Intelligent Design: Claims and Counter-claims

Intelligent Design and Creationism seem to be in the news every few months. This is one debate worth considering given the struggle to know how humans came to be. Are we here because of a higher power or did we evolve over millions of years?

1. Read this 2005 article about the claims and rebuttals to intelligent design.  What is intelligent design? What knowledge claims are made? What rebuttal, or counter-claims are given?

2. Learn more about these two very different perspectives. Visit this intelligent design web site http://www.intelligentdesign.org/ and explain the strengths and weaknesses of their claim.

3. Visit the National Center for Science Education web site http://ncse.com/creationism and explain the strengths and weaknesses of their claim.

4. In your knowledge issue question be sure to include reference to two ways of knowing.

5. Comment on one of your classmate’s responses

26 thoughts on “Intelligent Design: Claims and Counter-claims

  1. Intelligent design is that human are way too complex to make new things and with a mass of power. The knowledge claims that were made were that scientists uses the scientific method to find out results and or predictions for the things that are around us. The counter claims is that there are evidence to prove that there has been an evolution. The strength and weakness for National Center for Science Education website is that; the strength is that they uses religion to justify themselves; the weakness is that they do not have evidence to prove that natural sciences can prove the things around us.
    How can we prove or have the evidence that there were an evolution before?

  2. Creationism says that god created every living organism in this world, but intelligent design are groups of scientist, philosophers, and scholars. The people in intelligent design believes that life is too complicated to for organisms to be naturally made and for a superior being to create life. The strengths for creationism is that it uses religion to justify its claims. Religions teaches us many ideas on life like ethics. Intelligent design uses the scientific method to justify its claims. But both these ideas are also cloud our judgement too see the whole truth in life. So to what extent does science affect our beliefs in religion? How does religion affect our beliefs in science?

  3. By reading this article it brought some thoughts to me, i started to question how we were created. According to intelligent design we are way to complex to ever me made which means that something with a great mass of power created us. But i started thinking who created that powerful creator of which made us. I honestly think that we evolved through the years went by, but what we evolved from is the question. Some say that we descended from apes, i support this theory because apes as well as humans have a variety of similarities. I believe that we evolved from apes and started making our way up through time which results in us humans. But a counter claim for the theory i believe in is that why didn’t the rest of the apes evolve. Were we really made by something with a great mass of power like the intelligent design states or did we evolve from apes? To what extent does our perception change the way we perceive life as we think we know it? Do the areas of knowledge and our perceptions change our moral believes in life?

  4. Dominic Grand
    Period-6
    4-1-11

    Intelligent Design

    1. Intellectual design is a scientific research program and also a community of scientists. Claims that are made within the article are that features of the universe and of living things are ‘best’ explained by an intelligent cause. Meaning that evolution did not occur. The counter claims that are given are the claims about observing to look for ‘same’ properties just as evolution is looked at.
    2. Strengths within the article of intellectual design are that scientists actually use the scientific method which to an extent is a reliable source in getting us in the truth. Some weaknesses that are within the article are the use of language. It is said that living things are ‘best’ explained by an intelligent cause. There seems to be emphasis on the word best which may cause their claim to be expected to be certain. Even though they have aspects of evolution like observations. Which creates an alteration upon this?

    3. Strengths that are within the article of creationism are that these beliefs are based on religion and religion affects our beliefs which determine our moralities and our way of living. So even if the sources would be unreliable. It would not matter because it is their beliefs. Weaknesses that are present in this article is the fact that there is no proof that natural biological processes cannot account for history, diversity, etc.

    4. To what extent might language affect what we perceive?
    To what extent do our religion affect what we believe to be true?
    To what extent might natural science alter beliefs with religion?
    Is natural science considered to be a religion?

    • great summary and questions. What about the strengths and weaknesses of the theory of evolution?

  5. Intelligent Design is a scientific research program that looks for evidence of design in nature. Design theorists are able to know whether differnt natural structures are the result of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Intelligent Design starts off with empirical evidence of nature and creationism starts off with religious texts. Creationism is the idea that someone created everything.

    To what extent can we justify our beliefs? To what extent can we conclude the truth? How can we evaluate ethics?

  6. According to the Intelligent Design website, intelligent design is a scientific research program that seeks for evidence in natural forces.
    Knowledge Claims:
    –“Living things are too complex to be explained by natural forces alone.”
    –no evidence to tell that life began in a process than scientific research

    Strengths of intelligent design: Theory are used to confirm evidence
    Weakness: observation is based on selected area

    Strength on N.C.S.E: Could a claim and belief be conducted to the same point?
    Weakness: What role does history plays in science?

    -When there are some people making different point about a certain topic as Darwin’s work or theory, have there been any theory of evolution before Darwin’s? How reliable is a theory in the history of science? From what we learn today in Biology class, Larmarck theory of evolution- the idea that part of the body that are used extensive become stronger and stronger while those are deteriorate, and the inheritance of acquired characteristic organism could pass their modification to their offspring, was a theory that is not consider in this case. Why are scientist sticking to one point of theory. Does each different theory has different point when they are in a specific topic? Such as evolution.

  7. It seems that intelligent design relies on science and creationism relies on a higher supernatural force. Both theories talk about how humans, animals and all living beings have come to be. Were we created or did we evolve? Although Intelligent Design takes a scientific approach Creationism takes a religious and supernatural approach on how the universe came to be. Skepticism tells us that perhaps there was a higher power to created the universe, and maybe perhaps there wasn’t any almighty being at all. The two theories although have significant proofs that prove them to be “true,” Creationism relies on faith and the Intelligent Design theory relies on logic. Faith you can never be too sure because faith does not guarantee certainty and Intelligent Design uses the Scientific Method, which relies on observation. Perception is never certain so what can you rely on? Reason and your only beliefs are the only tools you have to have a claim that does not contradict itself nor be so general.

    • One of the main points of contention is whether or not Intelligent Design in fact uses the scientific method or if they just claim to use the scientific method. How can we tell the difference between a science and a pseudo-science?

  8. Intelligent Design is the claim that life on Earht was created by something or somene.
    Knowldge Claims:
    a) – Darwinism cannot explain the complexity of organisms.
    + Rebuttal: ” It’s nonsense, a complex organism can be build build gradually by adding simple parts.
    b)-Darwinism can’t explain the Cambrian Explosion.
    + Rebuttal: Darwinsims can explain the Cambrian Explosion, there were plenty of organism before this period.
    c)- Darwinist can’t tell how life began.
    + Rebutall: There is not evidence that life began in a process other than a scientific one.

    Strenghts of intelligent design: Includes the opposite perspective and adress it.
    Weakness: Fails to mention the flaws on their theory.

    Strenghts on ncse: There is a spanish link in which readers can review the information in this language.
    Weakness: Fails to adress the stenghts of a creationsim theory.

    In what ways can our uncouncious beliefs and emotions shape our reasoning?
    Both articles have very interesting theories. I have to say the the one arguing pro- intelligent design seems a little like psuedo science. It is focusing in a claim and trying to prove it. The other article focuses more on the data and then developed the conclusion about the origing of life. In additon, the article scrutinizes Darwin’s work. It’s as if we have taken Darwin’s work as absolute knowledge. Scientists seems to have forgotten that knoweldge is a journey and that there is still more knowldge to be discovered. So just becasue Darwin’s work does not explain profoundly or convincingly a part of evlution does not mean that Darwin’s work is a flaw.

    • I appreciate your comment about Darwin’s work as ‘absolute knowledge.’ It’s like our study of history. Can we recreate the past? No. But we have evidence of the past; we have records and these help us to make inferences about the past. The same is true in science. Will we have absolute truth? Probably not. But we’ll have something that is probably close to the truth if we use our ways of knowing and remain open to scrutiny.

  9. On the Intelligent Design website, they claim that intelligent design is different from creationism. Do you think some people see creationism and intelligent design the same way? How do they differ? How do scientists who support Darwin’s theory see these two theories?

  10. The question “Are we here because of a higher power or did we evolve of millions of years?” brings many thoughts to this idea of whether we are here because of higher power or evolution. In my opinion i think we are here in this world because we have been created by God since the years where Adam and Eve were the first ones in earth and they were evolving through new ideas and also by there knowledge that they had.Many other people have other beliefs in how we were created and how we bacame like humans. To what extent do other peoples beliefs affect our ways of knowing?. The intelligent desing is the design that persuades people to have a higher standard and organize new ideas for example how living things can not be explain because they are too complex. If there was no evolution then how one could be better in creating or disentigrated things? The counterclaims that they give to this idea is that the design has no better or wrong explanations, i think is because one has many ideas and beliefs that gives struggles to either believe if someone or something is the right argument that explains everything in ways that there is no escape from the truth or uncertainties. If there is no believe there is no thruth. This is because everything is true if and only we believe. To what extent can we prevent evolution from our beliefs?

    • If new discoveries were made on how we evolved how fast would we be able to adapt to our new origins? How does our believes influence what we perceive?

    • “If there is no belief, there is no truth”
      Do you mean that if there is no belief, there is no possibility for truth. But, let’s not confuse belief with truth because a belief can be either true or false, and truth is … well…hopefully TRUE!

  11. Intelligent-design
    Claims: Living cells and biological systems are too complex to evolve naturally.
    Counter-claims: Evolution is observable. Evolution improvises and it create new organs out of old parts, while the complexity idea is based on adding parts.
    Claims: The sudden appearance of animal-life on earth cannot be explained by the Darwinian evolution. The rapid increase of animal-life did not slowly evolve.
    Counter-claims: Fossil evidence show that there has been life before the Cambrian explosion.
    The intelligent design claims that there is a creator of life on earth while the Darwinian evolution claim that life evolved from living cells. There are arguements that the intelligent design should be taught in schools since the Darwinian evolution is also taught in school. I remember in my freshman year my biology teacher told me that science is based on a belief, the intelligent design however seems to be based on a belief and the Darwinian evolution theory is actually backed by evidence. Is there a reason why beliefs should or should not be taught in class? Who makes the decision of what the students should learn?

    • After reading the article about intelligent design, I came to ask the same as you. About the beliefs of intelligent design should be taught through from both perspectives of the claim and counter claim. However, when you said that science had a belief, and I thought “what is science belief?” because I wasn’t sure about intelligent design being its belief. If intelligent design can be claimed then how do we perceive it from scientist? How can we acquire intelligent design or know how it processes?

  12. Intelligent design is a theory that some scientists believe in and it says that life is to complex to be made naturally and that an intelligent being created life. The scientists that believe intelligent design also say that Darwin’s Theory of evolution is false because it cannot explain how life came to be. The knowledge claims that are being made are that someone else or an intelligent being created life and that Darwin’s Theory is false because it does not explain life. These scientist also say that Darwin’s Theory does not explain the Cambrian Age were many life forms appeared on Earth. The other scientists who believe in Darwin say that life came before the Cambrian Age and that Darwin’s Theory can explain complex life forms. All in all both of these sides have ‘good’ justifications for what they believe in.

  13. Both arguments have their reasoning behind it.

    I found it interesting that one side side used the scientific method and one didn’t. Intelligent design Had information to back up the idea that is was actually a “successor” to creationism.

    Intelligent design is is a scientific program or like a community that allows scientist to know how the earth was million of years ago.

    How does evidence that is presented change what we believe?

  14. Which theory is more supported?
    Do you think that both theories could be used together instead of clashing against one another?

  15. 1. The claims of “intelligent designs” are that we ,as humans, are too complex to be explained in nature and must be explained in something not-of-this-world. Believes in creationism. They claimed cells were far too complex to be explained by evolution. However evolution is observable and that cells had evolved from earlier cells. (ie the flagella on bacteria to help it move around. Some cells had similar structures but it was for poisoning other cells.)
    Are humans that complex?
    Problems “intelligent design”
    -No positive scientific evidence
    strengths
    -asserts darwin’s inability to prove the origin of life.. gaps in fossil records
    2. IDClaims-Best studied by empircal evidence
    I dont really understand Intelligent Design

    3.Creationism Claims- Anti-evolution
    I dont really understand this one either

    • I thought ID was against evolution yet the site was talking about evolution along with ID. So that confused me.
      Creationism basically believes life on earth was created and cant change.
      The similar species are just made to be similar but have a different purpose.

  16. Doesn’t a pseudoscience make the conclusion first and then find the evidence to support the conclusion? Is this true of both evolution and ‘intelligent design’ theories? Are both theories grounding in the scientific method like they claim? Which obstacles to knowledge are present in each knowledge communities claims?

    Is it justifiable to claim that cells are too complex to be explained by evolution? To me this seems like a ‘false cause’ fallacy because we see the cell and it complexities, yet we can’t necessarily attribute those complexities to an ‘intelligence’. Still, evolution may have similar problems because of the scope of the biological record. Evolution, however, continues to gain in certainty due to the growing numbers of examples which seem to confirm the theory.

  17. I found that both sides of the argument were in fact interesting.

    When reading through both sites I saw that the two were very different. One argues that it is through scientific evidence that they support their intelligent design theory. As for creationism they did not use the scientific method. What I thought was interesting though is that some try to back up creationism with ID which they say would explain creationism. So yeah this was very interesting. So how does belief change the way people change language in arguments?

    • To what extent is the scientific method reliable? Creationism begins with religious text and intelligent design theory starts off with empirical evidence? Which way is the best?

      -Gurleen Singh