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An intelligent designer, also referred to as an "intelligent agent," is the entity that the intelligent design movement argues had some role in the origin and/or development of life and who supposedly has left scientific evidence of this intelligent design. The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist campaign that arose out of the previous Christian fundamentalist and evangelistic 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.
Who does the ID movement think the designer is?
William Dembski states in his book Design Inference that the nature of the intelligent designer cannot be inferred from intelligent design. All 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 requirement endorsing 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 proponent's claim that the identity was not God.
Highlighting these mutually exclusive claims about the designer, Dembski, despite having said that the intelligent designer 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." [http://touchstonemag.com/archives/issue.php?id=49
Michael Behe, in his book Darwin's Black Box, suggested the designer might be a time traveling cell biologist, which would present a grandfather paradox.
At various times each of the leading proponents in the intelligent design movement have clearly expressed that they consider the Abrahamic God in his role as a creator God, to be the intelligent designer. In addition, the intelligent movement seeks as a well-documented agenda to overall goal of the movement is "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:
- "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools."
- "This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy."
The Discovery Institute's leaked Wedge document * sets out the movement's governing goals, including:
To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.
What does the ID movement think the designer did?
Opinion as to the amount of creation the intelligent designer has done varies within the ID movement. Michael Behe's concept of irreducible complexity has natural selection accounting for most of evolution but the intelligent designer contributing the design of some proteins. Others in the ID movement however contest concepts such as common descent, particularly of humans and other apes. Though most in the ID movement seem to be Old Earth Creationists, a few are Young Earth Creationists.
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 constants 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.
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 selection 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).
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.
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.
Footnotes
- "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. To do so would be to shoot yourself in the foot." Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne. 1 September 2005. The Guardian *
- Claudia Wallis. Evolution Wars. Time Magazine, 15 August 2005 edition, page 32 *
- "Christianity postulates the religious answer to this question that the designer is God who by definition is eternally existent and has no origin. There is no logical philosophical impossibility with this being the case (akin to Aristotle's 'unmoved mover') as a religious answer to the origin of the designer. See also an answer to a subissue the implications of whether or not the first CSI come from an unintelligent source." FAQ: Who designed the designer? IDEA *
- "Intelligent design, on the other hand, involves two basic assumptions: 1) Intelligent causes exist. 2) These causes can be empirically detected (by looking for specified complexity)." Access Research Network. Frequently Asked Questions about Intelligent Design. *
- AiG’s views on the Intelligent Design Movement - by Carl Wieland, 30 August 2002 *
- 'Design is Not Enough' - by Henry H. Morris, Back to Genesis pamphlet series, No.127a, July 1999, Institute for Creation Research. *
- "According to contemporary design theory, the presence of highly specified complexity is an indicator of an intelligent cause." Access Research Network. Frequently Asked Questions about Intelligent Design. *
- "To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer. You have to say something like 'God was always there', and if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say 'DNA was always there', or "Life was always there', and be done with it." Richard Dawkins. The Blind Watchmaker : Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design pg 141
External link
- Claim CI001: Intelligent design (ID) is scientific from the talk.origins Archive's Index to Creationist Claims, and sub-claims.
"Intelligent designer"