Is Intelligent Design Creationism?
Today, I’ll begin a series consisting of a few posts dealing with the question of whether Intelligent Design is nothing more than disguised creationism.
Opponents say the legislation in the House and Senate is just a veiled attempt to inject religious beliefs about the creation of life into science lessons, but Stein and other supporters denied that.
So stated the Associated Press reporter covering actor Ben Stein’s recent visit to the Florida State Capital in support of academic freedom to question Darwinian evolution in public schools. This claim is heard over and over whenever Intelligent Design is publicly discussed. Intelligent design is often characterized by the scientific establishment as an attempt on the part of religious fundamentalists to smuggle religion into the classroom under the guise of science. The Intelligent design movement denies that it is a veiled attempt to teach creationism in public schools, but is, instead, an effort to return science to an objective search for truth about the natural world. Efforts to paint the movement as “creationism” is a rhetorical tactic to marginalize intelligent design without seriously addressing the arguments presented.
Defining the relevant terms is essential if one is to intelligently discuss this controversy. Intelligent design is defined by those in the forefront of the movement as…
… the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the product of intelligence.
Intelligent Design holds to three basic tenets:
1. Specified complexity is well-defined and empirically detectable.
2. Undirected natural causes are incapable of explaining specified complexity.
3. Intelligent causation best explains specified complexity.
Evolution is a word with varied meanings. The common sense meaning of change over time is not questioned by the intelligent design movement. What is opposed by them is Darwinian evolution, that is, the explanation that all life is the result of purely material and mechanical processes without the input of intelligence.
Creationism, like evolution, is another term which is susceptible to equivocation. Therefore, one must be clear when using such a term. Creationism may be defined broadly as the belief that a supernatural being created the universe out of nothing. This encompasses many varying viewpoints, from a belief in a several thousand-year-old universe, to a belief that the universe is 15 billion years old and all complex life on earth arose by means of theistic evolution.
In the discussion of intelligent design, by creationist, one usually means a person who believes that the biblical account of creation recorded in Genesis is scientifically accurate. This latter sense is the one most often found in media discussions today wherein Creationism is frequently equated with “Young Earth Creationism,” the belief that the earth is around 7,000 years old.
Next, I’ll consider some criticisms offered by opponents of Intelligent Design that are used in support of equating ID and Creationism.