Publication: Georgia Journal of Science
Publication Date: 22-SEP-05
Delivery: Immediate Online Access
Author: Edis, Taner
Article Excerpt
ABSTRACT
"Intelligent Design" (ID) creationism largely relies on long-discredited forms of argument to try and make a case against naturalistic evolution. However, it also includes some novel elements, such as William Dembski's claim to rigorously identify a reliable signature of intelligent design and thereby establish ID as an independent form of explanation not reducible to "chance and necessity." Such arguments also fail; indeed, intelligence itself appears to be a product of combinations of chance and necessity, where Darwinian processes are critically important in producing genuine novelty. Addressing the scientific mistakes of ID creationism requires attention to current science about intelligence, complexity, and information; it must be a collaborative effort between biologists, physicists, computer scientists and others.
Keywords: intelligent design, creationism, artificial intelligence, randomness
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When the Intelligent Design (ID) movement attracts the attention of mainstream scientists, it does so as the latest incarnation of creationism. The ID literature reinforces this impression. ID proponents devote most of their efforts to denouncing "Darwinism," by which they mean naturalistic theories of evolution. Some ID proponents accept common descent, some do not. But the ID movement is united in thinking that mindless mechanisms--Darwinian variation-and-selection in particular--cannot account for the diversity and complexity of life.
If ID was only a collection of neocreationist claims concerning biology, it would be relatively straightforward to address. For example, the most prominent biology-related argument for ID has been due to biochemist Michael Behe (1), who claimed that certain molecular machines were "irreducibly complex." Structures such as the bacterial flagellum, he argued, could not be assembled gradually through a series of functional intermediate forms--all of their many components had to come together at once. Critics immediately pointed out that systems and their components need not have had the same functions throughout their history. Indeed, Behe has lately shifted his emphasis away from his original argument.
Instead, Behe and other ID proponents' current arguments for design in biology describe the interlocking complexity of biochemical systems and state that it is implausible that they could have been assembled gradually. They then say that "Darwinists" have to supply a fully-articulated sequence of successive changes; otherwise Darwinian evolution can be dismissed as mere speculation (2). Such attempts at shifting the burden of proof do not impress many scientists. Though incomplete, evidence that, for example, eubacterial flagella are related to and have evolved as secretory mechanisms (3) is compelling. Biologists need to update their responses to creationism, addressing old arguments that have now been cast in a biochemical idiom, but otherwise ID presents no challenge to biology.
Then there is ID and physical science. Unlike the biblically literalist champions of Young Earth Creationism, ID proponents tend to accept an old universe or take no position on the matter of age. Nevertheless, ID includes physical claims as well. Their main concern is identifying supposed mysteries such as fine-tuning in astronomy and physical cosmology and proclaiming these as evidence of design (4). Though fine-tuning arguments have found favor among some theological liberals as well as in ID, they appear to be useless in terms of advancing science (5). So again, if all ID did was to retool old-fashioned intuitions about divine design, the scientific response to ID would not need to extend beyond adapting standard responses to creationism. There would be little of intellectual interest in criticizing ID....
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.
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