I recently watched the documentary Flock of Dodos, an interesting and mostly unbiased discussion of intelligent design and evolution. The documentary shows several of the arguments for and against intelligent design as well as the key people behind most of the battles to teach intelligent design in schools. A key piece of Flock of Dodos is the discussion of intelligent design by a group of evolutionists over a game of poker. The discussion shows why scientists are having such a hard time convincing some people. The intelligent design supporters have money and public relations firms that repeat a simple and consistent message, while the evolution camp has scientists that tend to come across as aloof and unable giving simple answers.
There is another documentary, Expelled, that presents the issue from the viewpoint of those who support Intelligent Design. I haven’t watched it yet, so I won’t comment on it.
One of the arguments by those who say Intelligent Design should be taught in science classes alongside Evolution is that Evolution is just a “theory”. Why the Theory of Intelligent Design isn’t just a theory must have something to do with faith, or some sort of logical fallacy. There are two problems with this statement.
First, a scientific theory is a tested and proven model that accurately explains and predicts a phenomenon. A hypothesis on the other hand is a guess or idea that has not yet been tested. Once a hypothesis has been tested and proven then it becomes a theory. While a fact is something that can be directly observed. Not something you just know to be true; that would be a belief.
Second, intelligent design has not been scientifically tested or proven, so it is not even a theory. In fact the primary evidence for intelligent design (irreducible complexity) has been physically and logically disproved. When you hold a belief despite a lack of or contrary evidence it is religion. And you can’t teach religion in school.
The Theory of Intelligent Design says that life is too complicated to have evolved without the help of some outside intelligence.
“ID begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.”
Intelligent agents produce complex and specified information.
Biological systems have complex and specific information.
Therefore biological systems must have been produced by intelligent agents.
Or
A produces B.
C contains B.
Therefor A produced C.
The primary logical fallacy here is hasty generalization. They observed that intelligent agents produce CSI, not that only intelligent agents produce CSI. Here’s why. You can’t observe that only A causes B. You could, only observe A causing B, but that doesn’t mean that R doesn’t also cause B when you’re not looking.
Incidentally, R stands for random mutation in this example.
Here is another example of this logical fallacy.
Lizards have tails.
Monkeys have tails.
Therefore monkeys must be lizards.
I’m sure we can all agree that very few monkeys are in fact lizards.
The favorite example of irreducible complexity is the eye. The proponents of intelligent design claim that it is to complex to have evolved as a single random mutation and there is no series of useful mutations that could produce it. So someone figured out this.
It could have evolved from a light sensitive patch of skin, useful so a creature can tell if it is in the light or dark. Then it could grow in to a concave structure, useful to tell what direction the light is coming from. Then it could partially grow over producing a sort of pin hole camera giving highly directional light detection then rudimentary sight. Then a thin layer of skin could grow over the opening creating a rudimentary lens, further improving vision. And each of these steps could be separated by smaller steps that would have been minor improvements.
The one good thing to come out of this is the dissenting view point has given scientists opportunities to strengthen the theory. A theory has to be tested thoroughly. And evolution has been considered proven for so long within the scientific community that no one really questions it anymore. It’s like trying to design an experiment that either proves or disproves the existence of gravity. And why put in the effort when you already know that it exists? So the opportunity to disprove irreducible complexity and reject intuition as proof is a good thing. You should question everything, especially the things you know are true.
