblazed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@gladtobeblazed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gladtobeblazed)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/1 "2011-09-11T10:57:10Z")
A simple question, but for some reason when I google this I only come up with arguments **against** ID. I just want to see some very basic arguments that are **for** ID. A simple list will suffice. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/2 "2011-09-11T11:06:18Z")
The basic reasoning is that things are so complex and complicated that there must be supernatural explanations for them. But it’s not a falsifiable proposition and is therefore rejected as a scientific theory, and should be properly view as opinion or conjecture. It’s not that it scientifically wrong, it’s just not science at all. It’s like trying to support the inclusion or exclusion of the Filoque clause based on scientific debate (ie, not fruitful). ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/3 "2011-09-11T11:37:08Z")
Intelligent design is a way to get a certain religious doctrine taught as science, rather than as religion. If’ it’s taught as a scientific theory, rather than as a building brick for religion, then it can be taught in public schools, with public money. Many fundamentalists believe that various science facts conflict with their religion, so they try to deny the facts. ---
**Author:** ![curiousprincegeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@curiousprincegeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curiousprincegeorge)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/4 "2011-09-11T11:46:20Z")
[http://conservapedia.com/Intelligent\_design](http://conservapedia.com/Intelligent_design) Didnt read the page myself properly but it should offer what creationists believe are the arguments for intelligent design ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/5 "2011-09-11T12:33:12Z")
> [@](#): > > Intelligent design (ID) is the empirically testable[1] theory that the natural world shows signs of having been designed by a purposeful, intelligent cause.[2] As Jonathan Wells wrote, “ID … asserts only that some features of living things are better explained by an intelligent cause than by unguided processes.” [3] Wells, among others, uses ID to rebut the Darwinian assertion that the features of living things are “inexplicable on the theory of creation” but fully explicable as products of unguided natural forces.[4] That’s a direct quote of the opening paragraph of the cited link. I read a bit further, but not much. It illustrates the point that there is no way of refuting ID and it is not testable in any way since it makes no predictions except that certain features cannot come from evolution and an argument using “cannot” cannot hold. Yes, you can assert that an FTL drive is impossible, but even that can be refuted (show me one). And a mathematician can assert that no formula restricted only to arithmetic operations and root taking can solve the general fifth degree equation, but mathematics is not science, only the study of **necessary** truths. I read somewhere that the Templeton Foundation offered research grants to study ID in a scientific way, but there were no takers. The theory does not lead to any research program. I was amused to discover a large American flag on the site. This illustrates the fact that ID is largely an American phenomenon. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/6 "2011-09-11T14:14:07Z")
Here’s an ancient one: The Watchmaker Analogy > **[Watchmaker analogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy)** > > The watchmaker analogy or watchmaker argument is a teleological argument used to argue for the pseudoscientific concept of intelligent design. The analogy states that a design implies a designer, by an intelligent designer, i.e. a creator deity. The watchmaker analogy was given by William Paley in his 1802 book Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity. The original analogy played a prominent role in natural theology and the "argument from design," where it was Th... Most common support for Intelligent Design basically copy the theme, probably without realizing it. Just pick a random biological fact, and declare its too complicated to have arisen by a series of stepwise random mutations. This has led to a series of internet meme images of Bill O’Reily – a random fact is stated, and declared that “you can’ explain that.” You can point out that you can, or that his response isn’t an answer, but why would you bother, if he’s just going to closes his eyes and shake his head, anyway? > **[Bill O'Reilly - Can't Explain That Meme | The Mary Sue](https://www.themarysue.com/bill-oreilly-cant-explain-that-meme/)** > > Last month, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly stepped into instant Internet infamy when, in a debate with American Atheists president David Silverman, O'Reilly attempted to prove the existence of God by citing the mystery of the tides: "I’ll tell you why... ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/7 "2011-09-11T14:55:28Z")
One argument I have seen is that, in every case we have observed of things becoming more complex and sophisticated over time, there has been (human) intelligence behind the process, causing and guiding it. A problem with this argument is that we haven’t been around long enough to observe things happening over the long time spans required by Darwinian evolution. > [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > The basic reasoning is that things are so complex and complicated that there must be supernatural explanations for them. > > But it’s not a falsifiable proposition and is therefore rejected as a scientific theory, and should be properly view as opinion or conjecture. It’s not that it scientifically wrong, it’s just not science at all. Couldn’t you falsify a claim that some specific thing is so complex that there must be a supernatural explanation for it, by coming up with a natural explanation? At any rate, I think it takes a bit of scientific literacy to understand why Darwinian evolution is considered falsifiable and “Intelligent Design” is not; and plenty of ID proponents have claimed the contrary. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/8 "2011-09-11T15:11:50Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Couldn’t you falsify a claim that some specific thing is so complex that there must be a supernatural explanation for it, by coming up with a natural explanation? No, an alternate theory wouldn’t falsify it. To falsify it you would need hard evidence proving that it _could not_ be so. You need some evidence proving, beyond any doubt, that no god could have, in any way, shape, or form, designed life to be the way it is. Offering an alternative to the concept doesn’t disprove it - nothing does. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/9 "2011-09-11T16:11:06Z")
> [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > The basic reasoning is that things are so complex and complicated that there must be supernatural explanations for them. The term they use is “irreducible complexity”, meaning that something like the eye could not have evolve because it is useless without all the parts. This hypothesis\* has been refuted thoroughly. \*I won’t grant it the honor of calling it a “theory”, which is what a well-tested hypothesis becomes once it has become the consensus explanation among scientists for a given phenomenon. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/10 "2011-09-11T16:16:40Z")
> [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > The basic reasoning is that things are so complex and complicated that there must be supernatural explanations for them. I’d go one step further: “Things are so complex and complicated that only a supernatural explanation suffices and/or it is superior to any natural explanation.” ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/11 "2011-09-11T16:27:48Z")
ID is so broad that it satisfies anyone who does not want to accept a creator-less universe: “6,000 year old earth” , “special creation of humans”, “evolution happened but God directed it every step of the way”, and “God just put it in motion”. Some of the GOP presidential candidates that reject ‘evolution’ and want to ‘teach the controversy’ don’t believe the 6,000 year old earth/Noahs Ark stuff, they are just confusing (perhaps deliberately) abiogenesis and evolution. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/12 "2011-09-11T16:30:23Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Couldn’t you falsify a claim that some specific thing is so complex that there must be a supernatural explanation for it, by coming up with a natural explanation? But then they just move on to the next example: “OK, so the eye could have evolved, how about wings?” ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/13 "2011-09-11T16:42:16Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The term they use is “irreducible complexity”, meaning that something like the eye could not have evolve because it is useless without all the parts. This hypothesis\* has been refuted thoroughly. I support neither creationism nor ID, but at the same time I think the ‘irreducible complexity’ argument is more interesting than you say, and also more challenging. I’ve read what Richard Dawkins has to say about the supposed ‘irreducible complexity’ of the eye and I don’t find it satisfactory. In one of his books he wrote, 'What use is half an eye? It’s twice as useful as one quarter of an eye. What use is one quarter of an eye? It’s twice as useful as one eighth of an eye." This is flawed reasoning, as if utility were something that could be chopped into smaller lengths, like a piece of rope.\* In many cases, it isn’t and it can’t. If component A serves no purpose without component B and vice-versa, then both have to be present for the device or machine to work. You can’t adequately address this interesting point by reciting simple fractions. To stick with the ‘eye’ example, one aspect I find fascinating is that the eye is useless unless the brain has corresponding functionality to make sense or use of whatever signals it received from the eye, and vice-versa. These elements (the eye and whichever part of the brain processes the data) have to exist at opposite ends of the optic nerve in order for the whole system to serve any purpose. Does evolution have a good explanation for this? Yes, but there’s more to it than just reciting fractions and talk about very, very long periods of time. Another good example is that DNA can’t anything useful without the presence of reverse transcriptase, and vice-versa. They are both very, very complex molecules. Again, does evolution have an answer? Yes, and a far better one than ‘a wizard did it’. But to wave away these questions as if they are either trivial or simple explained does a disservice to the richness of the explanations and also hands ammunition on a plate to the creationists. - I don’t say this to bash Dawkins. I’m a supporter of his, I’ve worked with him on a documentary and I’m mentioned (favourably) in one of his books. I’m not attacking the man, I’m pointing out that _one_ argument he has advanced on at least _one_ occasion (to my knowledge) doesn’t really help his own cause. ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/14 "2011-09-11T17:03:04Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > But then they just move on to the next example: “OK, so the eye could have evolved, how about wings?” ..And after wings, they move on to something else, like [histocompatibility complexes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_histocompatibility_complex) or the [complement system](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complement_system). There is always some part of microbiology or anatomy and physiology that is incompletely understood that ID proponents can refer to and say: “We can’t explain that, therefore it _must_ be the work of an intelligence greater than our own.” This shows, better than any philosophical explorations of falsifiability and testability, why ID is not science: When something is unexplained by our current state of knowledge, we can either say: “How interesting, I wonder why that is? Let me explore further.” or we can say: “How interesting, that is beyond my understanding. Let me stop there.” The former is science, the latter is ID. ID is, at its base level, an attempt to promote throwing one’s hands up in exasperation and blame it all on this “intelligence greater than our own.” No points are awarded for guessing the _only_ “intelligence greater than our own” _ever_ meant by ID proponents. In fact, the people behind ID explicitly said that ID was [yet another an attempt to bring](http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html)fundamentalist Christian creationism into public schools: > [@](#): > > The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the West’s greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free enterprise, and progress in the arts and sciences. > > Yet a little over a century ago, this cardinal idea came under wholesale attack by intellectuals drawing on the discoveries of modern science. Debunking the traditional conceptions of both God and man, thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud portrayed humans not as moral and spiritual beings, but as animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by purely impersonal forces and whose behavior and very thoughts were dictated by the unbending forces of biology, chemistry, and environment. This materialistic conception of reality eventually infected virtually every area of our culture, from politics and economics to literature and art. > > …Discovery Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies. > > …We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions. This, then is the real answer to the OP question. The basic argument for ID is: “I want creationism taught in public schools again.” \*Everything \*else, _every_ argument made by ID proponents, \*every \*talking point from the Discovery Institute and its like, every ham-handed recapitulation of Paley, _every_ biological system that is claimed to be irreducibly complex, _every_ single bit of ID propaganda is a smokescreen designed (by some lesser intelligence, one supposes) with the sole goal of concealing that truth. ID is pseudo-scientific creationism in different clothing. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/15 "2011-09-11T17:19:44Z")
> [@ianzin](#): > > I support neither creationism nor ID, but at the same time I think the ‘irreducible complexity’ argument is more interesting than you say, and also more challenging. > > I’ve read what Richard Dawkins has to say about the supposed ‘irreducible complexity’ of the eye and I don’t find it satisfactory. In one of his books he wrote, 'What use is half an eye? It’s twice as useful as one quarter of an eye. What use is one quarter of an eye? It’s twice as useful as one eighth of an eye." This is flawed reasoning, as if utility were something that could be chopped into smaller lengths, like a piece of rope.\* In many cases, it isn’t and it can’t. If component A serves no purpose without component B and vice-versa, then both have to be present for the device or machine to work. You can’t adequately address this interesting point by reciting simple fractions. > > To stick with the ‘eye’ example, one aspect I find fascinating is that the eye is useless unless the brain has corresponding functionality to make sense or use of whatever signals it received from the eye, and vice-versa. These elements (the eye and whichever part of the brain processes the data) have to exist at opposite ends of the optic nerve in order for the whole system to serve any purpose. Does evolution have a good explanation for this? Yes, but there’s more to it than just reciting fractions and talk about very, very long periods of time. IANABiologist, so I can’t refute what you say specifically, but are you aware that some functions that now do “A” have been found to once do “B” in other creatures or other times? And examples have been found for the bacterial flagellum, once the darling of the anti-evolutionists, who made the same argument you have here. Yet a mechanism has been proposed to explain how this could be accomplished: > **[Evolution of the bacterial flagellum](http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html#fig7)** > > A detailed and testable scenario for the evolutionary origin of the bacterial flagellum. Even if you don’t have a solution at the ready or can’t comprehend how half an eye could be useful doesn’t mean it was done by magic 🙂 (and that’s what IE is). ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/16 "2011-09-11T17:24:31Z")
> [@paperbackwriter](#): > > In fact, the people behind ID explicitly said that ID was [yet another an attempt to bring](http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html)fundamentalist Christian creationism into public schools: But I’m not getting that from the excerpt you quoted. I interpret that excerpt as saying they’re attempting to provide a scientific alternative to materialism. Where are you getting “fundamentalist Christian creationism” from? ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/17 "2011-09-11T17:28:32Z")
**Ianzin,** a better link & quote for your discussion is [here.](http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html#evo) > [@](#): > > **1.3. Theory: the evolution of systems with multiple required components** > > The standard answer to this question was put forward by Darwin. Mivart (1871) argued that the “incipient stages of useful structures” could not have evolved gradually by variation and natural selection, because the intermediate stages of complex systems would have been nonfunctional. Darwin replied in the 6th edition of Origin of Species (Darwin, 1872) by emphasizing the importance of change of function in evolution. Although Darwin’s most famous discussion of the evolution of a complex system, the eye, was an example of massive improvement of function from a rudimentary ancestor (Salvini-Plawen and Mayr, 1977; Nilsson and Pelger, 1994), Darwin gave equal weight to examples of functional shift in evolution. These included the complex reproductive devices of orchids and barnacles, groups with which he was particularly familiar (Darwin, 1851, 1854, 1862). Intricate multi-component systems such as these could not have originated by gradual improvement of a single function, but if systems and components underwent functional shift, then selection could have preserved intermediates for a function different from the final one. The equal importance of improvement of function and change of function for understanding the evolutionary origin of novel complex systems has been similarly emphasized by later workers (Maynard Smith, 1975; Mayr, 1976). Recent studies give cooption of structures a key role in the origin of feathers (Prum and Brush, 2002), and novel organs (Pellmyr and Krenn, 2002); Mayr (1976) gives many other examples. **Computer simulations also show the importance of cooption for the origin of complex systems with multiple required parts** (Lenski et al., 2003). (Bolding mine) ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/18 "2011-09-11T17:39:48Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > But I’m not getting that from the excerpt you quoted. I interpret that excerpt as saying they’re attempting to provide a scientific alternative to materialism. Where are you getting “fundamentalist Christian creationism” from? This part: > [@](#): > > The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. I just selected a few quotes. Reading the whole document makes this clear. The history of the ID movement is recapitulated admirably in [_Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District_](http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf), which makes this conclusion even more inescapable. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/19 "2011-09-11T17:55:14Z")
What would it mean for something to be a “scientific alternative to materialism”, anyway? Science _is_ materialistic, in the sense that they mean there. It’s an explanation for the material world. ---
**Author:** ![Ratmanxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba8739/32.png) [@Ratmanxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ratmanxx)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2011, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/20 "2011-09-11T18:06:00Z")
In the begining God created… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929.md?page=2)