Intelligent Design is NOT Anti-Evolution
In order to have a discussion about whether or not Intelligent Design is anti-evolution or not we must first define “evolution”. Fortunately there are resources available that do just that.
Defining “evolution”:
Finally, during the evolutionary synthesis, a consensus emerged: “Evolution is the change in properties of populations of organisms over time”- Ernst Mayr page 8 of “What Evolution Is”
Biological (or organic) evolution is change in the properties of populations of organisms or groups of such populations, over the course of generations. The development, or ontogeny, of an individual organism is not considered evolution: individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are ‘heritable’ via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportions of different forms of a gene within a population, such as the alleles that determine the different human blood types, to the alterations that led from the earliest organisms to dinosaurs, bees, snapdragons, and humans.
Douglas J. Futuyma (1998) Evolutionary Biology 3rd ed., Sinauer Associates Inc. Sunderland MA p.4
Biological evolution refers to the cumulative changes that occur in a population over time. PBS series “Evolution” endorsed by the NCSE
Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution (changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next) and large-scale evolution (the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations) UC Berkley
In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next.
Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989 Worth Publishers, p.974
Evolution- in biology, the word means genetically based change in a line of descent over time.- Biology: Concepts and Applications Starr 5th edition 2003 page 10
Those are all accepted definitions of biological “evolution”. (Perhaps OgreMKV will present some definitions that differ from those. Most likely I will only comment on any differences if the differences are relevant.)
With biology, where-ever there is heritable genetic change there is evolution and where-ever you have offspring that are (genetically) different from the parent(s) you have descent with modification.
Next I will show what Intelligent Design says about biological evolution and people can see for themselves that Intelligent Design is not anti-evolution:
Intelligent Design is NOT Creationism
(MAY 2000)Scott refers to me as an intelligent design “creationist,” even though I clearly write in my book Darwin’s Black Box (which Scott cites) that I am not a creationist and have no reason to doubt common descent. In fact, my own views fit quite comfortably with the 40% of scientists that Scott acknowledges think “evolution occurred, but was guided by God.”- Dr Michael Behe
Dr Behe has repeatedly confirmed he is OK with common ancestry. And he has repeatedly made it clear that ID is an argument against materialistic evolution (see below), ie necessity and chance.
Then we have:
What is Intelligent Design and What is it Challenging?– a short video featuring Stephen C. Meyer on Intelligent Design. He also makes it clear that ID is not anti-evolution.
Next Dembski and Wells weigh in:
The theory of intelligent design (ID) neither requires nor excludes speciation- even speciation by Darwinian mechanisms. ID is sometimes confused with a static view of species, as though species were designed to be immutable. This is a conceptual possibility within ID, but it is not the only possibility. ID precludes neither significant variation within species nor the evolution of new species from earlier forms. Rather, it maintains that there are strict limits to the amount and quality of variations that material mechanisms such as natural selection and random genetic change can alone produce. At the same time, it holds that intelligence is fully capable of supplementing such mechanisms, interacting and influencing the material world, and thereby guiding it into certain physical states to the exclusion of others. To effect such guidance, intelligence must bring novel information to expression inside living forms. Exactly how this happens remains for now an open question, to be answered on the basis of scientific evidence. The point to note, however, is that intelligence can itself be a source of biological novelties that lead to macroevolutionary changes. In this way intelligent design is compatible with speciation. page 109 of “The Design of Life”
and
And that brings us to a true either-or. If the choice between common design and common ancestry is a false either-or, the choice between intelligent design and materialistic evolution is a true either-or. Materialistic evolution does not only embrace common ancestry; it also rejects any real design in the evolutionary process. Intelligent design, by contrast, contends that biological design is real and empirically detectable regardless of whether it occurs within an evolutionary process or in discrete independent stages. The verdict is not yet in, and proponents of intelligent design themselves hold differing views on the extent of the evolutionary interconnectedness of organisms, with some even accepting universal common ancestry (ie Darwin’s great tree of life).
Common ancestry in combination with common design can explain the similar features that arise in biology. The real question is whether common ancestry apart from common design- in other words, materialistic evolution- can do so. The evidence of biology increasingly demonstrates that it cannot.- Ibid page 142And from one more pro-ID book:
Many assume that if common ancestry is true, then the only viable scientific position is Darwinian evolution- in which all organisms are descended from a common ancestor via random mutation and blind selection. Such an assumption is incorrect- Intelligent Design is not necessarily incompatible with common ancestry.– page 217 of “Intelligent Design 101”
That is just a sample of what the Intelligent Design leadership say about biological evolution- they are OK with it. And the following is from “Uncommon Descent”:
9] “Evolution” Proves that Intelligent Design is Wrong
The word “evolution” can mean different things. The simplest meaning is one of natural history of the appearance of different living forms. A stronger meaning implies common descent, in its universal form (all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor) or in partial form (particular groups of organisms have descended from a common ancestor). “Evolution” is often defined as descent with modifications, or simply as changes in the frequencies of alleles in the gene pool of a population.None of those definitions can prove ID wrong, because none are in any way incompatible with it.
ID is a theory about the cause of genetic information, not about the modalities or the natural history of its appearance, and is in no way incompatible with many well known patterns of limited modification of that information usually defined as “microevolution.” ID affirms that design is the cause, or at least a main cause, of complex biological information. A theory which would indeed be alternative to ID, and therefore could prove it wrong, is any empirically well-supported “causal theory” which excludes design; in other words any theory that fits well with the evidence and could explain the presence or emergence of complex biological information through chance, necessity, any mix of the two, or any other scenario which does not include design. However, once we rule out “just-so stories” and the like, we will see that there is not today, nor has there ever been, such a theory. Furthermore, the only empirically well-supported source of functionally specific, complex information is: intelligence.
To sum it up: no definition of evolution is really incompatible with an ID scenario. Any causal theory of evolution which does not include design is obviously alternative to, and incompatible with, ID.However, while many such theories have indeed been proposed, they are consistently wanting in the necessary degree of empirical support. By contrast, design is an empirically known source of the class of information – complex, specified information (CSI) — exhibited by complex biological systems.
They go on to say:
10] The Evidence for Common Descent is Incompatible with Intelligent Design
ID is a theory about the cause of complex biological information. Common descent (CD) is a theory about the modalities of implementation of that information. They are two separate theories about two different aspects of the problem, totally independent and totally compatible. In other words, one can affirm CD and ID, CD and Darwinian Evolution, or ID and not CD. However, if one believes in Darwinian Evolution, CD is a necessary implication.CD theory exists in two forms, universal CD and partial CD. No one can deny that there are evidences for the theory of CD (such as ERVs, homologies and so on). That’s probably the reason why many IDists do accept CD. Others do not agree that those evidences are really convincing, or suggest that they may reflect in part common design. But ID theory, proper, has nothing to do with all that.
ID affirms that design is the key cause of complex biological information. The implementation of design can well be realized through common descent, that is through implementation of new information in existing biological beings. That can be done gradually or less gradually. All these are modalities of the implementation of information, and not causes of the information itself. ID theory is about causes.
And finally there is front loaded evolution (Mike Gene) and a prescribed evolutionary hypothesis (John Davison)- both are ID hypotheses pertaining to evolution.
Mutations are OK, differential reproduction is OK, horizontal gene transfer is OK. With Intelligent Design organisms are designed to evolve, ie they evolve by design. That is by “built-in responses to environmental cues” ala Dr Spetner’s “non-random evolution hypothesis” being the main process of adaptations.
As Dembski/ Wells said Intelligent design only has an issue with materialistic evolution- the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors solely through an unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural selection acting on random variations or mutations; that the mechanisms of natural selection, random variation and mutation, and perhaps other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, are completely sufficient to account for the appearance of design in living organisms. (Also known as the blind watchmaker thesis)
Intelligent Design is OK with all individuals in a population generally having the same number and types of genes and that those genes give rise to an array of traits and characteristics that characterize that population. It is OK with mutations that may result in two or more slightly different molecular forms of a gene- alleles- that influence a trait in different ways and that individuals of a population vary in the details of a trait when they inherit different combinations of alleles. ID is OK with any allele that may become more or less common in the population relative to other kinds at a gene locus, or it may disappear. And ID is OK with allele frequencies changing as a result of mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, natural and artificial selection, that mutation alone produces new alleles and gene flow, genetic drift, natural and artificial selection shuffle existing alleles into, through, or out of populations. IOW ID is OK with biological evolution. As Dr Behe et al., make very clear, it just argues about the mechanisms- basically design/ telic vs spontaneous/ stochastic.
Now we are left with the only way Intelligent Design can be considered anti-evolution is if and only if the only definition of evolution matches the definition provided for materialistic evolution. However I cannot find any source that states that is the case.
So the bottom line is Intelligent Design says “evolved, sure”. The questions are “evolved from what?” and “how did it evolve?”.
At least I know what they are 😉
Biological life.
Phoodoo, there are plenty of example of emergent design that comes from simple rules.
Conway’s Game of Life is a great example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life
This is a square grid and boxes are turned on or off using four simple rules. Yet, within those rules patterns emerge that are exceedingly complex. Gliders, glider guns, spaceships, even systems that grow indefinitely. All with four simple rules.
Another example could be the internet. No one designed the internet. Someone designed TCP and IP. Someone designed http. Someone else designed DNS and ethernet and fiber optic and java and flash and browsers. But the internet is an emergent complexity that no one designed.
And before you go there, the rules are decided on by an intelligence. But to make that equivalent to the real universe, you have to show that the rules of the universe (basic physics and chemistry) were designed as well… which means, you need the designer.
But we can go much further than that. Stars are very complex systems. Each star, depending on its mass and percent of elements is carefully balanced against the force generated by fusing atoms and the gravitational force. Yet the star changes mass over time, hence it changes over time. Different stars develop along different paths as they “age” consuming their starting hydrogen and working up through the Periodic Table. These stars provide us with a lot of information without an intelligence. We can determine, just by looking at the light from the star, how large it is, how far it is, what kind of star it is, it’s general age, how likely it is to explode, etc. All without watching a single star complete an entire life cycle.
What else? Chemistry is a very complex system. We’re just now beginning to understand how it really works. But using some fairly simple rules (again, not designed, unless you can produce a designer), complex systems appear. There’s a chemical system that can reproduce itself. That can make copies of itself. There’s chemical systems that take advantage of other chemical systems using chemical systems that store and modify chemical systems. All using fairly basic rules.
Complexity is trivial to show without requiring an intelligence. There simply is zero evidence for an intelligence that created chemistry or physics or life or anything else. Humans, as an intelligence, can discover some of these rules that our universe runs on, but we cannot create THE RULES. Even if we could outspeed light itself, create a 4-course dinner from vats of raw elements in seconds, and upload our minds into silicon substrates… we still live by the basic rules of our universe. And those basic rules have resulted in everything that exists… including organized masses of chemistry that can study those rules and figure out how to manipulate the other parts of that universe.
To disprove evolution or abiogensis, you simply must show that some aspect of life, chemistry, or physics is impossible without the designer. Your incredulity is not evidence or proof. Humans’ composite lack of knowledge is not evidence or proof. Belief in a system that disagrees with anything I’ve said is not evidence or proof.
You simply MUST be able to say, “This step in the development of life (or evolution or whatever) is impossible and here’s why…” You must make no mathematical, logical, or evidential mistakes. Any such proof must be the most robust piece of science and mathematics ever to have appeared in the human world. And you MUST be willing to say that, at any point in the future, “I was wrong”. When some new discovery appears that shows exactly why Mercury appears in the wrong spot or why Mars appears to move backward in its orbit or that the universe really is expanding.
It all comes back to that. To be able to show that complex systems REQUIRE a designer, you have to provide the designer. Or you have to provide the most powerful evidence ever in the history of Earth that evolution is wrong.
Such an event will not be found on this thread. It will not come from UD. It will not be found in a link to YouTube. It will not be found in any Holy Text or any church.
If you can’t understand that… then there is no point talking to you any further.
If there had ever been a point to discussing ID, it would have come upnin the 200 years since Paley.
Ogrethe5th,
There’s a couple of posts by myself and others here on ‘life’, including a rebuttal of Dembski and Marks.
I seem to be a bit late on this, but I’ll go ahead anyway. Yes, ID is not intrinsically, as a hypothesis considered in isolation, anti-evolution. However, in practice almost all IDers are creationists, especially if you consider the rank and file, but the leaders are too. Behe is just about the only exception. Meyer spends most of a book claiming that the Cambrian animals had no precursors and all arose independently, and spent quite some time (though not in a book) attacking the evidence for human relationship to chimps. Wells attacks the concepts of natural selection, homology, and the tree of life. Dembski believes (or was forced to profess to believe) in a recent, worldwide flood. Nelson is an admitted YEC. IDers of all sorts frequently attack evidence for common descent and all known evolutionary processes. Why, if they aren’t opposed?
Frankie is also a YEC, he’s written for a YEC website, and espouses kinds.
Ogrethe5th,
Welcome to TSZ, Ogre!
@ Frankie,
So, either blatant plagiarism or sockpuppetry? Is there another explanation?
Moved some posts to guano. Calling someone a moron breaks the rule against implying someone is mentally deficient or insane.
ETA clarity
I think that point needs to be made clearly and often to Dembski, Ewert and Marks.
If only we had one of the ID leaders here to help clear up the ID position…
If evolution ‘routinely breaks things’, it is a reasonable surmise that it routinely breaks any front-loaded programming. A reasonable front-loading research project would be to see how such programming might survive evolution, if it is not even of survival value to the current organism.
I wonder if it’s possible to use insult as an active portal to the otherwise inaccessible Realm of Guano, and take a random pop at someone? Let’s see … the poster immediately above is a dick. [screws eyes shut]. Did it work? Needs work, maybe.
How about calling someone an IDiot Alan. That is ok?
Ogrethe5th,
Wait, you have it backwards. I say the entire universe was designed. All the laws, rules, forces, they all display intelligence, precision, and consistency and order-thus designed. Now you are the one making the claim that these things exist without ever being designed to be so. How can you prove that, you are making the claim.
If I find a computer in the desert, working perfectly, and then claim, well, it just got here, no one designed it, its up to you to prove that is so. So, what’s your evidence?
Richardthughes,
You don’t know what a leader is Richard, so you would never know.
Question 1: Do computers breed?
OMagain,
Well, if you don’t know if computers breed or not, maybe start with the basics first, and work your way up to it?
Answer: Unwilling to say if computers breed.
Conclusion: The user is aware that answering this question undermines their point significantly, therefore it is in their best interests to avoid answering it.
OMagain,
Huh? Computers ability to breed or not breed says something about proving it was not designed?
OMagain, you are getting weird.
There is, as I’ve said before, a major difference between such things as the location of a computer in the desert – a designed object via some intuition on complexity and unexpectedness (correct in this case) – and the observation that there are fermions and bosons – the very stuff of designed objects.
But phoodoo is effectively saying that he infers design even when we find a rock in the desert. Which is the Design analogy a smidge over-extended, IMO.
Allan Miller,
No Allan, we know how rocks are formed. So its the opposite of what you are claiming.
How do you know that Stonehenge didn’t get that way by accident?
Allan Miller,
Maybe you can help me out, do you know what computers breeding has to do with anything?
Yes, they were designed, right?
phoodoo,
We don’t know how the quarks, gluons and photons that lead to rocks were formed, but you claim the very fabric of the universe as the stuff of Design. So unless you have changed your mind on that, it isn’t opposite.
Shaped rocks, computers, rock-shapers/computer-builders. Different things, with different parameters for existence.
phoodoo,
Well, I know that organisms breeding has to do with something. If one finds lots of copies of something, even if they vary widely in detail, it matters greatly whether they breed or not, as to what explanations of origin and form are available.
Of course, in the computer example, we only find one. Bit of a small sample size.
The poster immediately above is you.
So that is self-deprectatory rather than insulting.
I will remind everyone that human’s ignorance about certain aspects of the universe is not evidence for a designer.
I will remind everyone that evidence of ONE intelligence’s ability to make complex things does not imply that ALL things that are complex required a designer. Indeed, non-human systems can develop systems humans still can’t understand. Davidson, Clive. “Creatures from primordial silicon.” New Scientist, vol.156, no.2108, p.30-35 (November 15, 1997).
The designer is not the default position. Why? Because everything that we have discovered so far is purely materialistic. That is, there is nothing beyond the known matter and energy of the universe. Some scientists think that there is evidence that supports a multiverse or an expanding wavefront of pre-universe expansionary material, but those claims are not supported either.
I repeat, to say that a designer is responsible for the rules of the universe or the universe itself is to make a positive claim. The designer, theoretically, could be discovered or found. Proving that no designer exists is not possible. I will assume that the people promoting that claim do not understand basic logic and that we can dispense with it going forward.
Further, the designer of the entire universe hypothesis leads us to some uncomfortable positions that the ID proponent must adopt and must support with evidence.
1) If this universe was designed…. where did the designer do its work? How? How do you know?
2) If this universe was designed… is the designer still around, still working on things like life on a minuscule planet out of the trillions of trillions of planets in this universe? If so, how has the designer survived a 14 billion year period? How do you know?
3) If this universe is designed AND the designer is still in existence and working, then the designer MUST be supernatural (that is, something outside of this material universe). This is because the designer existed before our universe did. Since the designer is still working, we would find traces of supernatural events. Just like electrons and wind, we can’t directly see them, but we can see the effects with our own eyes.
4) Finally, IF the designer exists AND the designer created the universe AND then the designer left the universe to it’s own devices (e.g. allowed stars and life to form following the rules that was set up by said designer), THEN all of the ID arguments are moot and ID becomes nothing more than a religion promoting their particular deity.
You see, all of these decisions revolve around the designer. Nothing can be said about the APPEARANCE of design without bringing in the designer.
Evolution is a powerful explanation of the history of life. ID proponents know that they have no chance of promoting their creationist worldview unless they discredit evolution. (Note that I’m using the broad definition of “creationist,” the one used by several prominent ID supporters who aren’t YECs.)
This is why more than 99% of the activity of ID proponents is devoted to attacking evolution. It’s why they attack Charles Darwin and it’s why they try to tar evolutionary biology with the sins of social Darwinism and Hitler. It’s why they refer to evolution as “Darwinism” when they know that’s an archaic term that doesn’t represent modern evolutionary theory.
The ID attack on evolution is most visible in their popular books. In Behe’s “The Edge of Evolution,” for example, the entire book is devoted to an attack on evolution. He is attempting to prove that evolution cannot produce complex structures. The title of the book is NOT “Evidence for Intelligent Design.”
Similarly, Stephen Meyers’ book “Darwin’s Doubt” is a lengthy attack on the evidence for the evolution of animals in the Cambrian. He attempts to refute all the evidence for evolution hoping that by casting doubt on evolution he will lead you to accept the only other explanation; namely, gods did it.
There’s no better evidence that ID is essentially an attack on evolution than the very last sentence in the post above.
That’s what ID is all about. It’s about challenging evolutionary explanations in order to weaken the case for scientific explanations and, hopefully, encourage creationists to stick with their theistic beliefs in an increasingly secular and scientific society.
Frankie, stop pretending. We all know about the spurious ID claims to have discovered a powerful way of detecting design and their claims to have actually detected the handiwork of the gods in the structure of bacterial flagella. You know full well that such a claim can only be valid if you demonstrate that bacterial flagella cannot be the result of evolution. That’s why ID proponents have to attack evolution. And that’s why almost all of their energies are devoted to discrediting science and evolutionary biology.
Finally, it’s all very well and good to say that many ID proponents are comfortable with common descent. That’s true but it’s also true that many prominent ID proponents are Young Earth Creationists. What good is “ID theory” if it can’t even distinguish between those conflicting views?
To respond to phoodoo’s query “How do I know there wasn’t a designer for the universe?” (paraphrase)
I don’t.
But, so far, in the recorded history of humans on Earth and despite the thousands of years spent desperately looking for such a designer* no such evidence of ANY designer has ever been found, whether deity, alien, or time-travelling cell biologist.
These events (the creation of life) would leave traces. Scientists can look at fossils at a microscopic scale. We can observe the bonds between atoms in a molecule (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6139/1434.full). We study organisms and history of genes all the time. Yet, we have not found a single event that could be described as “supernatural” of any form.
This remains true in spite of some really detailed genetic analyses of closely related species of organisms that show everything that happened between them is the result of known mutational events and mechanisms.
* might as well call it a god, though which god will require a completely different discussion. I maintain that if the designer exists it is Azathoth and you have to prove me wrong.
Larry Moran,
Welcome Larry. We are happy to have your participation.
Welcome Dr. Moran!
This a lie as I am not a YEC. I don’t accept the Bible as any authority and there isn’t any evidence for a 6,000-12,000 year old earth
Understand what? According to you ID is the detection of design in biology. You have repeatedly claimed that this has been done. Job complete. Well done. Pop the champaign and blow those party favours.
What a total crock. ID is not anti-evolution so obviously ID does not attack evolution. Science mandates that all design inferences first eliminate lesser causes such as chance and necessity so ID is mandated by science to attack evolutionism.
Look Larry, you have no chance of demonstrating that natural selection, drift and neutral changes can produce the diversity of life. You can’t even muster testable hypotheses for such a thing.
So please stuff it
Ogrethe5th,
Ogre- You don’t have anything that supports the claims of your position. No models, no testable hypotheses, nothing.
That you don’t see that as an issue is very telling
Computers do not breed and your position cannot explain biological reproduction. So you lose anyway.
John Harshman,
There isn’t any way to scientifically test universal common descent. So why does anyone accept the concept?
I have permission to post it, Alan. All I had to do was ask.
Mere complexity is not used as evidence for ID. People need to get a grip
My tantrum detector just messaged me.
Ogrethe5th,
Ogre, you are not a scientist and you don’t know anything about science. We do not have to produce a designer. The design is enough. And your position can’t do anything. So please stop with your cry-baby antics.
You are always throwing tantrums…
LoL! Your position has nothing and we have already shown there are plenty of problems for a designer to solve.
The OP proves that ID is not anti-evolution. And it is very telling tat all of you ignore the OP and prattle on as if your willful ignorance is an argument.
Umm evolution exists regardless of any theory. Are you just unable to think?
But if my position does not explain biological reproduction and ID is not anti-evolution then does ID not explain biological reproduction either?
What does ID explain?
Since you are not arguing against evolution, perhaps you would care to differentiate between what evolution does and what is designed.
Is design ongoing, or does the front loaded program take care of ongoing challenges?
Now we know what ID does not do, when will you be telling us what ID does do?
Apparently organisms were designed to evolve. How, why, when or where is not ID’s concern apparently.
Look, attacking ID will never support the claims of your position. In the end you still don’t have any way to test the claim that natural selection, drift and neutral changes can produce the diversity of life starting from some simple replicator capable of evolution. You don’t have any models for such a thing. You don’t have any testable hypotheses for such a thing. You don’t have any science.
So perhaps you should just stick with the actual topic of the thread- it appears as that is too difficult for you too.
Does it? I think you’ll find that “Intelligently directed evolution” and “evolution” are two very different things.
What makes you think that things have evolved? Transitional fossils perhaps? But they could easily been designed like that, so that won’t work.
What makes you think things are evolving rather then it all being design Jonkie?