Intelligent Design

There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding, and not a little misrepresentation, about the theory of intelligent design (ID) out there, especially on certain web sites. Those who do not like some of the supposed implications of ID choose to equate it with "creationism", which they usually take as a simplified literal reading of the first two chapters of Genesis in the Bible. Some even claim that ID is somehow not even a scientific theory. Others who support such a literal reading (the true "young-Earth, six-days creationists") often apply the findings of ID research in a misplaced attempt to bolster their own pseudo-science arguments, thereby sowing further confusion. Both approaches are false, so to clear the air by some small amount, as a believer in the ID theory, I will try to explain it.

Intelligent Design is a theory about origins: the origin of the cosmos, life on Earth, and the wide variety of life we find around us today, including ourselves. On these subjects, there are only two basic possibilities: either our origins somehow involved a mind (AKA the intelligent designer, or possibly "creator") having purpose and planning, or else they did not and the universe and life came about with no purpose and no plan or guidance -- two options if you will, mindful or mindless!

Materialists -- those who believe that matter and energy are all that exist -- rule out the mindful option (and any form of ID) a priori, without even considering it. But that seems unreasonable. Surely it is at least conceivable that there is a Creator of some sort that was somehow purposefully involved in putting together the universe and getting life started on this planet? If so, wouldn't exploring that option be a useful endeavour?

Supposing for a moment that there was a Creator that brought the Universe, or life, or us into being. One might then expect that there would be some evidence of his (or its) activity left behind in the world around us. This is what ID researchers claim to have found by various types of scientific study. They have examined evidence in physics and biology and claim that the best explanation for some of what we see is the work of an intelligent agent doing what we would normally refer to as "design"; i.e. purposeful selection and assembly of components for a complex item with defined function.

There are other sciences that look for the effects of intelligent agents; archeology, espionage, criminology and forensics all try to explain historical facts to determine whether an intelligent agent was involved. Add to this the SETI research looking for meaningful (i.e. purposeful, complex, non-natural) signals from other star systems as evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence. Given that we can often distinguish natural and intelligent causation in these fields, why not do the same for research into origins?

ID presents two types of evidence. Some is positive evidence; e.g. the incredibly fine tuning of the fundamental physical constants and initial conditions of the Universe, which together allow elements, stars, planets, life and people to exist; or the extensive, complex and highly-functional information coded into the DNA in every living cell; or the complex interacting and self-regulating nano-machinery inside these same cells. Some of the evidence is negative; if there are really only two alternatives, then evidence against one of them (materialism) may be counted as evidence in favour of the other (ID).

In this latter category we have the abiogenesis of life on Earth, which no materialist hypothesis comes anywhere close to explaining in a credible way. We also have the Cambrian explosion and most of the fossil record showing fully-formed complex life forms coming into existence without intermediary precursors, contrary to the expectations of Neo-Darwinism; the materialist theory for the evolution of life. Then there is the failure to produce a unique "tree of life" based on the DNA in present life forms, and of course, there are the "irreducibly complex" structures in some cells which are not explicable by the Darwinian mechanism, which allows no foresight or purpose.

Some of the ID studies, experiments and analyses demonstrate the complete inability of Darwinism (i.e. unguided mutation plus natural selection) to produce new proteins and physiological structures as life develops and new species come into being. Many non-ID scientists now agree that Darwinism cannot explain much of what we find in the fossil record and in living species. Materialists keep trying to find naturalistic ways around these failures, but so far have come up empty as far as testable theories go.

On the other hand, ID accepts the role of Darwinism where it can reasonably be applied; in bacterial resistance to antibiotics, for instance, where a single amino acid knockout explains the loss of bacterial function used to prevent the antibiotic from working. But ID research also finds evidence that, when examined with an open mind, points to the work of an intelligent agent as the best explanation.

Intelligent design is a scientific theory, doing experiments, writing papers, involved in conferences and discussions, and making predictions. For example in the 1980's ID researchers predicted that the non-protein-coding DNA between genes in the chromosomes of all living species would be found to have important functions. Materialists dismissed these nucleotide sequences as "junk DNA" and loudly proclaimed them as "proof" of Darwinian evolution -- the waste products of random mutation left behind in the genome. This slowed research into the vast majority of the genome, but recently numerous purposes have been discovered for this "junk" and now it seems that most, if not all of your DNA is important to control your development, differentiate cell types and manage the expression of the genes that code for proteins. ID has made other predictions and opened up avenues for research.

Just to be clear, ID accepts various aspects of "evolution"; the changing life forms over millions of years as revealed in the fossil record; and micro-evolution with shifting ratios of different alleles in a population that explain changes in colouring, beak sizes, etc. ID is also compatible with the concept of common ancestry for all of life, even as it uncovers evidence that brings that concept into question. Therefore, arguments for these aspects of evolution cannot be used to argue against ID. What ID does argue against is the Darwinian attempt to expand micro-evolution to the macro level to explain new body plans and novel protein complexes. There are areas for both agreement and disagreement, and anyone seeking to study origins should examine all aspects and both sides of any apparent conflict.

As a science theory, ID does NOT claim to identify the intelligent designer. Just as a criminologist, armed with forensic evidence, can conclude that a particular death was a murder (i.e. caused purposefully by an intelligent, if rather misguided, agent), without identifying the murderer, so can ID find evidence of intelligent causation without having to name the designer. Of course, given the scale of time and the nature of the origins events, the obvious candidate is God, but that supposition is not a result of the ID science, and to claim otherwise is disingenuous.

ID is sometimes dismissed as a "god of the gaps" argument, wherein "god" is invoked to account for areas that science has not yet been able to explain. However, this too is a misrepresentation. As science delves deeper into various aspects of biology, more "gaps" in Darwinism appear, making it harder to believe, and more evidence accumulates that the basis of life is information, which in our experience, is best explained by the action of an intelligent agent rather than mindless chance and physical necessity. When presented with widening gaps in our knowledge and presumed explanatory powers, it is best to consider ALL possible explanations and look for the one that best accounts for the evidence, rather than dismissing one out of hand just because it does not fit some preconceived ideas about reality.

There are many web sites, videos and books that explain ID, and present the detailed evidence in its favour. For careful and civil discussions about ID and the latest findings, I suggest looking at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/ . There are other good sites, and of course there are pro-Darwinism and anti-ID sites as well, which you are welcome to peruse. But don't study only one side as you will get a skewed view of reality. Check out several and see how credible they are, even if you do not fully understand all of that you read. The exploration is fascinating and the controversy is stimulating.

In summary, Intelligent Design is a bona fide scientific theory that claims to have found evidence for design in nature. Before writing it off and pooh-poohing the IDea, it would be better to take a look at the evidence with an open mind and assess it fairly. Isn't that what science is supposed to do?