Intelligent Design vs. Creationism
A distinction without a
difference.
Proponents of Intelligent Design ("ID") claim
that it's not the same thing as any of the various flavors of Creationism
because it doesn't espouse or require belief in any
particular
god. However, it does require the
existence
of a "God," unless you're going to claim that a being that is capable of
designing all life forms on the planet, and then implementing that design, is in
some way distinguishable from a "God." Even in its narrowest sense, i.e., an
attempt to explain the existence and evolution of life (as opposed to the
existence and evolution of the universe at large), ID posits the existence of a
"designer" whose powers are scarcely less than those posited by any modern
religion. To argue that the "intelligent designer" in ID parlance is somehow
distinguishable from a supreme being or a "God" is to quibble over semantics
(and, in my view, is merely an attempted end-run around the Establishment Clause
in the U.S. Constitution).
ID
proponents like to argue that mainstream science excludes ID (or any other
non-random-chance explanation of the evolution of life) out of some prejudice
against admitting to what they claim are obvious signs of design and purpose in
the structure of living organisms (and, more generally, the universe itself).
But the ultimate reason ID is not taken seriously in the scientific community is
because it has no explicative power. The reason this is so is because all
appeals to an intelligent designer to explain the origin and/or evolution of
life amount to a statement that "God did it," with no attempt at an explanation
of how
God might have done it.
The reason
scientists don't credit ID isn't because they're prejudiced; it's because ID is
not a useful description of
reality.
Let's suppose, for the moment,
that life (and, presumably, the rest of the universe) is the way it is because
"God did it." Well, presumably God used some sort of methodology, or technique,
or
praxis,
for everything he did. The only other way He could have accomplished the
creation of the universe, even in principle, is by basically "willing it into
existence" (maybe just by thinking about it really hard?). If we assume, for the
sake of argument, that science isn't a complete waste of time (and, based on its
explicative power over the past 500 years, I think you'd be hard-pressed to
argue otherwise), then we can exclude "willing it into existence" as a
possibility worth studying. Otherwise, there is no explanation,
even in
principle, for how the universe got to be the
way it is, science is a waste of time, and scientists should take up
needlepoint.
So, even if you assume
that God (or, okay, if you want to be pedantic about it, an "intelligent
designer"), created life, the universe, and everything through some sort of
methodology, science's task becomes trying to discover a working model of that
methodology. Unless God's methods are inherently unknowable. In which case, we
have no choice but to give up.
If you
assume, a
priori, that life was
not
designed, then you can inquire into the natural processes by which life
originated and subsequently evolved.
If
you assume that a) life was "designed," and also b) that the putative designer's
methods are amenable to scientific inquiry, your job is no easier than the job
of an evolutionary biologist who discounts the possibility of design. You've
still got to determine the methods by which life's designer managed to implement
its designs, which is no different from determining the methods random chance
would use to accomplish the same thing. In essence, you're doing exactly the
same thing that scientists who discount the possibility of design are doing. An
appeal to intelligent design has accomplished nothing, explained nothing, and
not gotten any closer to the truth. Therefore, Intelligent Design is not a
useful avenue for scientific inquiry, or certainly is no more useful than
Darwinian evolution that relies on random chance for
evolution.
But if you assume
a priori
an intelligent designer whose methods are in
principle unknowable, the inquiry ends. If God designed it, and God's methods
are unknowable, then what else is there to say about it? Again, this assumption
does not lead to a useful avenue for scientific
inquiry.
If you maintain that an
intelligent designer's methods are not the proper subject of scientific inquiry,
then you're not really talking about science, are
you?
This is why working scientists
have little patience with ID. Until ID comes up with something other than
evidence that allows one to say "God (or an 'intelligent designer') did it,"
it's basically a waste of time.
Posted: Tue - December
28, 2004 at 06:11 PM