...in the 1990s, Discovery became home to the ID movement's reactionary crusade against the theory of evolution. Bringing creationism up to date, ID proponents insist that living organisms show detectable signs of having been designed (that is, specially created) by a rational agent (presumably God), while denouncing Darwinism for inculcating atheism and destroying cultural and moral values that had previously been grounded in piety. Such arguments put the ID campaign squarely at the center of a religiously driven culture war, and Chapman has described ID as the Discovery Institute's "No. 1 project." His friend Gilder, meanwhile, has ridiculously pronounced that "the Darwinist materialist paradigm " is about to face the same revolution that Newtonian physics faced 100 years ago."OK. Let's assume Intellignet Design is science. If it is, the statement above implies two hypotheses. First is that there is a rational agent with the imagination and power to design living organisms. That sounds remarkably like God, who St. Augustine determined cannot be proven to exist unless you previously have Faith in his existence. Since Faith has no place in science (all scientific conclusions are tentative and subject to further objective proof) then the idea of a rational actor is itself unprovable and thus unscientific.
But let's ignore this inability to prove the existence of a "rational agent." The second issue is "that living organisms show detectable signs of having been designed." To prove this, there must be signs that living organisms were designed rather than evolved, and those signs must be clearly detectable.
Existence of complexity does not prove anything. Evolution over a long period of time (measured in number of generations) is more likely to result in complexity than is some form of artificial design. Formal design processes require that the complexity of real life be simplified, restated in theory, The theory proven, then a set of theories are built on. Complexity is itself not definable in a manner that allows one to determine when there is "Too Much" Complexity. Without such a measure, what is "Too Much?" So some other factor is needed to distinguish between evolution and design.
Whatever that factor is, it needs to be clear, detectible and measurable. Without such signs which are detectable and confirmable by different researchers, this is unprovable.
Without any forms of proof, Intelligent Design is merely faith-based Christian religion warmed over and removed from the language of the bible.
Frightened fundamentalists will not believe this, but it IS purely a matter of belief, after all. It cannot be constitutionally taught by teachers in a public school. It mustn't be taught in place of science, which is hard enough for people to learn in the first place.
That is the problem with fundamentalists, of course. They are afraid of modernism and social change, and they for the most part are not sufficiently trained to deal with modernism. They aren't stryingtryihng to teach others some myth cintelligentlligetn Design." What they want to do is stop social changes from happening, and they really think that if they derail science and rationality and replace it with faith in their myths, they can stop the changes from happening.
Kevin Drum comments on the TAP articale and quotes the following:
The most eloquent documentation of ID’s religious inspiration comes in the form of a Discovery Institute strategic memo that made its way onto the Web in 1999: the “Wedge Document.” A broad attack on “scientific materialism,” the paper asserts that modern science has had “devastating” cultural consequences, such as the denial of objective moral standards and the undermining of religious belief. In contrast, the document states that ID “promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.” In order to achieve this objective, the ID movement will “function as a ‘wedge’” that will “split the trunk [of scientific materialism]...at its weakest points.”Anyone who understands science will recognize that Intelligent Design is NOT science. There has never been a scientific discovery of any significance based on Intelligent Design - and there won't be. It doesn't have the intellectual power. Yet the Discovery Instutute expects that "ID 'promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.'" Such a goal will not possibly be accomplished without dictatorial control of the Nation and elimination of the right to freedom of speech. That is the goal of Dominionism.
The Wedge Document puts ID proponents in an uncomfortable position. Discovery Institute representatives balk at being judged on religious grounds and accuse those who probe their motivations of engaging in ad hominem attacks. Yet given the express language of the Wedge Document, it’s hard to see why we shouldn’t take them at their own word. Discovery’s ultimate agenda — the Wedge — clearly has far more to do with the renewal of religiously based culture by the overthrow of key tenets of modern science than with the disinterested pursuit of knowledge.
See also the article by Jerry Coyne. He explains why ID is not scientific.
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