Intelligent designer
Encyclopedia
An intelligent designer, also referred to as an intelligent agent, is the hypothetical
willed
and self-aware
entity that the intelligent design movement
argues had some role in the origin and/or development of life. The term "intelligent cause" is also used, implying their teleological
supposition of direction and purpose in features of the universe and of living things.
Atheist Richard Dawkins
holds that "It's possible that you might find evidence if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer". However, the popularly termed intelligent design movement
is a neo-creationist campaign that arose out of the Christian fundamentalist creation science
movement. Proponents of intelligent design
argue to the public that their concept does not posit the identity of the designer as part of this effort. But in statements to their constituency, which consists largely of Christian conservatives
, they identify the designer as God.
, "I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God." Some leading intelligent design proponents have stated identifying or characterizing the designer is beyond the scope of intelligent design as a line of inquiry. Proponents had hoped that, by avoiding invoking creation by a specific supernatural entity, (such as that employed by creation science
), intelligent design would be considered scientific and not violate the establishment clause of the US constitution. Proponents feared that were intelligent design identified as a restatement of previous forms of creationism, it would be precluded from being taught in public schools after the 1987 Supreme Court of the United States
decision in Edwards vs Aguillard. This line of reasoning was not particularly persuasive to many in the scientific community, which largely rejected intelligent design as both a line of scientific inquiry and as a basis for a sound education in science.
On December 20, 2005 federal district court
ruled in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
that intelligent design was not science and was essentially religious in nature. The ruling not only rendered that public school district's endorsement of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in science classes unconstitutional
on the grounds that its inclusion violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment
, but validated the objections of critics who discounted proponents' claim that the identity was not God.
Highlighting these mutually exclusive claims about the designer, Dembski, despite having said that the intelligent designer or designers could be any god
or gods, or even space aliens, has also said that "intelligent design should be understood as the evidence that God has placed in nature to show that the physical world is the product of intelligence and not simply the result of mindless material forces" and that "Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory."
Michael Behe
, in his book Darwin's Black Box
, suggested the designer might be a time travel
ing cell biologist.
At various times, leading proponents in the intelligent design movement have clearly expressed that they consider the Abrahamic God "Elohim
" in his role as a creator God, to be the intelligent designer and denied that intelligent designer is God, depending on which audience they are addressing. One example is William Dembski, who on his blog in response to the question "Is the designer responsible for biological complexity God?" said "not necessarily" and "To ask who or what is the designer of a particular object is to ask for the immediate intelligent agent responsible for its design. The point is that God is able to work through derived or surrogate intelligences, which can be anything from angels to organizing principles embedded in nature." Yet to the intelligent design movement's conservative Christian constituents Dembski has said "intelligent design should be understood as the evidence that God has placed in nature to show that the physical world is the product of intelligence and not simply the result of mindless material forces. This evidence is available to all apart from the special revelation of God in salvation history as recounted in Scripture. ... Intelligent design makes it impossible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. This gives intelligent design incredible traction as a tool for apologetics, opening up the God-question to individuals who think that science has buried God" and "Thus, in its relation to Christianity, intelligent design should be viewed as a ground-clearing operation that gets rid of the intellectual rubbish that for generations has kept Christianity from receiving serious consideration." Stephen C. Meyer
, founder and leader of the intelligent design program of the Discovery Institute admitted on national television he believes that the designer is God.
In addition, the intelligent design movement seeks as a well-documented agenda the overall goal "to defeat materialism" and the "materialist world view" as represented by evolution, and replace it with "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." Phillip E. Johnson
, considered the father of the ID movement has stated that the goal of intelligent design is to cast creationism
as a scientific concept:
The Discovery Institute's
leaked Wedge document
sets out the movement's governing goals, including:
's concept of irreducible complexity
has natural selection
accounting for most of evolution
but the intelligent designer contributing the design of some protein
s. Others in the ID movement however contest concepts such as common descent
, particularly of human
s and other ape
s. Though most in the ID movement seem to be Old Earth Creationists, a few are Young Earth Creationists who believe in ex-nihilo.
The amount of creation that the intelligent designer did has also been criticised by Young Earth Creationists as not being specific enough, and particularly contradicting their beliefs of Biblical inerrancy
and a young earth. Some intelligent design proponents say the intelligent designer fine-tuned the universe's
physical constant
s in such a way that life is the result of the universe's physical constants being related to one another in a fashion that permits life to exist. The fine-tuned universe argument
is a central premise or presented as a given in many of the published works of prominent intelligent design proponents, such as William A. Dembski
and Michael Behe
.
but naturalism
as well, and eventually religious accounts on the origin of life. The vast majority of scientists reject the concept of intelligent design and an intelligent designer. Instead, the most widely accepted explanation is that physical processes such as natural selection can account for the complexity of life and other phenomena and features of the universe. Attempts to insert theories of intelligent design into public school science curricula fits in with the intelligent design movement's social aims, via the overturning of Western secularism as detailed in the Wedge strategy
. The concept of the intelligent designer has been criticised as a God-of-the-gaps argument. Introducing the hypothesis of an intelligent designer introduces the unsolved problem of accounting for the origin of such a designer (first cause).
By raising the question of the need for a designer for objects with irreducible complexity, intelligent design also raises the question, "what designed the designer?" Richard Dawkins
has argued that "If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. And it's no solution to raise the theologian's plea that God (or the intelligent designer) is simply immune to the normal demands of scientific explanation," since such an answer would be unscientific. With religious creationism, the question "what created God?" can be answered with theological arguments, but in intelligent design, the chain of designers can be followed back indefinitely in an infinite regression
, leaving the question of the creation of the first designer dangling. As a result, intelligent design does not explain how the complexity happened in the first place; it just moves it.
Elliott Sober
says that by intelligent design's own arguments, a designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be irreducibly complex: "Any mind in nature that designs and builds an irreducibly complex system is itself irreducibly complex" Sober says that this an argument that intelligent design proponents still need to respond to.
If intelligent design proponents invoke an uncaused causer or deity
to resolve this problem, they contradict a fundamental assumption of intelligent design that design requires a designer and reduce intelligent design to religious creationism. Another possible counter-argument might be an infinite regression
of designers. However, admitting infinite numbers of objects also allows any arbitrarily improbable event to occur, such as an object with "specific" complexity assembling itself by chance. Again, this contradicts a fundamental assumption of intelligent design that a designer is needed for every specifically complex object, producing a logical contradiction.
Critics contend the claim that positing a designer which explains gaps in our understanding yet does not need to be itself explained as not a contribution to knowledge but as a thought-terminating cliché.
, the "Dover trial," where plaintiffs successfully argued that intelligent design is a form of creationism, and that the school board policy requiring the presentation of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution
as an "explanation of the origin of life" thus violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution
. In his ruling, the judge stated
Jones also commented that the appearance of design is subjective
,
and thus the analogy upon which the argument from design rests is flawed.
The judge ruled that "ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents" and "that ID is an interesting theological argument, but that it is not science."
Hypothesis
A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. The term derives from the Greek, ὑποτιθέναι – hypotithenai meaning "to put under" or "to suppose". For a hypothesis to be put forward as a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it...
willed
Will (philosophy)
Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...
and self-aware
Self-awareness
Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals...
entity that the intelligent design movement
Intelligent design movement
The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...
argues had some role in the origin and/or development of life. The term "intelligent cause" is also used, implying their teleological
Teleology
A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...
supposition of direction and purpose in features of the universe and of living things.
History
Many metaphysical views take the stance that life and/or the universe owes its structure to an intelligent design.Atheist Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
holds that "It's possible that you might find evidence if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer". However, the popularly termed intelligent design movement
Intelligent design movement
The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...
is a neo-creationist campaign that arose out of the Christian fundamentalist creation science
Creation science
Creation Science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the history of the Earth, cosmology...
movement. Proponents of intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
argue to the public that their concept does not posit the identity of the designer as part of this effort. But in statements to their constituency, which consists largely of Christian conservatives
Christian right
Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...
, they identify the designer as God.
Identity
William Dembski states in his book Design Inference that the nature of the intelligent designer cannot be inferred from intelligent design and suggests that the designer, if one is even necessary for design inference, may or may not be "the God of Scripture." In December 2007 Dembski told Focus on the FamilyFocus on the Family
Focus on the Family is an American evangelical Christian tax-exempt non-profit organization founded in 1977 by psychologist James Dobson, and is based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Focus on the Family is one of a number of evangelical parachurch organizations that rose to prominence in the 1980s...
, "I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God." Some leading intelligent design proponents have stated identifying or characterizing the designer is beyond the scope of intelligent design as a line of inquiry. Proponents had hoped that, by avoiding invoking creation by a specific supernatural entity, (such as that employed by creation science
Creation science
Creation Science or scientific creationism is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and disprove generally accepted scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the history of the Earth, cosmology...
), intelligent design would be considered scientific and not violate the establishment clause of the US constitution. Proponents feared that were intelligent design identified as a restatement of previous forms of creationism, it would be precluded from being taught in public schools after the 1987 Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
decision in Edwards vs Aguillard. This line of reasoning was not particularly persuasive to many in the scientific community, which largely rejected intelligent design as both a line of scientific inquiry and as a basis for a sound education in science.
On December 20, 2005 federal district court
United States federal courts
The United States federal courts make up the judiciary branch of federal government of the United States organized under the United States Constitution and laws of the federal government.-Categories:...
ruled in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
that intelligent design was not science and was essentially religious in nature. The ruling not only rendered that public school district's endorsement of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in science classes unconstitutional
on the grounds that its inclusion violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
, but validated the objections of critics who discounted proponents' claim that the identity was not God.
Highlighting these mutually exclusive claims about the designer, Dembski, despite having said that the intelligent designer or designers could be any god
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
or gods, or even space aliens, has also said that "intelligent design should be understood as the evidence that God has placed in nature to show that the physical world is the product of intelligence and not simply the result of mindless material forces" and that "Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory."
Michael Behe
Michael Behe
Michael J. Behe is an American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate. He currently serves as professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and as a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture...
, in his book Darwin's Black Box
Darwin's Black Box
Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution is a book written by Michael J. Behe and published by Free Press in which he presents his notion of irreducible complexity and claims that its presence in many biochemical systems indicates therefore that they must be the result of...
, suggested the designer might be a time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
ing cell biologist.
At various times, leading proponents in the intelligent design movement have clearly expressed that they consider the Abrahamic God "Elohim
Elohim
Elohim is a grammatically singular or plural noun for "god" or "gods" in both modern and ancient Hebrew language. When used with singular verbs and adjectives elohim is usually singular, "god" or especially, the God. When used with plural verbs and adjectives elohim is usually plural, "gods" or...
" in his role as a creator God, to be the intelligent designer and denied that intelligent designer is God, depending on which audience they are addressing. One example is William Dembski, who on his blog in response to the question "Is the designer responsible for biological complexity God?" said "not necessarily" and "To ask who or what is the designer of a particular object is to ask for the immediate intelligent agent responsible for its design. The point is that God is able to work through derived or surrogate intelligences, which can be anything from angels to organizing principles embedded in nature." Yet to the intelligent design movement's conservative Christian constituents Dembski has said "intelligent design should be understood as the evidence that God has placed in nature to show that the physical world is the product of intelligence and not simply the result of mindless material forces. This evidence is available to all apart from the special revelation of God in salvation history as recounted in Scripture. ... Intelligent design makes it impossible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. This gives intelligent design incredible traction as a tool for apologetics, opening up the God-question to individuals who think that science has buried God" and "Thus, in its relation to Christianity, intelligent design should be viewed as a ground-clearing operation that gets rid of the intellectual rubbish that for generations has kept Christianity from receiving serious consideration." Stephen C. Meyer
Stephen C. Meyer
Stephen C. Meyer is an American scholar, philosopher and advocate for intelligent design. He helped found the Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute , which is the main organisation behind the intelligent design movement. Before joining the DI, Meyer was a professor at...
, founder and leader of the intelligent design program of the Discovery Institute admitted on national television he believes that the designer is God.
In addition, the intelligent design movement seeks as a well-documented agenda the overall goal "to defeat materialism" and the "materialist world view" as represented by evolution, and replace it with "a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement...
, considered the father of the ID movement has stated that the goal of intelligent design is to cast creationism
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
as a scientific concept:
The Discovery Institute's
Discovery Institute
The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...
leaked Wedge document
Wedge strategy
The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement. The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto known as the Wedge Document, which describes a broad social, political, and academic agenda whose...
sets out the movement's governing goals, including:
Claimed actions
Opinion as to the amount of creation the intelligent designer has done varies within the ID movement. Michael BeheMichael Behe
Michael J. Behe is an American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate. He currently serves as professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and as a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture...
's concept of irreducible complexity
Irreducible complexity
Irreducible complexity is an argument by proponents of intelligent design that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved from simpler, or "less complete" predecessors, through natural selection acting upon a series of advantageous naturally occurring, chance mutations...
has natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
accounting for most of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
but the intelligent designer contributing the design of some protein
Protein
Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...
s. Others in the ID movement however contest concepts such as common descent
Common descent
In evolutionary biology, a group of organisms share common descent if they have a common ancestor. There is strong quantitative support for the theory that all living organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor....
, particularly of human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
s and other ape
Ape
Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia, although in relatively recent times humans have spread all over the world...
s. Though most in the ID movement seem to be Old Earth Creationists, a few are Young Earth Creationists who believe in ex-nihilo.
The amount of creation that the intelligent designer did has also been criticised by Young Earth Creationists as not being specific enough, and particularly contradicting their beliefs of Biblical inerrancy
Biblical inerrancy
Biblical inerrancy is the doctrinal position that the Bible is accurate and totally free of error, that "Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact." Some equate inerrancy with infallibility; others do not.Conservative Christians generally believe that...
and a young earth. Some intelligent design proponents say the intelligent designer fine-tuned the universe's
Fine-tuned universe
The fine-tuned universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different the universe would be...
physical constant
Physical constant
A physical constant is a physical quantity that is generally believed to be both universal in nature and constant in time. It can be contrasted with a mathematical constant, which is a fixed numerical value but does not directly involve any physical measurement.There are many physical constants in...
s in such a way that life is the result of the universe's physical constants being related to one another in a fashion that permits life to exist. The fine-tuned universe argument
Fine-tuned universe
The fine-tuned universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different the universe would be...
is a central premise or presented as a given in many of the published works of prominent intelligent design proponents, such as William A. Dembski
William A. Dembski
William Albert "Bill" Dembski is an American proponent of intelligent design, well known for promoting the concept of specified complexity...
and Michael Behe
Michael Behe
Michael J. Behe is an American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate. He currently serves as professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and as a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture...
.
Criticism
Intelligent design has been presented by its proponents as a "big tent" strategy into which several accounts of creation can fit. Were a "scientific" version of intelligent design approved for inclusion in public school science curricula, then a path would be opened for discussion of alternatives to not only natural selectionNatural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
but naturalism
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
as well, and eventually religious accounts on the origin of life. The vast majority of scientists reject the concept of intelligent design and an intelligent designer. Instead, the most widely accepted explanation is that physical processes such as natural selection can account for the complexity of life and other phenomena and features of the universe. Attempts to insert theories of intelligent design into public school science curricula fits in with the intelligent design movement's social aims, via the overturning of Western secularism as detailed in the Wedge strategy
Wedge strategy
The wedge strategy is a political and social action plan authored by the Discovery Institute, the hub of the intelligent design movement. The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto known as the Wedge Document, which describes a broad social, political, and academic agenda whose...
. The concept of the intelligent designer has been criticised as a God-of-the-gaps argument. Introducing the hypothesis of an intelligent designer introduces the unsolved problem of accounting for the origin of such a designer (first cause).
By raising the question of the need for a designer for objects with irreducible complexity, intelligent design also raises the question, "what designed the designer?" Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
has argued that "If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. And it's no solution to raise the theologian's plea that God (or the intelligent designer) is simply immune to the normal demands of scientific explanation," since such an answer would be unscientific. With religious creationism, the question "what created God?" can be answered with theological arguments, but in intelligent design, the chain of designers can be followed back indefinitely in an infinite regression
Turtles all the way down
"Turtles all the way down" is a jocular expression of the infinite regress problem in cosmology posed by the "unmoved mover" paradox. The phrase was popularized by Stephen Hawking in 1988. The "turtle" metaphor in the anecdote represents a popular notion of a "primitive cosmological myth", viz...
, leaving the question of the creation of the first designer dangling. As a result, intelligent design does not explain how the complexity happened in the first place; it just moves it.
Elliott Sober
Elliott Sober
Elliott Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin–Madison. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general philosophy of science. Sober taught for one year at Stanford University and has...
says that by intelligent design's own arguments, a designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be irreducibly complex: "Any mind in nature that designs and builds an irreducibly complex system is itself irreducibly complex" Sober says that this an argument that intelligent design proponents still need to respond to.
If intelligent design proponents invoke an uncaused causer or deity
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
to resolve this problem, they contradict a fundamental assumption of intelligent design that design requires a designer and reduce intelligent design to religious creationism. Another possible counter-argument might be an infinite regression
Turtles all the way down
"Turtles all the way down" is a jocular expression of the infinite regress problem in cosmology posed by the "unmoved mover" paradox. The phrase was popularized by Stephen Hawking in 1988. The "turtle" metaphor in the anecdote represents a popular notion of a "primitive cosmological myth", viz...
of designers. However, admitting infinite numbers of objects also allows any arbitrarily improbable event to occur, such as an object with "specific" complexity assembling itself by chance. Again, this contradicts a fundamental assumption of intelligent design that a designer is needed for every specifically complex object, producing a logical contradiction.
Critics contend the claim that positing a designer which explains gaps in our understanding yet does not need to be itself explained as not a contribution to knowledge but as a thought-terminating cliché.
The Dover trial
In 2005, intelligent design proponents arguments regarding the identity of a designer became an issue considered by the court in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School DistrictKitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. was the first direct challenge brought in the United States federal courts testing a public school district policy that required the teaching of intelligent design...
, the "Dover trial," where plaintiffs successfully argued that intelligent design is a form of creationism, and that the school board policy requiring the presentation of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
as an "explanation of the origin of life" thus violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
. In his ruling, the judge stated
Jones also commented that the appearance of design is subjective
Subjectivity
Subjectivity refers to the subject and his or her perspective, feelings, beliefs, and desires. In philosophy, the term is usually contrasted with objectivity.-Qualia:...
,
and thus the analogy upon which the argument from design rests is flawed.
The judge ruled that "ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents" and "that ID is an interesting theological argument, but that it is not science."
See also
- Anthropic principleAnthropic principleIn astrophysics and cosmology, the anthropic principle is the philosophical argument that observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it. Some proponents of the argument reason that it explains why the Universe has the age and the fundamental...
- Conflict thesisConflict thesisThe conflict thesis proposes an intrinsic intellectual conflict between religion and science. The original historical usage of the term denoted that the historical record indicates religion’s perpetual opposition to science. Later uses of the term denote religion’s epistemological opposition to...
- Continuity thesisContinuity thesisIn the history of ideas, the continuity thesis is the hypothesis that there was no radical discontinuity between the intellectual development of the Middle Ages and the developments in the Renaissance and early modern period. Thus the idea of an intellectual or scientific revolution following the...
- Flying Spaghetti MonsterFlying Spaghetti MonsterThe Flying Spaghetti Monster is the deity of the parody religion the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Pastafarianism...
- Great Architect of the UniverseGreat Architect of the UniverseThe Great Architect of the Universe is a conception of God discussed by many Christian theologians and apologists. As a designation it is used within Freemasonry to neutrally represent whatever Supreme Being to which each member individually holds in adherence...
- Genesis creation myth
External links
- Claim CI001: Intelligent design (ID) is scientific from the talk.originsTalk.originstalk.origins is a moderated Usenet discussion forum concerning the origins of life, and evolution...
Archive's Index to Creationist Claims, and sub-claims. - Evolution & Creation: A Theosophic Synthesis Surveys critical problems on both sides of the ID controversy and explores ancient and modern concepts of intelligent designer(s)
- Who Designed the Designer? by Jason Rosenhouse