Intelligent design has nothing to do with religion. It has nothing to do with the supernatural. And ID is not anti-evolution if one defines evolution simply as âchange over time,â or even that living things are related by common ancestry. However, the National Association of Biology Teachers contends that evolution is "an unpredictable and purposeless process" that âhas no discernable direction or goal, including survival of a species.â It is this specific claim made by neo-Darwinism that intelligent design directly challenges.
The question âHow Did the Appearance of Design in Living Systems AriseâHas Long Been Part of Historical and Evolutionary Biology.
As detailed in Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design, Darwinian theory was developed as a counter argument to the observed fact that living systems appear to be designed. Before Darwin "there was no alternative explanation for apparent design." Thus, Darwinian theory is essentially a scientific rebuttal of design. As Dawkins points out so explicitly, it is a theory that seeks to show that the apparent design in nature is actually just an illusion.
The denial of actual design in biology is central to Darwinian thought. While Dawkins could be right, thereâs no proof that the apparent design in nature is just an illusion. Therefore, either both the ID hypothesis and the blind watchmaker hypothesis are science or they are both non-science. One is the flip-side of the other. If the hypothesis of "no design", is science, then it necessarily follows that its counter argument is science.
The ID critics can't have it both ways. If they consider anti-design arguments as scientific then they have no grounds for claiming pro-design arguments to be unscientific. Design is science and not metaphysics for the same reasons the ID critics claim their anti-design arguments are science and not metaphysics. To be testable, the blind watchmaker thesis needs a null hypothesis which just happens to be ID. Without it the claim of "no-design" is dogma not science.
The question âHow Did the Appearance of Design in Living Systems AriseâHas Long Been Part of Historical and Evolutionary Biology.
As detailed in Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design, Darwinian theory was developed as a counter argument to the observed fact that living systems appear to be designed. Before Darwin "there was no alternative explanation for apparent design." Thus, Darwinian theory is essentially a scientific rebuttal of design. As Dawkins points out so explicitly, it is a theory that seeks to show that the apparent design in nature is actually just an illusion.
The denial of actual design in biology is central to Darwinian thought. While Dawkins could be right, thereâs no proof that the apparent design in nature is just an illusion. Therefore, either both the ID hypothesis and the blind watchmaker hypothesis are science or they are both non-science. One is the flip-side of the other. If the hypothesis of "no design", is science, then it necessarily follows that its counter argument is science.
The ID critics can't have it both ways. If they consider anti-design arguments as scientific then they have no grounds for claiming pro-design arguments to be unscientific. Design is science and not metaphysics for the same reasons the ID critics claim their anti-design arguments are science and not metaphysics. To be testable, the blind watchmaker thesis needs a null hypothesis which just happens to be ID. Without it the claim of "no-design" is dogma not science.
