# Intelligent design

Intelligent design is the view that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."

## Quotes

* ID (intelligent design) is essentially a total failure of the imagination; just because you do not see how something could have evolved, doesn’t mean that it didn’t.
** Mordechai Ben-Ari, Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005), Chapter 2
* Intelligent Design is simply a dead end; it does not deserve to be called a theory.
** Mordechai Ben-Ari, Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005), Chapter 2
* [I find it as difficult] to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.
** Wernher von Braun Speech, Huntsville Ministerial Association, in Wernher Von Braun and Irene E. Powell-Willhite (ed.), The Voice of Dr. Wernher Von Braun: An Anthology (2007), 89.
* Can a physicist visualize an electron? The electron is materially inconceivable and yet, it is so perfectly known through its effects that we use it to illuminate our cities, guide our airlines through the night skies and take the most accurate measurements. What strange rationale makes some physicists accept the inconceivable electrons as real while refusing to accept the reality of a Designer on the ground that they cannot conceive Him?
** Wernher von Braun in letter to California State board of Education (14 Sep 1972).
* It is in scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life and man in the science classroom. It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happening by chance.
** Wernher von Braun in letter to California State board of Education (14 Sep 1972).
* For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design. One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all.
** Wernher von Braun in letter to California State board of Education (14 Sep 1972).
* Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these controversies [within evolution science]. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. In those cases, the demand for equal time for "both theories" would be ludicrous. Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened? ...If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. And it's no solution to raise the theologian's plea that God (or the Intelligent Designer) is simply immune to the normal demands of scientific explanation. To do so would be to shoot yourself in the foot. You cannot have it both ways. Either ID belongs in the science classroom, in which case it must submit to the discipline required of a scientific hypothesis. Or it does not, in which case get it out of the science classroom and send it back into the church, where it belongs.
** Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne, "One side can be wrong", The Guardian (1 September 2005).
* Intelligent design (ID) is a scientific theory that employs the methods commonly used by other historical sciences to conclude that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. ID theorists argue that design can be inferred by studying the informational properties of natural objects to determine if they bear the type of information that in our experience arise from an intelligent cause.
** Discovery Institute. "CSC - Top Questions: Questions About Intelligent Design: What is the theory of intelligent design?". at discovery.org, Center for Science and Culture. Seattle, WA. Retrieved 2012-06-16.
* Churches are block-booking seats for March of the Penguins, which is apparently a "condemnation of gay marriage" and puts forward the case for "intelligent design", ie, Creationism. To be honest, this is good news. If American Christians want to go public on the fact that they're now morally guided by penguins, at least we know where we all stand.
** Caitlin Moran, The Times [of London], "Penguins lead way" section of column (20 September 2005).
* The more you observe nature, the more you perceive that there is tremendous organization in all things. It is an intelligence so great that just by observing natural phenomena I come to the conclusion that a Creator exists.
** Note: The Brazilian magazine Veja asked Carlo Rubbia, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics, “Do you believe in God?
** Nobel Prize Carlos Rubbia. Source: Evolution Is Not a Fact, Awake! magazine, 1998, 8/8.

### Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District

* We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture.
** Ray Mummert, creationist/intelligent design proponent, Pastor at Brethren in Christ Church, East Berlin, Pennsylvania, March 2005. [See, for example, Lauri Lebo, "Pastor enjoys year in spotlight", York Daily Record (27 December 2005).]
* There is no controversy within science over the core proposition of evolutionary theory.
** Kenneth Miller, quoted by the Associated Press, "Opening Arguments Made in 'Intelligent Design' Court Case" (26 September 2005).
* Intelligent design is not a testable theory in any sense and as such it is not accepted by the scientific community.
** Kenneth Miller, quoted by the Associated Press, "Opening Arguments Made in 'Intelligent Design' Court Case" (26 September 2005).
* The intelligent-design movement is an effort to introduce creationism into the schools under a different name.
** Eric Rothschild, quoted by the Associated Press, "Opening Arguments Made in 'Intelligent Design' Court Case" (26 September 2005).
* It's Scopes in reverse. They're going to get a gag order to be placed on teachers across the country.
** John West, quoted by the Associated Press, "Opening Arguments Made in 'Intelligent Design' Court Case" (26 September 2005).
* The bitter truth is that there is no argument going on in the scientific community about whether evolution took place.
** Eugenie Scott, quoted by the Associated Press, "Opening Arguments Made in 'Intelligent Design' Court Case" (26 September 2005).
* Mr. Robert J. Muise (attorney for Dover Area School District): Would you agree that Darwin's theory of evolution is not an absolute truth?Dr. Kenneth Miller: I certainly would, for the very simple reason that … in science, no theory is ever regarded as absolute truth.
** court testimony (26 September 2005).
* Students are ill served by any effort in science classrooms to blur the distinction between science and other ways of knowing, including those concerned with the supernatural.
** American Association for the Advancement of Science, news release (27 October 2005).
* Poll: Majority of Americans Reject Evolution: Accept "The Flintstones."
** Ironic Times (31 October 2005) page 2.
* Intelligent Design Trial Hopes to Wrap Up Soon: Courthouse needed for Santa Claus, Easter Bunny trials.
** Ironic Times (31 October 2005) page 3.
* The religious nature of ID [Intelligent Design theory] would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child.
** Judge John E. Jones III, Opinion in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 20 December 2005, page 24.
* ID [Intelligent Design theory] is reliant upon forces acting outside of the natural world, forces that we cannot see, replicate, control or test, which have produced changes in this world. While we take no position on whether such forces exist, they are simply not testable by scientific means and therefore cannot qualify as part of the scientific process or as a scientific theory.
** Judge John E. Jones III, Opinion in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 20 December 2005, page 82.

### End of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District

* [T]he empirical claims of the contemporary American Creation Science or Intelligent Design (ID) theory, which postulates a Creator of nature, are, just as the earlier theological argument from design, based on a mistaken, "creationist" view of human artifacts. Such view attributes functionality and complexity in an artifact to a singular human designer. The attribution aims at supporting an analogy between products of human designers, and the design-like adaptations found in nature, allegedly pointing to a supernatural Designer. The creationist view of artifacts, however, has been in conflict with conclusions of design history and history of technology alike: neither of them sees the functionality and complexity in artifacts as products of design but rather as results of re-design. Ironically, the evolutionary biologists, who fiercely oppose the creationist view of nature in ID proponents and defend the Darwinian understanding of the design-like adaptations as results of natural selection, tend to condone the creationist perspective on human artifacts characteristic for their opponents, and even seems to embrace it - thus forfeiting a crucial argument against the ID theory.
** Jan Michl, "Without a godlike designer no designerlike God" (September 2006).
* I wouldn’t get out of bed for 25,000 genes, and we don’t find form in the genome. We share most of our DNA with chimpanzees, but nowhere in the genome have we found what it is that makes us so different from chimps.
** James Le Fanu quoted in "For God’s sake, have Charles Darwin’s theories made any difference to our lives?" by Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times [of London] (11 January 2009).
* I've come to understand that all that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang Theory and all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell.
** Representative Paul Broun, speech at Liberty Baptist Church (Hartwell, Georgia) sportsman's banquet, 27 September 2012: video.
* The fundamental problem with intelligent design is that you can't use it to explain the natural world. It's essentially a negative argument. It says, "Evolution doesn't work, therefore the designer did it. Evolution doesn't work, therefore we win by default." But when you ask them, "What does intelligent design tell you about nature? Does it tell you what the designer did? Does it tell you what the designer used to design something with? Does it tell you what purpose the designer had for designing something? Does it tell you when the designer did it? Why the designer did it?" It doesn't tell you anything like that. Basically, it's a negative argument. And you can't build a science on a negative argument.
** Eugenie C. Scott, PBS Nova, Judgment Day, Intelligent Design on Trial, 2007

## See also

* Creationism
* Darwinism
* Evolution
* Existence of God
* Fine-tuned Universe