Genus: Intelligent Design

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Genus: Intelligent Design

The Intelligent Design Movement has gained monumental strength within the last half-decade. It promotes a purely scientific criticism to Darwin’s theories of natural selection and evolution with absolutely no religious bias—or so it claims. Unlike previous movements for the advancement of religious ideas, the Intelligent Design community is comprised of Ph.D.s in natural and physical sciences and is gaining its most popular following in large universities. There are an increasing number of scientific organizations advocating Intelligent Design as a contrasting theory to evolutionary naturalism. Evolution itself is not being challenged, however, only its basis in “chance and necessity.” But can the Intelligent Design Movement be given actual scientific credit, or is it just the latest mutation of religious doctrine?

The idea of an intelligent Designer side-by-side with evolution is not a new one. Dating back to 1889, educated people like Asa Gray were endorsing natural selection with the aid of an almighty creator. His theory revolved around the separation of necessity and design.[1] He defines necessity as the factors in our environment that cause humans to evolve—hunting for food, reproducing, competing against other species. He wrote that if “you take away struggle, then take away necessity you therefore only have forms in their design phase.” At time equal to zero, God intelligently designed the world to fit a certain pattern. At this instant, the human form (and all others) is in its design state as God made it. Natural selection only takes place after that initial creation, but does not take away from the fact that intelligent design occurred. The new...

... middle of paper ...

...liam. Natural Theology. London: J. Faulder, 1809. (full online text) http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/p/pd-modeng/pd-modeng-idx?type=HTML&rgn=TEI.2&byte=53049319

Polkinghorne, John. Belief in God in an Age of Science. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.

Runyan, John. “Intermediate Stages: A Problem for Evolutionary Gradualism.” Intelligent Design URC, 2002. http://www.idurc.org/jrunyan_intermediatestages.shtml

[1] Darwiniana, 1889.

[2] Access Research Network.

[3] Belief in God in an Age of Science, 1998.

[4] Darwin’s Black Box, 1996.

[5] The Evolution of Complexity, 1988.

[6] “Intermediate Stages: A Problem for Evolutionary Gradualism,” 2002.

[7] Finding Darwin’s God, 1999.

[8] Climbing Mount Improbable, 1996.

[9] “Molecular Machines—Experimental Support for the Design Inference,” 1994.

[10] Finding Darwin’s God, 1999.

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