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7 - Can Intelligent Design be established scientifically?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

David J. Bartholomew
David J. Bartholomew
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
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Summary

Intelligent Design has been proposed as a credible scientific alternative to the theory of evolution as an explanation of life on earth. Its justification depends on an extension of Fisherian significance testing developed by William Dembski. It is shown, in this chapter, that there is a fatal flaw in the logic of his method, which involves a circularity. In order to construct a test to detect design and ‘eliminate’ chance, one has to know how to recognise design in the first place. Dembski's calculation of the probability required to implement the method is also shown to be erroneous.

WHAT IS THE ARGUMENT ABOUT?

Intelligent Design is at the centre of one of the fiercest debates currently taking place in the science and religion field. Its proponents claim that the scientific establishment is set on an atheistic course by refusing to countenance the possibility that the world might contain evidence of design. All they ask is that design should not be arbitrarily ruled out from the start and that nature should be allowed to speak for itself; no special privileges are asked for. The whole debate should then take place within the bounds of science and according to its principles of rationality.

The opponents will have none of this, claiming that Intelligent Design makes no claims that can be tested empirically and, because it cannot be falsified, it is not science. Many see it as crypto-creationism masquerading under the guise of science.

Type
Chapter
Information
God, Chance and Purpose
Can God Have It Both Ways?
 , pp. 97 - 115
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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