As an evolutionary theory, Intelligent Design Theory accepts that evolution does in fact occur, and is therefore fundamentally opposed to biblically literalist "creationism."
Nonsense.
There is no science in ID. At best it might be called a hypothesis. But, there has been nothing to support it.
In an article a few threads back, the author compared the number of journal citations for ID to other areas in biology, including evolution. The score: evolution had tens of thousands, ID had none, "horse feces" had 97. The author's salient point was that ID might achieve a level of respectibility of horse feces when it too could have 97 citations.
The time frame was from the late 90s, when ID was first proposed, to the present.
The only thing ID'ers have is cheap attacks. Never any substance.
As an evolutionary theory, Intelligent Design Theory accepts that evolution does in fact occur, and is therefore fundamentally opposed to biblically literalist "creationism."
I believe in intelligent design but the way we decide if something is scientific is by consensus in the scientific community and, except for a very small percent of fringe scientists, the scientific community of every major country have concluded that at this point there is not sufficient eveidence to consider intelligent design as a scientific theory.
As a Christian and a person with a strong interest in science (and a physics degree) I know that intelligent design is far preferable to claiming that the creation story is word for word literal. But Christians need to take that next step and acknowledge that if God has left scientific evidence of ID then we have not found it yet.
Belief in God requires faith and that is not a problem because that is how God wants it. He could remove all doubt if wanted to. He wants us to have faith.
"Intelligent design .... is just the Logos of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." - Willam Dembski, author of 'The Design Inference'.
Not only is "Intelligent Design Theory" not "entirely scientific", but it doesn't even rise to the level of a "theory" in the scientific sense at all. It is, at best, a non-scientific postulate. And at worst, it's propaganda in the Michael Moore mold.
The evidence and cross-examination in the Dover court case has made that abundantly clear, even to those who weren't already aware of it.
We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand those laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.3
Albert Einstein – 1929
"As an evolutionary theory, Intelligent Design Theory accepts that evolution does in fact occur, and is therefore fundamentally opposed to biblically literalist "creationism.""
Intelligent Design advocates spend most of their time attacking evolution. How much evolution, exactly, is it supposed to accept? This is exactly why Intelligent Design can't even begin to be considered science- there isn't even agreement on what the "Theory" is supposed to say. Forget about there not being any evidence for it, there isn't even a clear statement on what it describes.