Intelligent Design Creationism
Is Not Science
"Evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology" and "intelligent
design is not a scientific concept."
--John Marberger, President George W. Bush's science adviser, responding to
Bush's suggestion that we teach intelligent design creationism in public schools
Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research can't offer masters degrees in science education
Texas Education Agency Director of Science Christine Comer forced out over ID
Ken Miller came to SMU!
Professor Kenneth R. Miller (Brown University Biology)
"Time to Abandon Darwin?
What the Collapse of 'Intelligent Design' means for Science & Faith in America"
15 November 2007 at 5:00pm Hughes Trigg Ballroom
Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial
NOVA - Tuesday 13 November 2007 on PBS at 7:00pm CST
with Professor Kenneth R. Miller (Preview on YouTube)
The Collapse of Intelligent Design - Ken Miller at Case
Western Reserve University 2005, 2hr
(Un)Intelligent Design guest
lecture by Professor John Wise (SMU Biology) 17 April 2006
Intelligent Design Creationism is not science; it makes no testable predictions so it can not be falsified.
Intelligent Design Creationism is a belief system; it is religion.
Ask a proponent of Intelligent Design Creationism what experiment could in principle
be performed and what result could possibly be obtained that would convince him
that Intelligent Design Creationism is wrong. If there is no such experiment and
no such result, then the "theory" is not falsifiable and is, in fact, a construct.
Evolution is easily tested. Show me fossil remains of a cat or dog in a
pre-Cambrian layer of rock. Show me any lifeform on Earth that does not
share half of its DNA with single-celled yeast. This would convince any
rational person that evolution is wrong.
Proponents of Intelligent Design Creationism do not publish their
results in peer-reviewed science journals.
Here is Bill Dembski's rather weak explanation/excuse: "I've just gotten kind of blase
about submitting things to journals where you often wait two years to
get things into print," he says. "And I find I can actually get the
turnaround faster by writing a book and getting the ideas expressed
there. My books sell well. I get a royalty. And the material gets read
more."
Or maybe he can't get his work past the editors and reviewers because it's BAD SCIENCE.
It's interesting to compare this with the AIDS deniers' reasons for
not publishing their nonsense in peer-reviewed research journals.
Global Warming deniers and Holocaust deniers have the same problem.
A skeptic would say, "First publish your argument in a peer-reviewed journal, then I shall read it."
This new stealth version of creationism is trying to distance itself
from its fundamentalist religious origins by referring to an "Intelligent Designer"
for legal reasons, specifically to evade the
Establishment Clause
of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Robert Carroll on the SkepDic
Intelligent Design webpage says,
"There is also much hypocrisy and deceit in a movement that does not
refer to God in published documents as the intelligent designer, but
opens its public presentations with a Christian prayer and doesn't
hesitate to refer to God when alternatives such as aliens as the
designers are brought up".
Ask a proponent of Intelligent Design Creationism if he really believes that
the "Designer" could be an advanced space alien. Who designed the alien, then?
Could the "Designer" be a non-Christian god, like Odin, Zeus, or Brahman?
Could the "Designer" be another supernatural figure
recognized within Christianity? "Of course not!", he will say. Ask him why not.
New! For those of you who think incorrectly that both sides of every
issue should be presented just to be fair, a webpage cataloguing all
of the scientific evidence in favor of Intelligent Design Creationism and a list
of all the articles published by Intelligent Design Creationism proponents in
peer-reviewed science journals showing
that Intelligent Design Creationism is a valid research program.
Intelligent Design Creationism
- Intelligent Design (ID) from The Skeptic's Dictionary.
- Intelligent Design (ID) from Wikipedia. See also
- National Center for Science Education
Defending the Teaching of Evolution in the Public Schools
- Creation and Intelligent Design Watch from CSICOP
- The Wedge Strategy from AntiEvolution.org - The Critic's Resource on AntiEvolution
- Understanding The Intelligent Design Creationist Movement
by Barbara Forrest, Ph.D.- a position paper from the The Center for Inquiry
- Intelligent Design? from Natural History
- Evolution Denialism
from scienceblogs.com
- Why the Intelligent Design "Theory" is Bullshit
-
Scientific Societies Rejecting Intelligent Design Creationism
-
"Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationism and the Constitution"
by Matthew J. Brauer, Barbara Forrest, and Steven G. Gey in Washington University Law Quarterly 83 (1)
- The Evolution Debate - Guest editorial by George V. Coyne, Director Emeritus of the
Vatican Observatory. The Physics Teacher January 2008.
- Show Me the Science - By Daniel C. Dennett
in The New York Times 28 August 2005
- What is...'Intelligent Design?'
by Terence Kealey, from The Times (London) December 18, 2004.
Quoting from the story: "... theories of intelligent design and creationism are transparently absurd and driven not by a search for truth but by faith."
- "Evolution and Intelligent Design" from the Diane Rehm Show (NPR) August 4, 2005
- Rev. Ridiculous doesn't speak well for intelligent design -
If Intelligent Design Creationism is science and not religion, then why is the Reverend Pat Robertson upset?
- Intelligent Design: The New Creationism Threatens All of Science
and Society from the American Physical Society (APS)
- Chapter 11: "Creation Science" 2.0 excerpt from
The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney
- The Plot to Kill Evolution
Inside the Crusade to Bring Creationism 2.0 to America's Classrooms - Wired, October 2004.
- Intelligent Design from
An Index to Creationist Claims
at The TalkOrigins Archive
-
Intelligent Design 101: Short on science, long on snake oil
by James Curtsinger, The Minnesota Daily 11 October 2005
- Sandwalk - Strolling with a skeptical biochemist by Laurence A. Moran
- Prominent biology professor defends evolution, criticizes intelligent design
by Chintan Desai in The California Aggie 05 April 2007
- Trial transcript of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District
Dover, Pennsylvania Intelligent Design Case from The TalkOrigins Archive
- Threw the Book at 'Em
from the Scientific American blog 20 December 2005
- Pharyngula
-
Intelligent design - a pig that doesn't fly
- The Flagellum Unspun -
The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity" by Kenneth R. Miller
- The Emperor's New Designer Clothes by Victor J. Stenger
- Devolution - Why intelligent design isn't by H. Allen Orr
-
Behe's Empty Box by John Catalano
- A reducibly complex mousetrap by John H. McDonald
Quoting from the website:
'To illustrate the concept of irreducible complexity, Behe uses the
common snap mousetrap. "If any one of the components of the mousetrap
(the base, hammer, spring, catch, or holding bar) is removed, then the
trap does not function. In other words, the simple little mousetrap
has no ability to trap a mouse until several separate parts are all
assembled. Because the mousetrap is necessarily composed of several
parts, it is irreducibly complex." (Behe, 1996).'
WRONG!
- Fuz Rana vs. John Rennie on NPR's Glenn Mitchell show, KERA 90.1 FM Dallas, TX, July 9th, 2002 transcript
- Evolution for ID-iots on YouTube
- Seed - game of plant evolution
- "Evolving Inventions"
by John R. Koza, Martin A. Keane and Matthew J. Streeter, Scientific American February 2003 p53
- Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory
- parody of Intelligent Design from the Onion.
- And male nipples serve what intelligently designed purpose again?
- ID Creationist Bingo
- The reDiscovery Institute
- a parody of the Discovery Institute
- Intelligent Design Society of Kansas FAQ (parody)
- This bumper sticker
and other paraphernalia from Cafepress.com
- Texas State Education board opposes intelligent design in curricula
Even creationists say theory doesn't belong in class with evolution
Dallas Morning News, 23 August 2007 -- See the results of reader voting
- How to get kicked off Bill Dembski's blog: Raise the question of the
age of the Earth.
The "big tent" is the fact that ID welcomes all views on the age of the Earth, including Young Earth Creationist views
that the Earth is 6,000-10,000 years old!
- Evolution Is Not Up For Debate -- Except at Republican Debates
- INTELLIGENT DESIGN: CREATIONIST ASTRONOMER DENIED TENURE
Quoting from the website:
"Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure at Iowa State University. The
Discovery Institute was shocked at this blatant disregard of the
cherished principle of 'viewpoint diversity.' With Jay Richards, a
theologian, Gonzalez wrote The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in
the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery. It's a daffy twist on the
anthropic principle, which was already daffy enough. The simple fact
is that his colleagues voted him off the island. It's not like he
was tenured and then fired." --Robert Park, What's New Friday, May 18, 2007
- Flock of Dodos - The Evolution - Intelligent Design Circus
- Expelled Exposed - learn the truth about Ben Stein's mockumentary
- Intelligent Design vs. Evolution -- THE GAME!
From Living Waters Ministries' Ray Comfort (guess which side they take).
With an endorsement by Kirk Cameron, how can it possibly be trash?
- This is just too funny!
Casey Luskin, Esquire, from discovery.org has recently pointed out, referring to this very webpage,
"Their listing of course readings on ID lacks a single article that is friendly towards ID! ...
There is not a single article by an ID-proponent to balance out the 3 dozen or so articles that
they list in this "Intelligent Design" section."
Imagine that! No articles friendly toward the nonsense that is Intelligent Design Creationism in a course
devoted to debunking pseudoscience. Shocker! But also wrong. I guess he didn't get as far as
the section below. Should I complain that the Discovery Institute
also presents a one-sided version if ID?
- More Luskin Whining
from Ed Brayton at scienceblogs.com addresses Luskin's
criticism.
The SMU "Darwin vs. Design" event - 13,14 April 2007
Comments in the Dallas Morning News
- Intelligent design event spurs protests - Dallas
Morning News article by Jeffrey Weiss 24 March 2007
- "Darwin vs. Design" at SMU -- twaddle on both sides by Jeffrey Weiss on March 24, 2007
- Darwin vs. Design presented by
The Discovery Institute,
a Christian think tank (now if only they would do some thinking)
- Letters in response - Dallas
Morning News 28 March 2007
(Science 0 : Pseudoscience 3)
All from very religious people. Is Intelligent Design religion? If Intelligent Design is science,
then why are so many religious people upset? I'll bet that not a single one of
the letter writers has
read Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, or has an idea what evolution means. Evolution has nothing
to say about God -- it is neutral on the God question.
- Ivory tower hysterics from The Dallas Morning News,
31 March 2007, "Hits and Misses" on the editorial page.
Who said this was going to be a "debate"? All four speakers are pro-Intelligent Design!
The name of the presentation should be changed from "Darwin vs. Design" to "Design, Design,
Design, and more Design"! Hey, Dallas Morning News, whatever happened to due diligence and
fact checking?
- A problem at its genesis by Lee Cullum, Dallas
Morning News Opinion Viewpoints 4 April 2007.
- Viewpoint 5 April 2007 sent to the
Dallas Morning News by 24 members of the SMU faculty.
- More letters to the editor Dallas Morning News 9 April 2007
(Science 1 : Pseudoscience 2)
Well, at least one was favorable to the science position this time.
- Are the Darwinists afraid to debate us? Dallas Morning News Viewpoint 10 April 2007
When you say "Darwinist" do you mean "rational thinking person"? No, we're not afraid to debate you; we're
afraid that a debate on a university campus will lend legitimacy to your nonsense. We don't debate the
AIDS deniers or the flat earthers either. ID has been defeated in science and in the courts; how
many more times do we need to fight this battle? "Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than
once." -- Thomas Huxley
- Sunday letters: SMU and evolution science Dallas Morning News 15 April 2007
(Science 2 : Pseudoscience 1)
Hey, we're ahead for once!
Comments in the SMU Daily Campus Newspaper
- Open debate in jeopardy SMU Daily Campus editorial 4 April 2007 written by
- Sarah Levy, a third year law student at SMU and president of the Christian Legal Society which invited the Discovery Institute to SMU
(Thanks a pantsfull for that!) and
- Anika Smith, Press Contact for the Discovery Institute, a detail she omitted from her information at the
bottom of the article. She listed only "recent graduate of Seattle Pacific University" with an SPU email address. Are you trying to
hide something, Anika? Does ID stand for Intentional Deception?
Once again, this is NOT going to be a "debate". All four speakers are pro-Intelligent Design!
But of course you KNEW this already, didn't you, ladies?
- Reply from Professor John Wise, SMU Biological Sciences
- Reply from Professor Randall J. Scalise, SMU Physics
- Freedom of Speech vs. License SMU Daily Campus letter
by Professor Ronald Wetherington (SMU Anthropology) 11 April 2007
- The Discovery Institute: harming us with pseudoscience by Ben Wells,
SMU Daily Campus editorial 13 April 2007
- Censorship at Darwin vs. Design conference by Ken Ueda 17 April 2007
- Darwin vs. Design conference:
A perspective from one group of students 17 April 2007
- The delicate balance of free speech by R. Gerald Turner, President of SMU 17 April 2007
- New name, similar face Intelligent Design may have a theory, but it's not scientific,
By: The Daily Campus Ed Board 18 April 2007
- Response to Professor Wise about Intelligent Design 18 April 2007
- No faith in ID - letter to the editor by Daniel Palos 24 April 2007
- Letter to the Editor by Christopher Strganac 25 April 2007
- Letter to the Editor by Professor John Wise 25 April 2007
- ID claims don't hold up by Professors John Wise and Pia Vogel 26 April 2007
- Why ID is false by Patrick McDonald 30 April 2007
- Rant from Casey Luskin, Esq. at discovery.org 5 May 2007
- Here's an interesting strategy: When your argument is absolutely devoid of science, attack John Wise.
- Intelligent Design is not science: why this matters by Professor John Wise 5 May 2007
Other comments
- Are Darwinists Afraid to Debate? by Michael D. Lemonick -
Eye on Science Blog from Time Magazine, with CNN
-
Are ID Creationism Advocates Afraid to Acknowledge Past Debates? from The Austringer
- Science Professors at
SMU Protest Intelligent-Design Conference - from The Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog
"And, finally, I'm thrilled that SMU is hosting this little band
of lawyers, philosophers, Christian apologists and the lone
scientist, Mike Behe, who singlehandedly lost the Kitzmiller case
for 'intelligent design' by equating, under oath, that
'intelligent design' and astrology were both scientific
concepts. Thank you, Mike, biochemist and palm reader.
I only hope they provide popcorn."
--Doc Bill, 27 March 2007
- Vacuity of ID:
SMU profs upset about upcoming intelligent design conference from The Panda's Thumb
-
Duty to speak out against intelligent design
from Millard Fillmore's Bathtub
- The same nonsense in Knoxville, TN, 24 March 2007 debunked by Jason Rosenhouse
Intelligent Design Creationism Opponents
Every Ph.D. biologist, chemist, geologist, physicist, etc. in the world (except Behe and Wells), but especially
Books
Quotations:
- "In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal
question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not,
and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and
thus religious, antecedents."
--Judge John E. Jones III, Kitzmiller et al. vs.
Dover Area School District et al. Memorandum Opinion
20 Dec 2005
- "Intelligent design isn't science, even though it pretends to be.
If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent
design should be taught when religion or cultural history
is taught, not science."
--Reverend George V. Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory
- "Evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology" and "intelligent
design is not a scientific concept."
--John Marberger, President George W. Bush's science adviser, responding to
Bush's suggestion that we teach intelligent design in the schools
- "ID leaders know the benefits of submitting their work to independent
review and have established at least two purportedly "peer-reviewed"
journals for ID articles. However, one has languished for want of
material and quietly ceased publication, while the other has a more
overtly philosophical orientation. Both journals employ a weak
standard of "peer review" that amounts to no more than vetting by the
editorial board or society fellows."
--Matthew J. Brauer, Barbara Forrest, and Steven G. Gey in
"Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationism and the Constitution" Washington University Law Quarterly 83 (1)
- "To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a
supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves
unexplained the origin of the Designer. You have to say something like
'God was always there', and if you allow yourself that kind of lazy
way out, you might as well just say 'DNA was always there', or "Life
was always there', and be done with it."
--Richard Dawkins,
The Blind
Watchmaker : Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without
Design p. 141
- "The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which
formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of
natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that,
for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been
made by an intellignet being, like the hinge of a door by man. There
seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in
the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind
blows."
--Charles Darwin from The Autobiography of Charles Darwin
- "While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are
his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our
collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science,
has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as
scientific."
--Lehigh University Biochemistry Department Position on Evolution and "Intelligent Design"
- "Pseudoscientists make poorly substantiated or demonstrably false claims and refuse to relinquish them
when shown the counterevidence. 'Scientific' creationism and its 2.0 version, 'intelligent design,' provide
the canonical examples of the conservative embrace of pseudoscience. Creationists and intelligent design
proponents claim to act scientifically, but in fact they do little more than spread scientific-sounding
arguments in defense of a biblical or religious agenda. It is doubtful whether any amount of evidence
would change their minds."
--Chris Mooney in The Republican War on Science p. 22
- "Dembski's law of conservation of information and the rest of
Intelligent Design are not just pseudoscience, they are wrong pseudoscience."
--Victor J. Stenger in The Emperor's New Designer Clothes
- "Incorporating intelligent design into science classrooms is an obvious impediment
to scientific progress."
--Alan J. Scott in "Danger! Scientific Inquiry Hazard" Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 31, No. 3, May/June 2007
- "Let's not kid ourselves. Regardless of superficial scientific appearances, intelligent design
was fabricated by a handful of Christian apologists with the mission of discrediting evolution
and of bringing conservative Christian values into public school classrooms."
--Charles L. Rulon in "Debating Creationists" Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 31, No. 3, May/June 2007
- "... putting intelligent design in opposition to Darwin is like
offering a program on faith healing versus oncology. Faith healing is
worth discussing, but not as a scientific alternative to medical
treatment ..."
--Lee Cullum, "A problem at its genesis,"
Dallas Morning News Opinion Viewpoints 4 April 2007.
- Bill Maher on Intelligent Design:
"You don't have to teach both sides of a debate, if one side is a load of crap."
Quotations from ID proponents
I thought you guys claim that ID is science and not religion. Your own words say something quite different:
- "Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated
in the idiom of information theory."
--William Dembski, Signs of intelligence: A primer on the
discernment of intelligent design. Touchstone 12(4) (Jul/Aug 1999): 76-84.
- "the conceptual soundness of a scientific theory cannot be maintained apart from Christ"
--William Dembski, Intelligent Design: The Bridge between Science and Theology, 1998, p. 209
- "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can
get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of
God, before the academic world and into the schools."
--Phillip Johnson, American Family Radio, 10 January 2003.
- "there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for
intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations
which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of
any biological system occurred."
--Michael Behe, 2005
- "Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I
should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my
fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying
Marxism."
--Jonathan Wells, Darwinism: Why I Went for a Second Ph.D.
(Incidentally, the person whom Wells calls "Father" is
Sun Myung Moon,
founder of the Unification Church which is also known as the "Moonies" and the Washington Times.)
- Eric Rothschild: But you are clear, under your definition, the
definition that sweeps in intelligent design, astrology is also a
scientific theory, correct?
Michael Behe: Yes, that's correct.
--Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, Trial transcript: Day 11 (October 18, 2005), PM Session, Part 1
- "We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture."
--Ray Mummert, Dover PA pastor
- More quotations from ID proponents can be found in
The Horse's Mouth
by Brian Poindexter, 2003.
Science is intolerant. Science is biased. Science does not operate
democratically. Not every idea is worthy of inclusion in the vast
system of knowledge. We don't teach astrology in the astronomy
courses. We don't teach alchemy in the chemistry courses. We don't
teach Holocaust denial in the history courses. Intelligent Design Creationism
is pseudoscience masquerading as science, and as such it deserves the
attention it receives in our course.
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