Intelligent Design is not a science

    Thank God we have the Judicial system to weed out garbage like intelligent design. Having had the opportunity to see Eugenie Scott speak and having had to do legislative research on it myself, I'll do a quick rundown of what happened and the reasons why they did throw ID out in Kitzmiller V Dover.

    The creationist movement fell flat on its face in 1987 with the Edwards V. Aguillard case that reached the Supreme Court. In that case, Creationism was declared unconstitutional because it failed the Lemmon Test (a test that determines if legislation had a background that violated the establishment clause of the 1st amendment). Well, obviously, that sent Creationists into a bit of a scramble because now they had no obvious recourse to keep God in schools.

    Thus, everything switched over to intelligent design. Through subpoenaed manuscripts, we can see that even the major Creationist texts (most notably Of Pandas and People) suddenly switched over to Intelligent Design. In the 1986 version of Of Pandas and People, the word Creationists was mentioned 87 times. In 1987, the phrase "Intelligent Design Proponents" was mentioned 90 with some overlap. In Kitzmiller V. Dover, multiple uses of "Crintelligent Designists" was noted.

    Then they examined the two basic theories of intelligent design, created in 1995 and 1997. The two cornerstones of intelligent design are irreducible complexity and specified complexity, both of which are extensions of Paley's Watchmaker argument put forth in his 19th century text "Natural Theology." In it, he states that if you find a watch in a field, it must have a creator. Likewise, both irreducible and specified complexity state this as well. Irreducible complexity states that such objects in nature are so complex that removing any one piece would result in them not working. Specified complexity states that the odds of such things occurring naturally are incredibly low, thus they must have had a designer.

    Both of these arguments do nothing but strawman evolution. Luckily, the Judicial system weeded this garbage out. Now that the ID guys have a bad legal precedent, we might see the end of this battle in science's favor soon.

    Yes, but Paley's Watchmaker argument and Intelligent Design are two different things. They have roots of the same idea, but the Watchmaker argument doesnt immediatly imply that the Bible exists and Jesus was the son of God, it simply implies that a god exists. Different interpretations of the watchmaker argument leave plenty of room for evolution and everything we know as scientific fact.

    Of course, one could bring in the whole Occam's Razor thingy into this and ask which one is simpler: A. A God exists, created the universe, and decided to leave without leaving any proof of his existance. or B. "God" is simply something mankind invented to escape feelings of being totaly alone. But I guess that would be another discussion.

    Quote from Section_Ei8ht

    Yes, but Paley's Watchmaker argument and Intelligent Design are two different things. They have roots of the same idea, but the Watchmaker argument doesnt immediatly imply that the Bible exists and Jesus was the son of God, it simply implies that a god exists. Different interpretations of the watchmaker argument leave plenty of room for evolution and everything we know as scientific fact.

    It's one of those cases where intelligent design hides behind vaguery. While intelligent design never explicity mentions the bible or Christ, Kitzmiller V. Dover showed that the motives of those behind intelligent design meant to do so.

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!

Register Yourself Login