Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win

It doesn't matter if you like it or not. It doesn't matter if you think it's true or not. Intelligent Design theory is destined to supplant Darwinism as the primary scientific explanation for the origin of human life. ID will be taught in public schools as a matter of course. It will happen in our lifetime. It's happening right now, actually.

1) ID will win because it's a religion-friendly, conservative-friendly, red-state kind of theory, and no one will lose money betting on the success of red-state theories in the next fifty to one hundred years.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: families that reproduce people tend to reproduce ideas, as well. The most vocal non-scientist proponents of ID are those delightfully fertile Catholics, Evangelicals, and similarly right-leaning middle-class college-educated folk -- the kind whose children will inherit the country. Eventually, the social right will have the sheer manpower to teach ID wherever they please.

Despite what angry ID opponents may tell you, the advent of ID won't hurt American productivity a bit. Belief in ID does nothing to make believers less capable in science or engineering. No geek in the world will find his computer mojo diminished because of his opinions on irreducible complexity. To the contrary: ID might make biology and the natural sciences more appealing to believers who might otherwise find science to be too far removed from God's presence. As ID appeals to the conservative mindset without hurting anyone's skills, why wouldn't the social right embrace it?

To be sure, believers don't need ID to accept modern science. The Catholic Church, for example, made peace with traditional Darwinist theory long ago. Many scientists see no contradiction between Darwinism and their own religious beliefs. Rightly understood, Darwinist theory doesn't diminish God's glory any more than any other set of rules governing the world. An omnipotent God can act through scientific media as well as miraculous interventions.

But if ID is correct, then the intelligent designer of life must have lavished astonishing care and attention upon the human race to give it unique dignity and value -- as well as handicaps and temptations that only virtue can overcome. The God of Moses and Jesus didn't leave fingerprints at this scene, but it's His MO all the way. And as believers are detectives of the Almighty's presence, they're naturally more inclined to follow the clues revealing that familiar pattern.

"Ewww…intelligent design people! They're just buck-toothed Bible-pushing nincompoops with community-college degrees who're trying to sell a gussied-up creationism to a cretinous public! No need to address their concerns or respond to their arguments. They are Not Science. They are poopy-heads."

There. I just saved you the trouble of reading 90% of the responses to the ID position. Vitriol, condescension, and endless accusations of bad faith all characterize far too much of the standard pro-Darwinian response to criticism. A reasonable observer might note that many ID advocates appear exceptionally well-educated, reasonable, and articulate; they might also note that ID advocates have pointed out many problems with the Darwinist catechism that even pro-Darwin scientists have been known to concede, when they think the Jesus-kissing crowd isn't listening. And yet, even in the face of a sober, thoughtful ID position, the pro-Darwin crowd insists on the same phooey-to-the-boobgeois shtick that was tiresome in Mencken's day. This is how losers act just before they lose: arrogant, self-satisfied, too important to be bothered with substantive refutation, and disdainful of their own faults. Pride goeth before a fall.

3) ID will win because it can be reconciled with any advance that takes place in biology, whereas Darwinism cannot yield even an inch of ground to ID.

So you've discovered the missing link? Proven that viruses distribute super-complex DNA proteins? Shown that fractals can produce evolution-friendly three-dimensional shapes? It doesn't matter. To the ID mind, you're just pushing the question further down the road. How was the missing link designed? What is the origin of the viruses? Who designed the fractals? ID has already made its peace with natural selection and the irrefutable aspects of Darwinism. By contrast, Darwinism cannot accept even the slightest possibility that it has failed to explain any significant dimension of evolution. It must dogmatically insist that it will resolve all of its ambiguities and shortcomings -- even the ones that have lingered since the beginning of Darwinism. The entire edifice of Darwinian theory comes crashing down with even a single credible demonstration of design in any living thing. Can science really plug a finger into every hole in the Darwinian dyke for the next fifty years?

4) ID will win because it can piggyback on the growth of information theory, which will attract the best minds in the world over the next fifty years.

ID is a proposition about information. It contends that the processes of life are so specific and carefully ordered that they must reflect deliberate action. Put simply: a complex message implies an even more complex sender. Separating ordered but random data from relevant, purposeful data -- that is, separating noise from messages -- is one of the key undertakings of the 21st century. In nearly every field, from statistics to quantum physics to cryptology to computer science, the smartest people on the planet are struggling to understand and apply the unfathomable power of information that modern technology has bequeathed to them. We have only scratched the surface of the problem-solving power that the Internet and cheap computing power open to us. As superior intellects strive to understand the metaphysics of information, they will find the information-oriented arguments of ID increasingly sensible and appealing. ID will fit nicely into the emerging worldview of tomorrow's intellectual elite.

This emerging worldview will take a more expansive view of science than does the current elite. Consider the "meme" meme. We all know what a meme is: a thought pattern that spreads from person to person and group to group like a viral infection spreading through a population. Yet memes cannot be bisected, or examined under a microscope, or "falsified" via the scientific method. Even so, we can make statements about memes with varying degrees of objective truthfulness. Is it possible to speak of a "science" of concepts? Right now, the scientific establishment says no. This unhelpful understanding of science will soon be discarded in favor of something more useful in the information age.

5) ID will win because ID assumes that man will find design in life -- and, as the mind of man is hard-wired to detect design, man will likely find what he seeks.

The human mind seeks order in everything. The entire body of knowledge available to mankind reflects our incorrigible desire to analyze, systemize, hypothesize, and theorize. It may well be that our brains are physically configured in such a way that we can't help but find order and design in the world. Don't look so surprised, evolutionists -- a brain attuned to order and design is a brain more likely to survive. The ability to detect design is essentially the ability to detect patterns, and the ability to detect patterns is the key to most applications of human intelligence. Hammers tend to find nails, screwdrivers tend to find screws, and the human mind tends to find design. Of course, the propensity to see designs doesn't mean that the designs aren't actually there. But the quintessential human perception is one of design -- and, to the extent that perceptions define reality, a theory built on the perception of design has a huge advantage over its competitors.

The only remaining question is whether Darwinism will exit gracefully, or whether it will go down biting, screaming, censoring, and denouncing to the bitter end. Rightly or wrongly, the future belongs to ID. There's nothing irreducibly complex about it.

Douglas Kern is a lawyer and TCS contributor. To see another view of the debate over ID, read "Descent of Man in Dover" by Sallie Baliunas on TCS today.

This means that even if God is encoding "messages" ... it is impossible to test for them

Not necessarily. If the "message" is of sufficiently low complexity, we could conceivably stumble upon it. Some argue that the so called fine-tuning of physical constants is just such a "message." I think that's bunk - I see no way to test for this "message" being a message from God. How does one go about constraining a supernatural, omniscient, omnipotent being sufficiently to make a testable prediction?

But obviously one could choose to accept it as such on a philosophical basis.

"If random can not be proven, perhaps it is because there is no such phenomenon."

No, the reason randomness cannot be proven is due to the limitations of logic and computation; it has nothing to do with whether there exist random phenomenon in the physical universe or not. It is possible that nothing is random, but this is completely unprovable one way or the other. This is precisely why ID can never be made a rigorous scientific theory...unless one is willing to put limitations on the complexity of God's mind. If you put explicit restrictions on the resources of God's mind (space and time resources) then it becomes possible to test whether or not a particular sequence is beyond the capacity of God's mind or not. But are you willing to admit such restrictions? If so, what would those restrictions be?

Not necessarily. If the "message" is of sufficiently low complexity, we could conceivably stumble upon it.

My point was that ID is non-falsifiable because God could be manipulating the universe in an extremely subtle and complex manner which is mathematically impossible to distinguish from randomness. But yes, if some ID advocate conjectures, for example, that God puts little smiley faces on neutrons and signs all protons "Love God" and this is later confirmed then that would be pretty impressive evidence.

I know MANY SCIENTISTS who support ID in one form or another, believing that Darwinian theory is simply not adequate to explain the way life apparently arose on Earth.

That is fallacious reasoning. Even if the theory of evolution is found ultimately to be incomplete or even wrong, it does not follow that ID is either right or even scientific.

Moral Absolutes Ping.

As I've been saying, Darwinist TOE is just a flapping corpse. Its adherents can enjoy the ride for a little longer; there's only a little time left for their screeching and censorship to successfully prevent the legitimate discussion of legitimate criticism. They're shoring up the defense of their citadel by attempting to prevent any debate (apostacy), but the doors are shaking.

It's really quite funny - if the TOE was defensible, they would welcome questions and criticisms in order to defeat them. But no, no questions allowed. Anyone who has doubts - reasonable, legitimate doubts - about neo-Darwinism, is by definition labeled a kook, a knuckledragger, a religious wacko (even if not religious) and not allowed into the discussion. Only saluting true believers allowed.

It's been an interesting theory.

Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.

But yes, if some ID advocate conjectures, for example, that God puts little smiley faces on neutrons and signs all protons "Love God"...

Hehe. I guess we'll view these messages with little quark microscopes.

As an aside, I've actually seen an ID "prediction" that the genome encodes a "user's manual" or some such. What a bunch of clowns. Not only is not a deduction of any theory (and hence is not a prediction of any theory) but it isn't even analogous to the only kind of design we know, our own. I know of no human designed clock (to borrow their favorite trope) that contains its own user manual within its own workings.

I agree with your observation.

I'm not a supporter of ID, or of creationism, or of Darwinian theory. I honestly don't know enough about any of them. What bothers me so much about the battle against ID is that the Darwinians are so bound and determined to prevent anybody from bringing up possible alternative theories!

That is just plain weird to me, and bespeaks insecurity.

True science puts all the facts out on the table, works on poking holes in every theoretical explanation, invites alternate explanations, publicizes all results not only supporting, but it absolutely REVELS in anomalous results and enjoys debating alternate explanations.

What is it that makes the Darwinians so defensive? I guess I realize enough about the field to know that there are some big holes, but why can't they stand the theoretical discussion about whether some form of ID is needed to explain those holes? Instead, they put it up as THE solution, they ask your faith that Darwinianism can explain every hole, and insist that all other possible explanations must be banned not only from public discussion, but from all public knowledge.

To me, this is very akin to something I've far more knowledge of: the "global warming" debate. The Kyotoists don't want people to know that the Sun has cyclic behavior and have forever denied that it does by leaving that out of their "models", despite the fact that nearly all the Earth's "warmth" comes from the Sun! They have kept people under their influence for many years refusing to let people know that they are hiding perhaps the most important factor of all! Nyah,Nyah,Nyah,Nyah - I can't hear you!

Sorry, that doesn't wash in science. It shouldn't wash in the discussion about evolution, ID, or creationism, either.

Evolutionists work from the presumption that science cannot measure or "prove" God; that He is outside the realm of science. They have automatically limited themselves in the scope of their work and could not find or recognise God if He hit them over the head with a 2 by 4 because they have already concluded that whatever they discover is a natural occurance. How do they KNOW that God could never be determined through the scientific process? Just because someone decided however long ago that God is religion or supernatural, doesn't mean that He couldn't be discovered through scientific means if they gave themselves a chance. There's a lot of reality out there that can't be measured: Ideas, thoughts, emotions... They've hemmed themselves in a small, cold, purposeless world and want everyone else to be there, too.

"Science is not a democracy."

"I agree; it has the stench of totalitarianism all over it."

I think it would be better said that science is not "politics". Political arguments mean nothing, only facts, evidence, and theorems provable via experimentation have any relevance, and we seldom see any of that in politics. What we see in this whole Evolution vs ID debate IS politics... arguments flavored with rhetoric, based on semantics, and supported with a loose and unbalanced treatment of the facts.

Politics, in that sense is eternal, Science can and does change its "accepted truth" when new explanations of natural phenomena are proven, and accepted. The corruption of science clearly then would be any interjection of politics, meant to persuade "belief" and acceptance in a given theory, regardless of the existence or nonexistence of proof. This is my understanding, and why I do not see "evolution vs ID" as a scientific debate.

"Today, at the dawn of the new century, nothing is more certain than that Darwinism has lost its prestige among men of science. It has seen its day and will soon be reckoned a thing of the past. A few decades hence when people will look back upon the history of the doctrine of Descent, they will confess that the years between 1860 and 1880 were in many respects a time of carnival; and the enthusiasm which at that time took possession of the devotees of natural science will appear to them as the excitement attending some mad revel." Eberhard Dennert, At the Deathbed of Darwinism, 1904. (http://home.entouch.net/dmd/moreandmore.htm

It's now 2005. How long must we wait?

Have you read Behe's "Darwin's Black Box" or "Shattering the Myths of Darwinism"?

Try 'em if you haven't. The facade is crumbling, and not due to any religious beliefs. It's crumbling due to actual science. That's why evo-fundies don't want to allow the least little bit of disagreement, criticism or questions. The holiness of the TOE must not be tainted with any doubt. But it's looming.

I believe God made His universe, and me.

Personally, I don't really concern myself with the details as to how He did so. I don't believe He cares a whit about whether that even matters to me, or my views about ID, evolution, or creationism.

Furthermore, I welcome discussion about all those concepts and viewpoints, and I argue with those fundamentalists about their insistence that "you must believe in creationism" just as vehemently as I do with the Darwinians who try to suppress alternatives. Not a one of them was there, nor do any of them have perfect insight into His Word and its meaning.

Not only that, but I insist that THERE CAN BE NO PROOF that God exists or that He had a part in the "intelligent design" of the universe or the Earth and its life. If I could absolutely, positively PROVE without any room for doubt to someone that God was a necessary factor for the existence of the universe/life - that would remove an ESSENTIAL part of the "free will" that He gave us. There might be evidence for that, but there can never be absolute "proof" - nor, I predict, will there ever be absolute "proof" Darwinism is sufficient.

I believe it is very important for both sides of this discussion to be powerfully advocated. I enjoy seeing the evidence on both sides, just as I enjoy evidence regarding "cosmic super strings", or "gluons and glueballs", etc., that also will not play any part in my salvation, but are nevertheless part of this wonderful "playground" that God made for me and you.

For this reason, I view this subject as one that is worthy of debate and discussion and research, but I neither expect definitive results, nor do I fear the discussion.

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