Intelligent Design Insults Intelligence
by Jeff Clothier

I am concerned with recent PR campaigns by promoters of so-called "Intelligent Design" and the headway they are apparently making in Kansas and elsewhere. Intelligent Design is not science.l It is a default philosophical position whose premises sound good until their consequences are considered.

The first premise, which states that if something "looks" designed, it probably is, ignores numerous examples of spontaneous, complex order coming out of chaos. Crystal formation is only one example.

The second, which observes that some biological structures are apparently "irreducably complex", which means that if any one part is removed, the biological unit does not function, assumes that the purpose of the unit came before the development of its parts. This is not necessarily so. Compare the structures of a fish's fin, a bat's wing, and a hand, and it becomes clear that a structure originally fulfilling one function can adapt to fulfill completely different ones. All these structures are remarkably similar, similarly placed on the bodies of their respective species, share much the same anatomy, and yet fill widely disparate roles.

The third premise suggests that if science cannot immeditately deliver a satisfactory answer to the question of origins, it should give up and chalk it all up to some superior intelligence - God or space aliens, presumeably. This simply adds a layer of complexity to the equation rather than providing any real answers. In other words, who or what created the Creator?

The suggestion that a consciousness, particularly a highly superior or even a magical one, can exist without anything to be conscious of is an example of the kind of thinking that attributes thunder to Thor's hammer.

It is not science, it is mythology.