Intelligent Design: A hypothesis wherein given features of life v non-life are explained by an intelligent cause, rather than by an undirected process such as natural selection.
A number of objections have been raised, so I will remind everyone of the provisional question that we're answering:
What is Intelligent Design? In other words, what makes a hypothesis an Intelligent Design hypothesis?
So, what we are looking for is those attributes that are both necessary and sufficient to classify a hypothesis as an Intelligent Design hypothesis. We are not (yet) restricting ourselves to any given sphere of inquiry, nor are we building standards of evaluation into the basic classification.
These are the latest proposed alternatives:
(from PatrickHenry) The Intelligent Design Hypothesis: Certain biological features or processes that are otherwise inexplicable may be explained by an intelligent cause, rather than by an undirected process such as natural selection.
(from Alamo-Girl) Intelligent Design Hypothesis: Certain features of life v non-life may be best explained by an intelligent cause, rather than by an undirected process.
So, let's review.
1) It is not necessary that an Intelligent Design hypothesis be restricted to biological features or processes. ID hypotheses can (and do) regard non-biological features. There seems to be a silly debate about the origin of the value of pi in this very thread.
2) It is not necessary that an Intelligent Design hypothesis regard features that are otherwise inexplicable. Most (if not all) ID hypotheses don't. This is relevant to the evaluation of the hypothesis, but not to its classification.
3) It is not necessary that an Intelligent Design hypothesis be the "best" explanation. An ID hypothesis could just as well be the worse explanation, and many are, especially the ones that fantasize intelligent causes for the existence of which no evidence has been identified.
4) It is sufficient that an Intelligent Design hypothesis requires an intelligent cause, by contrast to an undirected process. How one defines "intelligence" (or undirectedness) as an abstract concept is extraneous to the basic definition.
5) It is both sufficient and necessary that any one Intelligent Design hypothesis identify given features, not just "certain features" in the abstract.
6) It is necessary that an Intelligent Design hypothesis examine whether the given features "are" explained by intelligent cause, not just whether they "may" be explained by intelligent cause. Anything and everything "may" be explained by intelligent cause...
So, attempts to insert subjectivity, ambiguity, value-judgment, ambivalence, equivocation, and standards of evaluation into the basic classificatory definition are rejected. We are not (yet) speaking of The Intelligent Design Hypothesis, so that formulation is rejected as well. The more precise "that" in lieu of "wherein" is accepted. The excision of "such as natural selection" is provisionally rejected. It is technically redundant - the definition is functional without it - but it helps clarify what is meant by "undirected process" and, in contrast, by "intelligent cause." It also implicitly alerts the reader that such hypotheses are most commonly and ordinarily presented with regard to "biological features or processes" - a decent compromise, no?
There is one final modification that I would recommend, but I will hold off for now until it's determined that the above topics have been resolved for our purposes. To avoid confusion, this is the very slightly modified definition that we are now still debating:
Intelligent Design: A hypothesis that given features of life v non-life are explained by an intelligent cause, rather than by an undirected process such as natural selection.
With no apparent objection, "that" has been inserted in place of "wherein" from the previous definition. We have thereby properly excluded tangential hypotheses wherein Intelligent Design may be implicit, but which do not address specific causes of given features.
Thanks for all the work you put in to synthesizing everything. However, after seeing how it's going, and having satisfied myself that there's nothing scientific about ID, I'm dropping back into lurking mode. But I owe an explanation to those whom I've been distracting with my failed commentaries.
As I understand the history of "modern" ID (the flavor currently being ballyhooed by the Discovery Institute), it began with the claim that some biological features are "irreducibly complex." The conjecture of an Intelligent Designer was devised (revived, actually) to be plugged into that alleged explanatory void. Were it not for such otherwise inexplicable features, there would have been -- it seems to me -- no reason to even venture into the un-evidenced, un-observed, un-supported, and un-testable (therefore un-scientific) "explanation" of ID.
I don't object the concept's being extended beyond biology, if the same alleged precondition applies: the presence of "irreducibly complex" features. However, the whole business of ID seems to have been formulated to account for biological features. I'd be open minded about this, if there were -- in my always humble opinion -- any scientific thinking that is worthy of being extended from biology to other fields. But I don't think there is (and I've got doubts that it applies in biology either, but that's not the point I'm making here).
Millennia in the past, our ancestors imagined that everything was the result of some kind of ID. You know ... a dryad in every tree, a nymph in every brook, etc. Scientific progress in those days was just about zero. Slowly, sometimes painfully, our current discipline of science was developed. It deals exclusively with the natural world, leaving the rest of creation to other disciplines. I can't go along with any effort that I see as a retrograde movement, one that contributes to the backsliding of the progress science has made -- indeed, one that, if the "Wedge Document" is examined, seems to be an un-scientific counter-revolution. Discovery Institute's "Wedge Project"
I'm dropping out of this discussion because it now seems agreed -- by all participants but me -- that ID doesn't need to wait for "features or processes that are otherwise inexplicable." I take that to mean that the ID hypothesis would accompany every scientific theory. ID then becomes a "respectable" alternative for the children to decide, as the increasingly-worthless schools "teach the controversy."
I see ID as a blatant effort to turn every scientific theory into a blend of science & mysticism. Tacked onto the end (or inserted at the start?) of every theory would be the expression: "or it may have been the result of ID." Sorry, that's not science. It's the death of science. So count me out. But don't expect me to be silent about this.
This definition of ID contains, among other things, an implicit assumption of vitalism, a concept that thas rather thoroughly been rejected on many grounds.
The giant uneaxmined premise, of course, is that it's possible to come up with a practical (I won't ask for rigorous) way of distinguishing life from non-life.
Many seem to be more concerned about where this will end than the structure itself. Personally, I doubt if any of the correspondents will have a complete change of mind but the effort should help all of us communicate better in the future.
Shall we now define the above words used in the definition or move to the definition of panspermia/cosmic ancestry and collective consciousness?
I'll be offline again for several hours (was up until 4:30 a.m. and need a nap) - but I'll be glad to engage the next step when I return!