Monday, November 7, 2016

Does Intelligent Design Do Anything At All?

In a recent post on the Discovery Institute's (DI) Evolution 'news' and Views blog, one of the posters, anonymously, asked whether or not Intelligent Design (ID) does too much or does too little.  Here's the post: "Horns of a Dilemma: Does Intelligent Design Do Too Little -- or Too Much?"

I have a much more basic question, just what does ID do?  Seriously, how many scientific advances have been made as the result of Intelligent Design?  Anyone?  I certainly haven't heard of any.  Is anything published by any ID advocate supporting ID actually referenced by anyone?  Well, other than another ID proponent creating more than a bit of circular logic.  Dembski citing Behe citing Meyer citing Dembski is entertaining, but not worth very much.   I am talking about real science, not the make-believe green-screen stuff the DI calls science.

While most of the post means little, I have to enjoy this:

"ID may be limited, but if it can show that even one feature in living things is designed by an intelligence (no matter when,where, or how), the whole edifice of materialism collapses."
But has ID shown any single feature of living things is designed by an intelligence?  Have they?  Aside from a great many claims to the contrary, they have not.  They speculate, hypothesize, market and self-publish, but at no time have they accomplished, or come near to accomplishing this.  They have a great many excuses, but woefully short of anything real.

I don't know about you, but before ID can claim to have done anything, isn't this the first step?  Until they accomplish this, they have no accomplishments to speak of, because everything they claim all hinges on this one thing, showing that a feature is designed, and not only designed, but designed by an intelligence.  One of my many problems is that no one seems to be working on this.  They write lots of philosophical material, but none of it means anything until they have success in this one area.

So when they ask if ID has done too little or too much, it's a meaningless question until ID has shown itself to be more than just conjecture and wishful thinking.  Even Judge Jones left that door open when he said this in his decision:
"After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science." (Wikipedia: Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Decision)
It is within the realm of the possible that ID might be an actual answer to something other than an obscure Jeopardy question of "What replaced 'creation science' as an alternative to force religion into the science classroom in the 1990's?"  But until the DI does the actual work to support their conjecture and wishful thinking, they haven't done a damn thing.

1 comment:

  1. Intelligent design is not a science programme. Rather, it's a world view intended to infiltrate academia as a whole. From the wedge document, the ID movement intends "to see design theory application in specific fields, including molecular biology, biochemistry, paleontology, physics and cosmology in the natural sciences, psychology, ethics, politics, theology and philosophy in the humanities; to see its influence in the fine arts. · To see design theory permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life."

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