Is Intelligent Design a Science?
Some philosophical and legal issues in the fight over evolution.
Supporters of Intelligent Design claim that the natural sciences have an unjust monopoly on the truth. They claim that, in order to understand humanity, notions of the supernatural must be invoked. The ensuing controversy over Intelligent Design as a proposed alternative to evolution comes down to one issue: evidence.
The Daubert standard
In a landmark decision on Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993), The United States Supreme Court established a legal precedent for admitting evidence into court. Specifying four criteria, the so-called “Daubert standard” is effectively a tool for deciding whether or not a fact or theory is scientific:
· It must have testable predictions;
· It must survive a peer-review process;
· It must have a definable error rate with well-defined standards of operation;
· It must be generally accepted within the scientific community in accordance with established methods.
Intelligent Design fails on all counts, and so is not recognized as a scientific theory in America’s courtrooms. (This criticism only applies to Intelligent Design as it is commonly understood. Intelligent Design could be modified so that it adheres to the Daubert standard. See “The Best Case for Intelligent Design.”)
Like all legal decisions, Daubert can potentially be overturned. This could happen either by establishing new evidentiary standards or by abolishing all standards of evidence.
The abolishment of all evidentiary standards would undermine scientific integrity and create a mockery of America’s courtrooms. The only rational way Intelligent Design (as it is currently formulated) could be regarded as a scientific theory is if different standards of evidence were established.
No evidence for the supernatural
The term “natural” refers to what is measurable and observable—not for any particular time or place, but for all times and places. In contrast, “the supernatural” is defined as that which can never be measured or observed, yet which holds dominion over nature.
There is a problem here. Without measurement or observation, there can be no evidence. As a proposed alternative to natural science, Intelligent Design seeks an explanation for mankind in the supernatural. So long as Intelligent Design remains a theory about the supernatural, it can never be supported by evidence.
Unless fundamental changes are made to the theory of Intelligent Design, it can never be considered a science. In light of this fact, the flaws in arguments for Intelligent Design can be better understood.
The argument from ignorance
Since they cannot rely on evidence, proponents of Intelligent Design instead make appeals to ignorance. They thus emphasize supposedly unanswerable questions; for example, they ask:
· “How could evolutionary theory explain the complexity of the human eye?”
· “How could life spontaneously arise out of dead matter?”
· “How could order arise out of chaos?”
There are two problems with these “arguments from ignorance.”
First, the only ignorance on display is that of the Intelligent Design supporters. All of these and other supposedly unanswerable questions raised in support of Intelligent Design have been adequately addressed in accordance with established science.
Second, proponents of Intelligent Design have failed to propose a legitimate alternative to natural science. Indeed, they cannot, because the notion of a “supernatural cause” has no explanatory value.
Explanatory value
The value of an explanation is in direct proportion to the evidence supporting it. The requirement of evidence is at the heart of science. Without it, there would be no objective controls and the value of one explanation would be indistinguishable from that of another. All explanations would be equally vacuous, because none would have support.
Evidence allows scientists to test predictions. For example, the sun appears to rise and fall, circling the earth on a daily basis. However, this phenomenon is better explained in terms of the earth’s orbit around the sun. This explanation has been and can continue to be tested repeatedly. Without such evidentiary support, the explanation would have no value.
As the notion of a “supernatural cause” rejects all possible evidence, there can be no such thing as a supernatural explanation. Appeals to the supernatural are only capable of avoiding or misleading inquiry, and not furthering it.
For this reason, the National Academy of Sciences and other leading scientific institutions all reject Intelligent Design and similar appeals to the supernatural.
References
Scott, Eugenie C. and Branch, Glenn, “Intelligent Design’ not accepted by Most Scientists,” National Center for Science Education (September 2002)
“List of scientific societies rejecting Intelligent Design,” Wikipedia
