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What are the main arguments for Intelligent Design?

by | Aug 26, 2022 | Creation Evolution, Secular Issues

The Intelligent Design (ID) movement is not a Christian movement (though there are Christians involved in it) and thus their work does not always align with nor argue from a biblical worldview. Nevertheless, this growing branch of scientific study has done some profound research revealing empirical evidence of intelligent purpose and design in nature and also exposing the inadequacy of Darwinian naturalistic materialism. Not every ID argument or publication is consistent with a biblically Christian view of history and origins, and their literature should be read critically and with careful discernment (just as any literature should). Even when we like an argument’s conclusion, we should always pay careful attention to how the writer or speaker arrived at their conclusion and be sure that the argument is valid, sound, and truthful. Nevertheless, the Christian apologist would do well to be aware of the thoughtful work being done in the ID community.

Primary Arguments for Intelligent Design

ID Arguments: Is there evidence of design in the world?The Intelligent Design community has produced a variety of arguments in wide-ranging Scientific fields, and it would be impossible to include the entire scope of their work in a single brief article. Still, most of that work falls roughly into five categories which we can be briefly (if somewhat inadequately) summarized as follows:

  1. Molecular Information in the Cell – One of the most popular ID arguments looks at the complex, specified information encoded in the molecules of every living cell and demonstrates that this kind of information is only known to come from an intelligent source. Popularly laid out in Dr. Stephen Meyer’s 2009 book “Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design,” this argument often focuses on the detailed instructions found in the DNA molecule which take the form of a “digital code” guiding the construction of various proteins, various cell functions, and the development of the organism. Since that time, the argument has expanded not only in depth but also in scope, noting other information-bearing molecules and biochemical systems rich in the kind of complexity and specificity that require an intelligent cause. Arguments related to the Darwinian problem of the origin of organic life from non-living matter frequently connect to this category.
  2. Irreducible Complexity – First coined by molecular biologist Dr. Michael Behe in his 1996 book “Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution,” the term “Irreducible Complexity” refers to biological systems or structures made out of interacting components that cannot function if you remove any one of their parts. Such irreducibly complex systems are extremely significant in that they cannot have developed slowly, piece-by-piece through Darwinian processes because, without all the parts together, the structure cannot function and thus any partial version would be useless or harmful to the organism and thus would be eliminated by natural selection. Behe’s most famous example of such a system was the bacterial flagellum, an impressive molecular “motor” that allows certain bacteria to efficiently move about. Behe and others in the ID community have identified numerous other such systems and argue that the standard Darwinian model of gradual development through natural selection acting on small changes through random mutation cannot account for such systems. Further, the development of such systems seems inescapably to require a kind of foresight and planning that only intelligence can provide. This is perhaps the most iconic of the ID arguments, with the result the Behe is likely the most popular and well-known representative of the ID community..
  3. Sudden Emergence of New Body Forms in the Fossil Record – Probably most famously popularized by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer’s 2013 book “Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design,” this argument observes that the fossil record does not reflect the gradual development of new body shapes for organisms but rather, in several key places, shows fully developed organisms appearing without any precursors. Intelligent Design proponents often put particular emphasis on what is called the “Cambrian Explosion.” On the standard Darwinian Evolutionary interpretation of history and the geological rock layers (which the ID community accepts as generally accurate), this is a very early period where a wide variety of new organisms with entirely distinct and fully developed body plans emerges quite suddenly without any evidence of prior, gradual development. Intelligent planning seems to be the best explanation for this rapid emergence of many new, complete biological designs (and the vast amount of information necessary for it to happen). While the Cambrian explosion is by far the most common example that Intelligent Design proponents use, the fossil record contains other similar instances which, even on the standard Darwinian interpretation of the data, seem to suggest the rapid emergence of new animal and plant body plans rather than the gradual change from one general body plan to another.
  4. The Fitness of the Environment – While the ID community is best known for their work in biology, they also contend that Intelligent Design can be perceived in other aspects of nature, particularly in its seemingly engineered fitness for complex, intelligent life. For example, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez and philosopher Jay W. Richards argue in their 2004 book “The Privileged Planet” that the numerous, unlikely factors necessary for a planet like earth to be fit for life point to design as the best explanation. They also point out the fact that many of these same factors also make earth an exceptionally good place from which to observe and study the wider cosmos. In other words, the universe is set up such that a perfect planet for complex, organic life like us is also the ideal place to clearly see stars and galaxies and even to observe natural phenomena through which we can discover the mysteries of chemistry and physics, most of which could not be clearly observed on or from the various non-life-supporting parts of our solar system or wider galaxy. All of this taken together, they argue, reflects not only a universe designed for intelligent life but also a plan for that life to observe the universe and engage in scientific discovery. Similarly, Dr. Michael Denton, a specialist in biochemistry, has written many books (culminating in his most recent 2022 publication “The Miracle of Man: The Fine-Tuning of Nature for Human Existence“) arguing that chemistry itself is carefully designed for life. Down to details of their very atoms and molecules, Denton argues that the basic elements and compounds that make life possible are endowed with a host of unique and providential properties that, when viewed together, give the strong appearance that nature was designed, not just for life, but specifically for complex, land-dwelling, air-breathing, fire-making, technology-building creatures just like us. Not all ID proponents are sold on these lines of argument, and they receive significantly less publicity than the strictly biological case, but these sorts of arguments represent an intriguing sub-group within the wider Intelligent Design community.
  5. Cosmic Fine Tuning – Expanding out even further, many ID proponents argue that core features of physics itself on which the very functions of the physical universe depend are uniquely fine-tuned for life. Factors like the exact strength of each of the fundamental forces (gravity, magnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces that hold atoms and molecules together) all theoretically could be quite different but must be almost exactly what they are for the existence of life (or even planets for us to live on) to be possible. Many other physical laws like this are likewise tuned with such exact precision that coincidence is statistically impossible. Nor does there seem to be any higher natural law that makes this exact fine-tuning necessary (nor, if there were such a higher law, is there any reason why that law should be so specifically fine-tuned for our existence.) This line of argument has been profoundly influential, and has led to the popularity of multiverse models to soften the blow (i.e., if we imagine that there are an infinite number of universes, then the idea that one might happen by chance to be perfectly fine-tuned for life seems at least a little more believable). Still, the weight of this ID argument has been significant enough that many Christians have adopted it as part of a cumulative case for God (i.e., this argument itself doesn’t necessarily lead directly to the biblical God, but it does point to a designer of the entire universe that, by philosophical deduction, must transcend physics itself. Many Christian apologists combine this with other arguments to show that this transcendent designer is the triune God of Scripture). As such, most Christian readers know this kind of argument not from ID proponents but from the writings of Christian apologists like William Lane Craig’s popular volume “Reasonable Faith.”

 Conclusion

This is only a very brief overview of the most basic categories of arguments in the Intelligent Design community. Within each of these categories, there are a variety of specific arguments, some far more compelling than others. The Christian apologist will not find all such arguments to be equally truthful nor useful, but in this secular, naturalistic, and Darwinian age, it can be useful to be aware of the research this scholarly community is putting out and to evaluate it from a biblical perspective.

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