Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Intelligent design" in English language version.
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Some bills seek to discredit evolution by emphasizing so-called 'flaws' in the theory of evolution or 'disagreements' within the scientific community. Others insist that teachers have absolute freedom within their classrooms and cannot be disciplined for teaching non-scientific 'alternatives' to evolution. A number of bills require that students be taught to 'critically analyze' evolution or to understand 'the controversy.' But there is no significant controversy within the scientific community about the validity of the theory of evolution. The current controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution is not a scientific one.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link) "This paper was originally presented in the Summer of 1994 at the meeting of the C.S. Lewis Society, Cambridge University."ID, as it came to be known, captured headlines for its bold attempt to rewrite the basic rules of science and its claim to have found indisputable evidence of a God-like being. Proponents, however, insisted it was 'not a religious-based idea, but instead an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins—one that challenges strictly materialistic views of evolution.' Although the intellectual roots of the argument go back centuries, its contemporary incarnation dates from the mid-1980s.
ID is an intellectual movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. ... The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens up for them some doors that have been closed.
I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call The Wedge, which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science. ... Now the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn't true. It's falsified by all of the evidence and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, well, where might you get the truth? ... I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves.— Johnson, "Reclaiming America for Christ Conference" (1999)
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)... intelligent design does not address metaphysical and religious questions such as the nature or identity of the designer. ... '... the nature, moral character and purposes of this intelligence lie beyond the competence of science and must be left to religion and philosophy.'
Discovery Institute is a secular think tank, and its Board members and Fellows represent a variety of religious traditions, including mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, and agnostic. Until recently the Chairman of Discovery's Board of Directors was former Congressman John Miller, who is Jewish. Although it is not a religious organization, the Institute has a long record of supporting religious liberty and the legitimate role of faith-based institutions in a pluralistic society. In fact, it sponsored a program for several years for college students to teach them the importance of religious liberty and the separation of church and state.
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.
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.
I think the designer is God ...
...for most members of the mainstream scientific community, ID is not a scientific theory, but a creationist pseudoscience.
One need not fully understand the origin or identity of the designer to determine that an object was designed. Thus, this question is essentially irrelevant to intelligent design theory, which merely seeks to detect if an object was designed.... Intelligent design theory cannot address the identity or origin of the designer—it is a philosophical / religious question that lies outside the domain of scientific inquiry. 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.
It's also important that you read a well developed rebuttal to Wired's misleading accusations. Links to both the article and a response by the Discovery Institute (our partners in the production of Unlocking the Mystery of Life and The Privileged Planet) are available below.
'We are taking an intuition most people have and making it a scientific and academic enterprise. ...'We are removing the most important cultural roadblock to accepting the role of God as creator.'— Phillip E. Johnson
Q: Why couldn't intelligent design also be a scientific theory? A: The idea of intelligent design might or might not be true, but when presented as a scientific hypothesis, it is not useful because it is based on weak assumptions, lacks supporting data and terminates further thought.
ID, as it came to be known, captured headlines for its bold attempt to rewrite the basic rules of science and its claim to have found indisputable evidence of a God-like being. Proponents, however, insisted it was 'not a religious-based idea, but instead an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins—one that challenges strictly materialistic views of evolution.' Although the intellectual roots of the argument go back centuries, its contemporary incarnation dates from the mid-1980s.
The clarion call of the intelligent design movement is to 'teach the controversy.' There is a very real controversy centering on how properly to account for biological complexity (cf. the ongoing events in Kansas), and it is a scientific controversy.Dembski's response to Eugenie Scott's February 12, 2001, essay published by Metanexus, "The Big Tent and the Camel's Nose."
But there are also Jewish voices in the intelligent design camp. David Klinghoffer, a Discovery Institute fellow, is an ardent advocate of intelligent design. In an article in The Forward (August 12, 2005), he claimed that Jewish thinkers have largely ignored intelligent design and contended that Jews, along with Christians, should adopt the theory because beliefs in God and in natural selection are fundamentally opposed.
The intelligent design movement claims there are aspects of the natural world that are so intricate and fit for purpose that they cannot have evolved but must have been created by an 'intelligent designer'. Furthermore they assert that this claim is scientifically testable and should therefore be taught in science lessons. Intelligent design lies wholly outside of science. Sometimes examples are quoted that are said to require an 'intelligent designer'. However, many of these have subsequently been shown to have a scientific explanation, for example, the immune system and blood clotting mechanisms.
Attempts to establish an idea of the 'specified complexity' needed for intelligent design are surrounded by complex mathematics. Despite this, the idea seems to be essentially a modern version of the old idea of the 'God-of-the-gaps'. Lack of a satisfactory scientific explanation of some phenomena (a 'gap' in scientific knowledge) is claimed to be evidence of an intelligent designer.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: others (link)Historically, it is impossible to separate ID from the religious and theological tradition in which it was born and nurtured over the course of centuries. For example, the famous theologian Thomas Aquinas (13th Century) argued that the design in nature points toward a supreme intelligence. And this, he said, 'everyone understands to be God.' In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the Anglican cleric William Paley famously set forth a version of the argument from design, reasoning that the orderly arrangements of living complexity in nature point logically to the existence of a benign and intelligent God. ....Haught's expert report in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.
'We stand with the nation's leading scientific organizations and scientists ... in stating that intelligent design is not science. Intelligent design has no place in the science classroom,' said Gerry Wheeler, NSTA Executive Director. ... 'It is simply not fair to present pseudoscience to students in the science classroom,' said NSTA President Mike Padilla. 'Nonscientific viewpoints have little value in increasing students' knowledge of the natural world.'
ID's home base is the Center for Science and Culture at Seattle's conservative Discovery Institute. Meyer directs the center; former Reagan adviser Bruce Chapman heads the larger institute, with input from the Christian supply-sider and former American Spectator owner George Gilder (also a Discovery senior fellow). From this perch, the ID crowd has pushed a 'teach the controversy' approach to evolution that closely influenced the Ohio State Board of Education's recently proposed science standards, which would require students to learn how scientists 'continue to investigate and critically analyze' aspects of Darwin's theory.
One spokesman comes close to articulating a thought about Intelligent Design: '"If you define evolution precisely, though, to mean the common descent of all life on earth from a single ancestor via undirected mutation and natural selection – that's a textbook definition of neo-Darwinism – biologists of the first rank have real questions... 'Intelligent Design is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as a result of intelligence.'
Q. Has the Discovery Institute been a leader in the intelligent design movement? A. Yes, the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Q. And are almost all of the individuals who are involved with the intelligent design movement associated with the Discovery Institute? A. All of the leaders are, yes.
What I am talking about is the essence of intelligent design, and the essence of it is theistic realism as defined by Professor Johnson. Now that stands on its own quite apart from what their motives are. I'm also talking about the definition of intelligent design by Dr. Dembski as the Logos theology of John's Gospel. That stands on its own. ... Intelligent design, as it is understood by the proponents that we are discussing today, does involve a supernatural creator, and that is my objection. And I am objecting to it as they have defined it, as Professor Johnson has defined intelligent design, and as Dr. Dembski has defined intelligent design. And both of those are basically religious. They involve the supernatural.— Barbara Forrest, 2005, testifying in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial.
With some of the claims for peer review, notably Campbell and Meyer (2003) and the e-journal PCID, the reviewers are themselves ardent supporters of intelligent design. The purpose of peer review is to expose errors, weaknesses, and significant omissions in fact and argument. That purpose is not served if the reviewers are uncritical.
The intelligent design movement claims there are aspects of the natural world that are so intricate and fit for purpose that they cannot have evolved but must have been created by an 'intelligent designer'. Furthermore they assert that this claim is scientifically testable and should therefore be taught in science lessons. Intelligent design lies wholly outside of science. Sometimes examples are quoted that are said to require an 'intelligent designer'. However, many of these have subsequently been shown to have a scientific explanation, for example, the immune system and blood clotting mechanisms.
Attempts to establish an idea of the 'specified complexity' needed for intelligent design are surrounded by complex mathematics. Despite this, the idea seems to be essentially a modern version of the old idea of the 'God-of-the-gaps'. Lack of a satisfactory scientific explanation of some phenomena (a 'gap' in scientific knowledge) is claimed to be evidence of an intelligent designer.
...[I]ntelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.
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.
The social consequences of materialism have been devastating. As symptoms, those consequences are certainly worth treating. However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy. If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a 'wedge' that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points. The beginning of this strategy, the 'thin edge of the wedge,' was Phillip Johnson's critique of Darwinism begun in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work. We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.
I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call The Wedge, which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science. ... Now the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn't true. It's falsified by all of the evidence and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, well, where might you get the truth? ... I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves.— Johnson, "Reclaiming America for Christ Conference" (1999)
Q: Why couldn't intelligent design also be a scientific theory? A: The idea of intelligent design might or might not be true, but when presented as a scientific hypothesis, it is not useful because it is based on weak assumptions, lacks supporting data and terminates further thought.
ID leaders know the benefits of submitting their work to independent review and have established at least two purportedly 'peer-reviewed' journals for ID articles. However, one has languished for want of material and quietly ceased publication, while the other has a more overtly philosophical orientation. Both journals employ a weak standard of 'peer review' that amounts to no more than vetting by the editorial board or society fellows.
It's also important that you read a well developed rebuttal to Wired's misleading accusations. Links to both the article and a response by the Discovery Institute (our partners in the production of Unlocking the Mystery of Life and The Privileged Planet) are available below.
...for most members of the mainstream scientific community, ID is not a scientific theory, but a creationist pseudoscience.
'We stand with the nation's leading scientific organizations and scientists ... in stating that intelligent design is not science. Intelligent design has no place in the science classroom,' said Gerry Wheeler, NSTA Executive Director. ... 'It is simply not fair to present pseudoscience to students in the science classroom,' said NSTA President Mike Padilla. 'Nonscientific viewpoints have little value in increasing students' knowledge of the natural world.'
But there are also Jewish voices in the intelligent design camp. David Klinghoffer, a Discovery Institute fellow, is an ardent advocate of intelligent design. In an article in The Forward (August 12, 2005), he claimed that Jewish thinkers have largely ignored intelligent design and contended that Jews, along with Christians, should adopt the theory because beliefs in God and in natural selection are fundamentally opposed.
Some bills seek to discredit evolution by emphasizing so-called 'flaws' in the theory of evolution or 'disagreements' within the scientific community. Others insist that teachers have absolute freedom within their classrooms and cannot be disciplined for teaching non-scientific 'alternatives' to evolution. A number of bills require that students be taught to 'critically analyze' evolution or to understand 'the controversy.' But there is no significant controversy within the scientific community about the validity of the theory of evolution. The current controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution is not a scientific one.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: others (link)It's also important that you read a well developed rebuttal to Wired's misleading accusations. Links to both the article and a response by the Discovery Institute (our partners in the production of Unlocking the Mystery of Life and The Privileged Planet) are available below.
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.
ID is an intellectual movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. ... The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens up for them some doors that have been closed.
ID leaders know the benefits of submitting their work to independent review and have established at least two purportedly 'peer-reviewed' journals for ID articles. However, one has languished for want of material and quietly ceased publication, while the other has a more overtly philosophical orientation. Both journals employ a weak standard of 'peer review' that amounts to no more than vetting by the editorial board or society fellows.
ID, as it came to be known, captured headlines for its bold attempt to rewrite the basic rules of science and its claim to have found indisputable evidence of a God-like being. Proponents, however, insisted it was 'not a religious-based idea, but instead an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins—one that challenges strictly materialistic views of evolution.' Although the intellectual roots of the argument go back centuries, its contemporary incarnation dates from the mid-1980s.
...[I]ntelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.
ID leaders know the benefits of submitting their work to independent review and have established at least two purportedly 'peer-reviewed' journals for ID articles. However, one has languished for want of material and quietly ceased publication, while the other has a more overtly philosophical orientation. Both journals employ a weak standard of 'peer review' that amounts to no more than vetting by the editorial board or society fellows.