Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

I am not trying to say that the existence of God is proven, or that the theory of intelligent design is either. All I am trying to say is that it's worth looking at all options even if that means one that includes a God, no matter what the implications would be for your life. I am well aware that the intelligent design theory has not been proven, but I am sick of people going on as if evolution has been.

Whether they mean to or not, scientists tend to make the data they find fit into their evolutionary based hypothesis.

Who wrote this article? The author was not mentioned.

Also check out the link at the bottom of the page that takes you to the "main index" page of this site!

It is interesting that - on these threads at least - no fundamentalist zealots have appeared to defend their cases, while their counterparts on the opposite side are often seen. Could it be that we have exaggerated their number and mischaracterized the beliefs of a rather more diverse group?

However, it is a completely different thing to say that descent with modification causes change so significant in creatures that you end up with a completely different type of animal, as evolution claims must have happened.

As for ID making predictions of phenomena, i'm not really sure.

These theories do have merit

Goodnight one and all.

I think that Thomas Aquinas considered that an uncaused cause and an infinite regression of cause and effect were logically equivalent and equally beyond our understanding. An infinite and eternal universe has no center either. (Moreover, the fact that it gets dark at night proves that such a universe does not exist.)

No, the "equivalent error" is not being ignored. And in fact, good science teachers teach the doubt and error which accompanies the scientific method. It is disingenuous at best to describe the lacunae of scientific investigation as an "equivalent error" to the egregious imposition of religious dogma, which in this case is very specifically Protestant extremist dogma--the shades of the Jesuits could not but agree.

By God, Setanta is accusing me of errant fanatic Protestantism (- in addition to a tedious, lonely and 'heroic' struggle against the secular conspiracy). Ranks of long-departed Dominican nuns and Jesuit priests rise up in righteous protest!

I can still remember my childish question, ... and Sister Marcella Anne's answer:

young George -- "Sister, can Protestants go to heaven?"

Sister MA -- "Yes, ..... if they are very good."


Perhaps I am a bit tedious in all this. However, you guys keep inspiring me. Moreover, it seems you have chosen a rather easy target, and ignored equivalent error on the other side.

There are lesser prizes in the scientific communities as well, and they all add up to a very strong incentive for scientists to overthrow academic orthodoxies. If the ID people could predict phenomena that evolutionary biologists can't, they would be sure to win a Nobel Prize.

"Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."
[ Scott C. Todd, "A View from Kansas on that Evolution Debate," Nature 401.6752 (September 30, 1999): 423]

have ID proponents offered any objective method to show their theory is better?

Is there a way to differentiate a designed organism from one that has developed through natural processes?

ID is already used in many areas of science. In archeology, we know that stones don't naturally occur in square shapes piled on top of each other. They show signs of intelligent design (although the designer is not supernatural). A recent example is an underwater rock formation off the coast of Cuba. According to the discoverers, the formation consist of smooth, geometrically shaped, granite-like rocks that are laid out in structures resembling pyramids, roads and other structures at more than 2,000 feet in a 7-3/4 mile-square area. How does it exhibit intelligent design? Natural formations of rocks do not have geometric shapes arranged in recognizable structures.

Likewise, rocks do not naturally have pointed ends with patterns of chips along the sides. This pattern is extremely unlikely through natural processes, so we say that it exhibits intelligent design. In the science of forensics, scientists examine patterns of trauma, for example, to determine if it has a natural or intelligent cause. ID is already used in many areas of science.

Probably the best example is the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Radio waves can be produced by a variety of natural and "intelligent" processes. Naturally-produced radio waves exhibit patterns of changes in wavelength that are due to random or periodic variation over time. There is no pattern that would indicate any kind of intelligence designed the signal. However, over short periods of time, the pattern could occur by chance with the probability inversely related to the length of time that the signal demonstrates a pattern. Therefore, by examining the signal statistically, scientists can determine if its cause is intelligent or natural. Thus far, intelligent design theory has eliminated (falsified) all extraterrestrial examples of radio waves monitored as being the product of intelligent design. http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/intelligentdesign.html

Design theory does, in fact, make predictions. For example, it pre-dicts
that the genome was designed for a purpose and that a function would be
found for what had been called "junk DNA." This prediction has recently been
corroborated.67 ID assumes that biological systems are the product of intention
rather than just luck and law. This prediction is used daily as biochemists seek to
"reverse engineer" biochemical machines, that is, to take apart such systems in
search of the "design decisions" that were built into their architecture. William Harvey
used design theory to discover how blood circulated based on the structure of heart,
veins and arteries. Such objections to design are nothing more than lame excuses
fashioned, not to enhance our knowledge about origins, but to gerrymander design
theory out of the discussion, to suppress any scientific evidence that would support
belief in an intelligence designer."
S. Hirotsune. et al., "An Expressed Pseudogene Regulates the Messenger-RNA Sta-bility
of Its Homologous Coding Gene," Nature 423.6935 (May 1, 2003): 91-96.

Contrary to the claims of opponents, the biblical model does make predictions.
For example, it claims that all men are descended from one man, Noah, whereas women come from up to 4 different blood lines (see Genesis 6).
One would predict from this claim that males would have lower genetic variability on their y-chromosomes, compared to the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is passed on exclusively through women. Published scientific studies confirm this biblical prediction, since the last common ancestor dates for the y-chromosome tend to be less than that for mtDNA (see Evolutionary Descent of Mankind Theory- Disproved by Molecular Biology).

http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/intelligentdesign.html