What’s the core claim of intelligent design? The so-called Discovery Institute, a lobbying organization bent on pushing ID into American classrooms, states that:
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
What does this mean? It means that the alleged ‘scientists’ at the Discovery Institute can’t figure out how living things came to be what they are today. So, they throw up their hands and say that some intelligent being must have done it. It’s a thinly disguised admission of stupidity.
This is exactly the same argument used by UFO believers. Any lights in the sky that cannot be explained must be spacecraft piloted by aliens.
It’s called the god of the gaps...
It is inconceivable that (fill in the blank) could have originated naturally. Therefore, it must have been created.
This argument, also known as the argument from ignorance or “god of the gaps,” is implicit in a very many different creationist arguments. In particular, it is behind all arguments against abiogenesis and any and all claims of intelligent design.
This is one of the reasons why ID must not be taught as science. It’s willful ignorance masquerading as science. Do we really want to teach our children to give up, to not look for the answers?
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December 1st, 2005 at 1:02 am
Eric
I just wish some IDer would finally come up with an “experiment” that would test the ID speculation. (I hesitate to call it even a hypothesis, and it sure as hell ain’t a Theory).
That’s just it – there is none. There is no conceivable experiment that could disprove ID or any of its manifestations. So why is it peddled as science? Because it is dishonest just like its cousin, creationism.
There. I feel better now.