Resolved: The idea of Intelligent Design is a product of religion, not science.

Wow, I was expecting lines of copy-pasted creationist propaganda. How refreshing to see someone actually taking on the debate. Thank you. Now, correct me if I am mistaken but it seems to me that at the core of your argument is the contention that initially, the concept of intelligent design was a legitimate way to view the universe given the knowledge at the time, and hence it was not an unreasonable view. You go on to state how things look designed and the people of the dark ages would be perfectly reasonable in concluding that they are designed by an intelligent designer. This, I agree with. People such as Isaac Newton, Leonhard Euler, and Johannes Kepler were no doubt, religious. The greatest minds in the world at the time were presumably, intelligent design proponents. I have no problem with this, because the simple answer is that they did not know. They didn't know of any modern day biology brought on by Darwin's evolution, and they weren't aware of any modern theoretical physics which suggests an ever expanding universe of approximately 13.7 billion years. I'm not going to criticise them, or in fact anyone from that time who was religious. I'm sure from their point of view living in that time, it was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the world's phenomena. The fact that intelligent design has been obliterated by modern science doesn't make the views of Newton, Euler, and Kepler illogical, because they simply did not know. I also agree that modern proponents of intelligent design are nothing but advocates of bronze age ideas which have been left for dead in the gutter by modern scientific inquiry. There is simply no reason in modern times to think in this dark age mentality, and it is absolutely insulting to legitimate scientists when ID (Intelligent Design) proponents attempt to discredit such an established theory as that of evolution. These people think that complaining to the supreme court, and making misguided posts on forums constitute as the proper way to challenge a theory. If any other theorist did this, they would be totally ostracised from the academic community. If you want to challenge a theory do it like everyone else, make studies and publish them in peer-reviewed scientific journals. But, that's just me going off on a bit of a tangent there. So having said that I agree with essentially the bulk of your post, I do actually come to a different conclusion in terms of the relation this, to the debate at hand. Through your discussions, you conclude that earlier times suggest that intelligent design is a product of science. However it is the other way around, in earlier times, science was the product of intelligent design. What I'm saying is that, as you say, intelligent design sparked all this interest in nature, it made people want to know how and it was only a matter of time until someone like Darwin came about. I'm presenting, that the very stupidity and lack of scientific basis of intelligent design, actually helped along the progress of science and the scientific revolution. The very dogmatism of attributing design and creation to a god, and ridiculing anyone who disagreed (Galileo for one) contributed to the scientific revolution. Intelligent design being the 'product of' science would mean (if we are to adhere to the prior definition of 'product') that intelligent design would have to be a 'consequence of' science, I intend to show that intelligent design is in fact a 'consequence of' or 'product' of religion and not science. The initial idea of intelligent design had no scientific basis. The current idea of intelligent design has no scientific basis. Actually according to the supreme court of the USA, intelligent design is nothing but 'sexed up' creationism. The term 'intelligent design' is in fact rather young, its first major use was in 1989. To talk of the 'original intelligent design' is to talk about modern intelligent design which you have said has no basis in science. Or if you are to concede that 'early intelligent design' is nothing but creationism, then you are saying that creationism has a scientific basis. Which I will now show that it doesn't, and never did. Just because something is used in attempt to explain something scientific, it does not make that thing a product of science. For instance, dowsing (http://en.wikipedia.org...) is used in attempt to find hidden water. However it is not, in any way, a 'consequence of' or 'product' of science. The alternative to this, practices of geology and chemistry ARE products of science because they are strongly rooted in evidence, and the scientific method. Likewise, astrology is an attempt to understand the constellations (among other things) however it, has no scientific basis and is not the 'product of' science. Intelligent design/creationism is an attempt to understand life on earth (well, that's not true, its the assertion that we already understand life on earth), and much like dowsing or astrology it has no basis in science and is not a product of science. Something that is the product of science would be evolution, or Isaac Newton's "Philosophiï¿½ Naturalis Principia Mathematica". These things are a consequence of science, and the scientific method, intelligent design is not. It seems fair to say that, most, if not all proponents of intelligent design are religious. To say that it doesn't have its roots in religion seems to be almost trivial. The idea of intelligent design isn't a work of science, it's not a scientific theory and it is not even a scientific hypothesis. You can argue that this is the modern idea of intelligent design, but the fact remains that its basis was never in science, but in religion. Creationism (or, early intelligent design) is based almost entirely on creation according to genisis along with churches (who primarily controlled education and life in general in the dark ages) being the people who actually were the first. Taken from Wikipedia: "From the days of the early Christian Church Fathers there were allegorical interpretations of Genesis as well as literal readings. The Protestant Reformation introduced lay people reading the Bible in translation and more literal understandings,[1] leading to a new belief that every biological species had been individually created by God." Thanks again for taking the debate.