A question about Intelligent Design.

Question

Jim,

If you read my edits you would see that I have dismissed this. It clearly does not stand up to scrutiny and cannot be considered science.

Answer 1

Pseudoscience.

In order to be a scientific theory, a theory must adhere to the following three criteria:

Parsimony (or "Occam's Razor") - the theory must introduce the minimum possible variables to account for the observed evidence.

Predictiveness - the theory should make predictions which can be tested by experiment.

Falsifiability - the theory must, in principle, be able to be disproved.

ID fails on all three:

It is not parsimonious, because it introduces a creator or designer who must necessarily be AT LEAST as complicated as the thing designed/created.

It makes no predictions that can be tested (for example, we know nothing of the methods or aims of any designer).

And it is not falsifiable, as the existence of a supernatural designer cannot be disproved (or even investigated) by science in any way.

Answer 2

Pseudoscience.

It makes no testable predictions so it cannot possibly be falsified.

To be science there must be some way to prove the idea wrong.  ID fails this.

Answer 3

It doesn't offer any testable hypotheses, therefore it's quite dissimilar to science as we know it today.

Essentially, the only thing it has in common with science is that it tries to explain how the universe works.

Answer 4

Well, from MY beliefs and understandings, yes, this could be true. From what I BELIEVE, God controls Mother Nature and through that we have Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. Since we have descended from monkeys, it just goes from there; Survival of the fittest, really.

Intelligent Design could be thought as Mother Nature and chance playing with each other for eons... :)

Answer 5

Pseudoscience as people have stated for the simple testable reasoning.

HOWEVER, should it be taught or addressed in a class?  Yes, to some extent.  Taught, no; mentioned and addressed, yes.  Ignoring it doesn't help, and I don't buy the arguments that say teaching about it gives it legitimacy.

A simple anecdote.  Science published an article a while back of computer models that was clearly meant to address the issue of irreducible complexity (sorry I can't find the link, I'll update this message if I do).  Quite frankly, it's obvious the ID movement spurred the research and publication of the research, which I don't think is such a bad thing.

Of course good science in the form of good critiquing could likewise produce this, but my point is, ID does to some extent promote some good critiquing of evolutionary models, despite its overwhelming poor critiques.  If you treat it as a "critical theory" (akin to much of feminist theory), it's not as terrible.

Answer 6

It is not even close to science.  Remember that science is based on testing hypotheses, and that theories are based on accumulations of evidence.  Intelligent Design (which is just another term for Creation) is nothing more than mythology.

This website has lots of good information, including techniques to address people who are trying to promote ID in science curricula.

http://www.natcenscied.org/

Answer 7

Well...it's neither...

It's religion...not a science

Answer 8

There's no thinking about it, ID is merely an attempt by the religious community to get their creation story into the public schools, as science.  For example, they claim that nature is too complex to have simply evolved, that a creator must have designed everything. What disturbs me about this concept is that they offer no theory or evidence that "a" creator was responsible, they just proclaim it.  What I'm getting at is, why just a creator and not many, many different creators all designing different aspects of the universe at different times?

The christians would do better with ID by getting away from a single creator and suggesting that more than one was involved. However, even that would not make ID science.

What makes ID not a valid scientific concept is, it offers no mechanism for explaining the nature of this creator(s); nor, does it offer a mechanism for how intelligent design was carried out. As such, there is nothing that can be tested by science.

Answer 9

zookid if intelligent design is just mythology are you implying that it is false? If so then you are contradicting yourself since that proves that Intelligent design is testable and therefore it is by your logic and the person who answered before you - science.... intelligent design cannot be proven false just as much as evolution cannot be proved right. In science, as i hope you agree, we prove hypotheses wrong not right, because if we proved all hypotheses right then all our life is just speculations. For the record i am not trying to defend intelligent design, i am just trying to show the flaws in your logic... ID is not science is pseudoscience imo.

Answer 10

Intelligent design is a religiously motivated pseudo-science, intended to counter the atheist-motivated pseudo science that commonly hides itself behind the cloak of evolution.

Evolution, as taught in schools denies Christianity, by specificially denying details described in Genesis that have little to do with the actual theory of Evolution.

The Theory of Evolution, as properly understood claims three basic facts:

1: Selection of animals for natural fitness can cause the reduction and loss of certain genetic traits.

2: Random mutations generate new genetic traits.

3: These two factors combined over time create the process of Evolution, whereby species may change, and even divide into new species.

This theory is fully compatible with both untestable pseudosciences, because the source could be an intelligent being, or a random factor.

The Atheist driven "Evolution" that is generally taught claims untestable facts, such as the spontaneous, and random generation of life, the divergence of all living things from one common ancestor, the process of speciation, and that humans evolved "from Monkeys."  

Some of these claims are just as hard to buy as Christian propaganda, and none of these claims can be proven or disproven.  You can write me if you want all the gritty details about that, but I'd rather not turn my answer into a full blown rant.

Answer 11

The fairest thing I can say about Intelligent Design is that it poses a lot of interesting *questions* to evolution.   Questions about the origins of complexity, the nature of information, how certain structures could have evolved incrementally, questions about function vs. structure, etc.

However

1) A set of *questions* is not a theory.   Intelligent Design offers nothing by way of *ANSWERING* these questions ... to say that something was caused by some "Designer" with unknown mechanism, energy source, origin, or motive is not an answer at all ... it is replacing good questions with unanswerable ones.

2) These questions have good *answers* perfectly compatible with evolutionary theory.   Advocates of Intelligent Design are very good at coming up with questions, but are pathetically *terrible* at listening to answers ... much less coming up with valid answers of their own.

So the verdict:   pseudoscience.

Answer 12

ID is not science in any shape or form.  It is a faith based on the Christian Bible.  There is no comparing the two.  

As a science instructor I would think you would know this already.  You should know what science theory is and automatically throw ID out.

Edit:  Why would anyone call themselves Genius (Winged Genius)?  Then answer a question about evolution and in doing so say that humans evolved from monkeys.  Wouldn't that be more liked Winged Stupidity?