# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![ToniExhipttox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ce73a5/32.png) [@ToniExhipttox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToniExhipttox)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/41 "2011-09-12T11:07:54Z")
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**Author:** ![ToniExhipttox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ce73a5/32.png) [@ToniExhipttox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToniExhipttox)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/42 "2011-09-12T11:20:12Z")
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**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 12, 2011, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/43 "2011-09-12T11:52:57Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > The OP is looking for arguments that are logical and rational. There aren’t any. On the other hand, perhaps human beings have a predisposition to believe in “intelligent design” (maybe we evolved that way)? Every now and then someone asks a question here along the lines of “why did/didn’t some creature evolve with some characteristic” that has at least a hint of the premise that evolution itself intelligently designs living beings (one recent example perhaps being the [Why are there no six-legged vertibrates?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=622185) thread). I’m a bit disappointed in this thread. The way I’d like to see a “What are the arguments for \_\_\_\_\_\_?” thread go is for people to sympathetically present the best, most reasonable arguments for the position, as though they were playing Devil’s Advocate or assigned that side in a debate, and then to point out why those arguments don’t actually hold up (assuming they don’t), without expressing any derision toward, or impugning the motives of, people who actually hold such positions. If your opposition to something (in this case, ID) is flavored with contempt or ad hominem attacks, I may suspect that opposition is more emotional and personal than logical and rational; whereas if you take a relatively sympathetic attitude toward something, I’m more likely to trust you when you tell me it’s wrong. ---
**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 12, 2011, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/44 "2011-09-12T13:31:28Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’m a bit disappointed in this thread. The way I’d like to see a “What are the arguments for \_\_\_\_\_\_?” thread go is for people to sympathetically present the best, most reasonable arguments for the position, as though they were playing Devil’s Advocate or assigned that side in a debate, and then to point out why those arguments don’t actually hold up (assuming they don’t), without expressing any derision toward, or impugning the motives of, people who actually hold such positions. If your opposition to something (in this case, ID) is flavored with contempt or ad hominem attacks, I may suspect that opposition is more emotional and personal than logical and rational; whereas if you take a relatively sympathetic attitude toward something, I’m more likely to trust you when you tell me it’s wrong. There best argument is that life is really complicated and therefore must be the result of God. The general consensus is that this does not qualify as science. The reason that you find derision is that it has been made clear that the groups real motives are to promote creationism rather than science and attempt to use deceipt in order to get it into public schools. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/45 "2011-09-12T13:45:28Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’m a bit disappointed in this thread. The way I’d like to see a “What are the arguments for \_\_\_\_\_\_?” thread go is for people to sympathetically present the best, most reasonable arguments for the position, as though they were playing Devil’s Advocate or assigned that side in a debate, and then to point out why those arguments don’t actually hold up (assuming they don’t), without expressing any derision toward, or impugning the motives of, people who actually hold such positions. If your opposition to something (in this case, ID) is flavored with contempt or ad hominem attacks, I may suspect that opposition is more emotional and personal than logical and rational; whereas if you take a relatively sympathetic attitude toward something, I’m more likely to trust you when you tell me it’s wrong. _They themselves_ failed to come up with good arguments, even with professional advocates in the form of lawyers to do the arguing for them. To [quote the judge] ([http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10545387/ns/technology\_and\_science-science/t/judge-rules-against-intelligent-design/](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10545387/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/judge-rules-against-intelligent-design/)): > [@](#): > > But the judge said: “We find that the secular purposes claimed by the board amount to a pretext for the board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom.” > > The disclaimer, he said, “singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, causes students to doubt its validity without scientific justification, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource and instructs students to forgo scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instruction elsewhere.” They don’t have good arguments, and they don’t have honest motives. And we can’t come up with those things when they don’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/46 "2011-09-12T14:09:09Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’m a bit disappointed in this thread. The way I’d like to see a “What are the arguments for \_\_\_\_\_\_?” thread go is for people to sympathetically present the best, most reasonable arguments for the position, as though they were playing Devil’s Advocate or assigned that side in a debate, and then to point out why those arguments don’t actually hold up (assuming they don’t), without expressing any derision toward, or impugning the motives of, people who actually hold such positions. There is a fine line between playing “Devil’s advocate” and the “straw man fallacy.” As already said, there simply isn’t a scientific argument for ID. It looks at the natural world and says, “This is so complicated that someone must have designed it.” This argument is a failure to understand the complexity of life processes and that it can all happen perfectly well without a designer. The argument is philosophical and tries to pretend that it’s scientific. Further, the ID argument offers no direct proof of the existence of a designer, only the indirect “evidence” of the existence of designed stuff. ---
**Author:** ![curiousprincegeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@curiousprincegeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curiousprincegeorge)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/47 "2011-09-12T14:23:16Z")
holy cow i forgot this proof of intelligent design too [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/2z-OLG0KyR4/hqdefault.jpg "Kirk Cameron And Bananas") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z-OLG0KyR4) ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/48 "2011-09-12T14:43:11Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > I would think that you _could_ investigate ID scientifically, in terms of what characteristics the intelligent designer must have, based on what is currently observed. “An inordinant fondness for beetles”–J.B.S. Haldane (attributed) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/49 "2011-09-12T15:08:26Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > I would think that you _could_ investigate ID scientifically, in terms of what characteristics the intelligent designer must have, based on what is currently observed. An analogy would be observing the universe as it exists now, and determining what it must have been like at earlier times. > > When you start considering _flaws_ in the “design”, (e.g. sickle cell anemia as a “solution” to malaria, men’s susceptibility to hernias, human spinal problems brought on by reusing the four-legged animal design instead of designing a better spine), I would think you’d be able to discuss to what extent the intelligent designer is lazy, and/or stupid, and/or fallible. > > I’d expect it would make ID less attractive to the implicit “God is the intelligent designer” assumption, if talk of a flawed or lazy designer were prevalent. As I understand it that’s exactly what happened historically. For a time there was an idea that God could be understood by studying his creation; then they took a good close look at what nature is really like and were horrified. Since the results weren’t complementary to God, the idea was largely abandoned outside of the occasional attempt to use some bit of nature to bolster some religious claim like “sex is just for breeding”. ---
**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 12, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/50 "2011-09-12T16:04:50Z")
> [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > There best argument is that life is really complicated and therefore must be the result of God. The general consensus is that this does not qualify as science. The reason that you find derision is that it has been made clear that the groups real motives are to promote creationism rather than science and attempt to use deceipt in order to get it into public schools. Exactly. ID is not science. One might as well ask: what are the arguments for magic? The IDers will say that The Designer doesn’t have to be God, but what else? If they think The Designer is a giant spider living on Jupiter, then we can look for that being. But the fact is, they mean God. And God is not part of science. ---
**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 12, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/51 "2011-09-12T16:56:35Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > The argument is philosophical and tries to pretend that it’s scientific. To be fair, the OP didn’t specifically ask for _scientific_ arguments, only “very basic” ones. Although, if its proponents are going to claim that ID is scientific, they’d ought to have scientific arguments for it. ---
**Author:** ![brocks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/52 "2011-09-12T17:30:27Z")
> [@curiousprincegeorge](#): > > holy cow i forgot this proof of intelligent design too > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z-OLG0KyR4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z-OLG0KyR4) LOL, hilarious. Especially the part about “just the right shape for the human mouth.” Now soliciting female volunteers to help me make a similar video proving that God loves fellatio. ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/53 "2011-09-12T17:30:30Z")
That’s just the point: they don’t. They use scientific language and jargon but their actual arguments are essentially religious. You can’t present ID arguments in the pseudo-neutral Devil’s Advocate way you would like to see if those arguments are built on fraud. That may sound too emotionally-wrought or derisive, but it is a simple fact. ID was identified in Federal Court as a fraud, so calling it a fraud _is_ the “factual answer” that GQ is devoted to. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/54 "2011-09-12T17:30:42Z")
We need to distinguish intelligent design as a hypothesis (which has no real support) from its current use as an alias for creationism to try to make creationism sound more scientific. We know intelligent design is possible - look at your dog or your cauliflower. Darwin was very familiar with animal husbandry and plant breeding, and some of evolution was inspired by this knowledge. Where ID falls down, as has been mentioned, is its total failure to find any structures which are too complex to evolve, or evidence of anyone who could have designed some of us and when. Or why they designed just tiny fairly unimportant bits of us. We know can construct viruses, before too long we’ll be able to construct the precursors of life. Who knows, someone might have intelligently designed the first simple cells, but there is absolutely no evidence for this or any reason to believe it. I believe the Raelians think space aliens designed us - slightly more plausible than God doing it, but just barely. But I think ID proponents want humans to be designed, and we’ve got tons of evidence that this isn’t true. BTW, Darwin talked about evolution of the eye, so this is hardly new. The very earliest creatures reacted to stimuli, light is a stimuli, so it makes sense that light receptors and parts of the nervous system to process that input evolved in parallel. Remember, plants sense light also, and they have no brains. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/55 "2011-09-12T17:56:20Z")
The best argument for “intelligent design” is that it exists. _We_ (humans, that is) do it all the time; from creating new domestic breeds, to GMOs, to “weaponized anthrax”, we have tinkered with a variety of species. So certainly, ID in the sense that proponents claim they are advocating exists. Where the ID movement fails is in providing a methodology for distinguishing between “designed” organisms and “natural” organisms. Legitimate test cases for their hypotheses abound, yet they never turn their “irreducible complexity” or “specified complexity” filters towards known designed organisms, instead focusing on arguments from ignorance (“I don’t know how this could evolve, therfore it must have been designed!”) as alleged evidence. I have stated before that it could probably be of great value to be able to identify a man-made organism, especially since the days of bio-terrorism are probably ahead of us, so, _in theory_, a scientific flavor of ID could be developed. I am pretty sure, however, that, were such a tool developed, and then turned toward the natural world, we would not find any hallmarks of “design”. ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/56 "2011-09-12T17:58:43Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > We know intelligent design is possible - look at your dog or your cauliflower. Darwin was very familiar with animal husbandry and plant breeding, and some of evolution was inspired by this knowledge. But that’s not ID. That process has another name: artificial selection. Some ID proponents try to confuse ID and artificial selection, essentially turning \*Darwin’s On the Origin of Species \*upside-down, but I’m unaware of any actual scientific use of the phrase “intelligent design” to describe artificial selection. ---
**Author:** ![Lestrade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Lestrade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lestrade)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/57 "2011-09-12T18:09:08Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’m a bit disappointed in this thread. The way I’d like to see a “What are the arguments for \_\_\_\_\_\_?” thread go is for people to sympathetically present the best, most reasonable arguments for the position, as though they were playing Devil’s Advocate or assigned that side in a debate, and then to point out why those arguments don’t actually hold up (assuming they don’t), without expressing any derision toward, or impugning the motives of, people who actually hold such positions. If your opposition to something (in this case, ID) is flavored with contempt or ad hominem attacks, I may suspect that opposition is more emotional and personal than logical and rational; whereas if you take a relatively sympathetic attitude toward something, I’m more likely to trust you when you tell me it’s wrong. I’m sympathetic to your argument, I love a good debate, but sometimes there simply isn’t any material. What do you think I should expect if I start a thread asking for the best evidence that Cecil is a distinct person from Ed and not a pen name? I’d love to see some tax returns, pay stubs, these are things that might exist. I fear people may not take me seriously ☹ ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/58 "2011-09-12T18:10:36Z")
> [@Darwins\_Finch](#): > > I have stated before that it could probably be of great value to be able to identify a man-made organism, especially since the days of bio-terrorism are probably ahead of us, so, _in theory_, a scientific flavor of ID could be developed. I am pretty sure, however, that, were such a tool developed, and then turned toward the natural world, we would not find any hallmarks of “design”. I would think that the identification of man-made organisms would be completely trivial. Just sequence it, and use the standard suite of sequence comparison tools. It’ll be pretty obvious if, say, the Unusually Deadly Influenza outbreak was sequenced and found to have Deadly Spider Toxin cleanly inserted with Standard Cloning Vector #102. Genome sequencing is so insanely cheap these days that the cost would be trivial compared to the budget of a CDC BL4 lab. ---
**Author:** ![Lestrade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Lestrade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lestrade)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/59 "2011-09-12T18:24:03Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > I would think that the identification of man-made organisms would be completely trivial. Just sequence it, and use the standard suite of sequence comparison tools. It’ll be pretty obvious if, say, the Unusually Deadly Influenza outbreak was sequenced and found to have Deadly Spider Toxin cleanly inserted with Standard Cloning Vector #102. > > Genome sequencing is so insanely cheap these days that the cost would be trivial compared to the budget of a CDC BL4 lab. Not necessarily. It could have been “accidental” cross-contamination directed by God’s noodly appendage. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929/60 "2011-09-12T18:28:39Z")
The argument runs, “Just as a person, finding a watch lying on the heath, could, from it’s construction, deduce the existence of a watchmaker, so a person, examining the nature and intricacy of the universe could deduce the existence of a Creator”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-arguments-for-intelligent-design/595929.md?page=4)