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INTELLIGENT DESIGN:
A SCIENTIFIC AND RELIGIOUS
CRITIQUE
I. The Intelligent Design Movement
II. Evolutionary Biology
III. Evolutionary Theism
I. The Intelligent Design Movement
• 1925. Scopes trial in Tennessee upheld anti-evolution law
defended by biblical literalists.
• 1987. U.S. Supreme Court ruled that creation science
(claims of scientific evidence for a recent special creation)
is not acceptable science but a religious belief, violating
separation of church and state (First Amendment).
• 2005. U.S. District Court: parents in Dover, PA, challenge
local school board requirement that students hear a
statement about intelligent design along with the teaching of
evolution.
Nov. 2005. Dover citizens replace school board members
sympathetic to Intelligent Design with opponents of ID.
Dec. 2005. Federal district judge in Harrisburg rules that
ID is not a scientific theory but a religious belief.
Several school board members had acknowledged their
religious motivations before the hearings had started.
The Dover case has been settled but ID remains an issue
in Kansas and many other states, either in local school
boards or state boards that set educational standards.
ID Claims
•Proponents of ID differ from both biblical literalism and
creation science which were the subjects of previous court
rulings.
•They make no reference to the Bible and they accept a long
history of life on earth.
•But they insist that some organic structures are so complex
that they could not have evolved by gradual stages.
•Systematic coordination of many parts (e.g. of the eye)
must be the product of supernatural intervention by an
Intelligent Designer.
•The overwhelming majority of biologists reject these
claims.
•For example, the human eye could have evolved by
gradual steps from simpler visual systems like those in
some other species today.
•ID does not lead to hypotheses that can be tested
experimentally, a key feature of science.
•ID does not lead to research papers in peer-reviewed
scientific journals. This cannot be attributed simply to the
biases of the dominant scientific elite that controls
journals.
“Intelligent Design”
• “Since natural selection can only choose systems that
are already working, then if a biological system cannot
be produced gradually it would have to arise as an
integrated unit, in one fell swoop, for natural selection
to have anything to act on.”
Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, p. 39
• A mouse trap would not work if one
part were missing.
• Similarly, “irreducibly complex systems”
only work as a unit.
• An intelligent designer must have introduced the
coordinated information, either latently in very early cells,
or later in their subsequent history.
• Reply: The idea of a preconceived order neglects the role
of mutations and the organism’s continuing response to a
changing environment.
• Components serving other functions can be combined in
new ways to serve new functions ( see Kenneth Miller,
Finding Darwin’s God).
Biochemical Machine:
Individual Parts:
Function Favored by
Natural Selection
No function. Therefore, natural
selection cannot shape components.
Individual Parts:
Biochemical
Machine:
New Functions Emerge
from Combinations of
Components
Components
Originate with
different functions.
The Biochemical
Argument from Design
Depends upon a lack of
Selectable Function in
Machine Components
The Darwinian
Explanation Depends
upon the presence of
Selectable Function in
Machine Components.
ID proponents rightly object that some biologists such as
Richard Dawkins defend atheism, naturalism or materialism
as if they were scientifically proven claims.
These are indeed philosophical interpretations brought to the
data rather than experimentally testable hypotheses.
We can accept methodological naturalism,which says that
science is limited to studying natural causes, without accepting
philosophical naturalism, which says that nature is all there is
and science is the only path to understanding (“scientism”).
Explanatory pluralism suggests that there are a variety of
types of explanation answering differing types of question in
human life.
Richard Dawkins:
“The universe has precisely the properties we
would expect if there is at bottom no design, no
purpose, no evil, and no good, nothing but
blind, pitiless indifference.”
River of Eden, p. 133
ID proponents rightly say that evolutionary theory has led to
dubious ethical practices.
“The survival of the fittest” has been used to justify unrestrained capitalism, colonial domination of “inferior races,” and
eugenics programs in Nazi Germany (Social Darwinism).
Some sociobiologists claim that human behaviors can be
explained and justified by their contribution to the survival of
our Paleolithic ancestors.
However all these claims should be seen, not as part of evolutionary theory, but as questionable extrapolations that ignore
the differences between biological and cultural evolution.
Gaps in the Evolutionary Account
Creationists once pointed to gaps in the fossil record, but
many of these have been filled in by transitional forms.
To be sure, we do not understand the origins of life or of
consciousness, much less self-consciousness.
But invoking supernatural intervention would cut short
further scientific inquiry concerning such questions.
In the past, the “God of the gaps” has retreated with the
advance of science, so ID is dubious religion as well as
dubious science.
“Evolution is a theory, not a fact”
1. Evidence for a long history of descent with modification
from common ancestors is so overwhelming that it should
be considered a fact, even though the past cannot be
observed directly.
2. The theory that mutations and natural selection play a
central role in evolution is very strongly supported by a
wide range of disciplines: paleontology, physiology,
genetics, embryology, molecular biology, and immunology
(e.g. evolution of antibiotic-resistant pathogens and new
forms of avian flu). The power of the theory is its relevance
to so many independent fields of inquiry.
3. There are indeed debates among biologists about the
role of other factors, such as historical contingencies,
social structures, or developmental constraints on possible
embryonic forms, but these debates yield hypotheses that
can be tested before they are accepted as theories.
4. No theory can be verified with certainty, but a theory
can be falsified by an accumulation of data that conflicts
with it or (more rarely) it can be modified in a paradigm
shift based on alternative presuppositions (e.g. Newtonian
mechanics replaced by quantum theory and relativity in
very small or very large structures).
Support for the ID Movement
Local support has come primarily from evangelical
Christians whose motivations are clearly religious rather
than scientific.
Financial support has come mainly from the religious right
through the Discovery Institute in Seattle, with which most
of the witnesses supporting ID at recent trials and hearings
are affiliated.
ID is seen as an opening wedge for the inclusion of
Christian beliefs in public education.
The Social Context of Fundamentalism
Secularism, religious pluralism, and alternative lifestyles and
gender roles are seen as threats to traditional “family values”.
Search for security in a changing world. Absolutism of truth
claims and moral values in response to what is seen as allencompassing relativism.
The power of emotion in religious life has been lost in the
formality and intellectualism of main-line churches.
Compare the growth of fundamentalism in Islam,fueled not
only by nationalism and the legacy of colonialism but also by
confrontation with modernization and secularization which
threaten traditional values.
School Board Issues
Local control of school boards. “Parents should decide what
they want taught to their children.” “Federal courts are out of
touch with local sentiments.”
Reply: promulgation of particular religious beliefs violates the
constitutional separation of church and state.
Science teachers must draw from and accept the standards of
the wider community of scientists.
National Academy of Sciences (1998): “Science is limited to
explaining the natural world through natural causes. Science
can say nothing about the supernatural. Whether God exists or
not is a question about which science is neutral.”
Media Coverage
The media has presented the two extremes -- people who
believe in God but not evolution, and people who believe
in evolution but not God -- as if conflict were inevitable
and one had to choose between science and religion.
They have tended to leave out those who affirm both God
and evolution,or who hold that evolution is God’s way of
creating.
Let us look at evolutionary theory more carefully and then
at alternative ways of relating science and religion.
II. EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
The Argument from Design before Darwin:
If you find a watch on a heath, you know it was the
product of intelligent design and not chance. Similarly,
the coordination of complex structures in fulfilling
useful functions in nature must be the product of
intelligence. Example: the many parts of the eye work
together to achieve vision.
See William Paley, Natural Theology (1802).
Darwin: The adaptation of complex structures to useful
functions is the result of the gradual natural selection of
such useful structures in the past, not the result of any
past anticipation of future functions.
The Challenge of Evolution:
• To Biblical Literalism. Reply: Many theologians since St.
Augustine have interpreted scriptural passages metaphorically rather than literally. Since the 19th century, historical
scholars have said that the Bible expressed enduring
theological insights in terms of the prescientific cosmology
of the Middle East. Fundamentalism and “creation science”
are more recent views, mainly in the U.S.
• To Human Uniqueness. Reply: Humans are descendants of
nonhuman ancestors and share many characteristics with
them. But they have distinctive capacities such as symbolic
thought and language and forms of culture.
The Challenge To Design.
Alternative views of design:
1) Design of laws only (Darwin)
2) Design of initial conditions (Hawking)
3) Control of quantum uncertainties (Russell)
4) Evolutionary convergence (Conway Morris)
5) Emergent levels (Kauffman).
Charles Darwin:
“I am inclined to look at everything as resulting
from designed laws with the details, whether
good or bad, left to the working of what we may
call chance. . . . I cannot think that the world as
we see it is the result of chance; yet I cannot look
at each separate thing as the result of Design.”
Letters to Asa Gray, 22 May and 26 November, 1860
The Big Bang
What happened at the beginning?
A singularity at t=0, a point of zero size and infinite
energy where the laws of physics break down.
Similarities to the biblical account:
A beginning of time (rather than a beginning in time).
Creation from nothing (or from a quantum vacuum)?
Initiation of an ordered irreversible sequence.
“Fine-tuning” of the physical constants
Each of the constants of the early universe must be within
a very very narrow range for life and consciousness to be
possible (the Anthropic Principle). Is this a new argument
from design?
Stephen Hawking:
“If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had
been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand
million million, it would have recollapsed before it
reached its present size. . . . The odds against a universe
like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are
enormous. I think there are clearly religious implications. ”
Quoted in John Barlow,StephenHawking’s Universe, p. 121
Three Interpretations of Uncertainty
1. As Temporary Human Ignorance (Einstein)
Future exact laws will allow precise predictions. The
universe is rational, orderly, and deterministic.
2. As Fundamental Human Limitation (Bohr)
Observations disturb what is observed.
Human concepts (e.g. wave or particle) are limited and
complementary (the “Copenhagen interpretation ”).
Agnostic about determinism or indeterminacy.
3. As Indeterminacy in Nature (Heisenberg)
Observation is the actualization of one in a range of
potentialities in the world. Indeterminacy.
God as Determiner of Indeterminacies
• God determines quantum events (Robert Russell).
• Not intervention to alter an existing state, but actualizing one of
the range of potentialities present.
• God could make the final determination among states of identical
energy (no energy input needed).
• Scientifically undetectable if statistically lawful.
• Small differences at the quantum level are sometimes amplified to
give large-scale effects (chaos
theory, mutations, perhaps
neural systems).
• God might determine all events, or only
some. some events.
Problem: If God determines all events, it is
difficult to reconcile divine sovereignty with
suffering, evil, and human freedom -- even if
God’s control is subtle and does not violate
scientific laws.
An Alternative: Chance and law are both part
of the design of nature.
Evolutionary Convergence
Simon Conway Morris, Life’s Solutions (2003)
• Very different lineages converge on similar solutions
• Camera-like eyes evolved independently at least 6 times
• Many physiological and behavioral parallels between
marsupial and placental mammals
• Similarities in brain structure, communication, and social
structure in dolphins and chimps
• Chance is less significant in the outcome when there are
only a limited number of effective solutions
• “The constraints of evolution and the ubiquity
of convergence make the emergence of something like ourselves a near inevitability.”
An Emergent Hierarchy of Levels
See Ian Barbour, When Science Meets Religion, Chap. 4.
Epistemological Reductionism: theories and laws at
higher levels can be derived from those at lower levels.
Ontological Reductionism: lower-level components are
more causally effective than higher-level systems.
Causality acts from the bottom up.
Emergence: novel forms of order at higher levels are
unpredictable from theories and laws governing lowerlevels.
Top-down Causality: systems at higher-levels influence
the boundary conditions of systems at lower levels without
violating lower-level laws.
Trends in Evolutionary History
• No Simple Directionality: blind alleys, retrogression,
extinctions, many directions. Opportunism: adaptation to
the immediate local environment, not to future needs.
More like a sprawling bush than a neatly organized tree
(Stephen Jay Gould).
• Overall Trends: greater diversity, responsiveness and
complexity (number of significant connections and levels
of organization).
Increase in capacity to gather, store, and process
information (amoeba, invertebrates, vertebrates,
mammals, apes, humans, cultures).
• Causality: biologists object when formal or final causes
are substituted for the search for efficient causes.
Concepts of Chance
• The intersection of two independent causal
chains each governed by deterministic laws (e.g.,
the orbit of an asteroid and the history of dinosaurs).
The future is determined but unpredictable in
practice.
• The randomness of some events (e.g., quantum
events amplified through mutations). The future is
open and in principle unpredictable.
• In both cases, scientific evidence can contribute to
the narrative of evolutionary history but not to
predicting it from laws.
Concepts of Design
• Design as preexistent blueprint, a detailed plan.
.
This view is threatened by any element of chance.
• Reply: death, suffering, and human freedom are then
problematic.Also there are many examples of “imperfect
design,” such as the blind spot in the retina of the eye.
• Design as general direction toward life and consciousness,
but with no predictable final state. A biofriendly universe.
Both chance and law have a role in the outcome.
• Necessary features of an evolutionary world: death
(successive generations) and suffering (from competition).
• God endowed matter with diverse potentialities and
propensities, including the possibility of human freedom.
III. EVOLUTIONARY THEISM
• Natural Theology: the attempt to prove the existence of
God from features of nature, e.g., the argument from
design.
• Theology of Nature: the attempt to view features of
nature from within a religious tradition based on the
religious experience of a historical community.
• Religion in Human Life: ritual, meditation, the healing
of brokenness in individual and social life, ethical norms.
For Christians, response to the life and death of Christ.
• Traditional beliefs can be reformulated in the context of
the religious community in the light of science.
• The Limitations of Science: every science is selective,
using limited concepts to understand particular aspects of
experience.
• Meta-questions: why is there a universe at all, why does
it have the order it has, why is it intelligible to the human
mind? Questions raised but not answered by science.
• Doctrines as relationships: creation, fall, redemption,
fulfillment are not a sequence of events but enduring
characteristics of the relation between God and the
world.
Science and Religion as Distinctive Domains
• Science asks about regularities among events in nature.
Empirical inquiry in the interest of prediction and control.
• Religion asks about ultimate meaning and purpose.
A way of life expressed in the rituals, stories and practices
of a community.
• Analytic Philosophy claims that differing language systems
have differing and independent functions in human life.
• However, science and religion do sometimes influence each
other. Our understanding of nature affects our view of God’s
relation to nature.
• Five models of God’s action through the structures of
nature rather than by supernatural intervention in violation
of the laws of nature:
1. Primary and Secondary Causality
• God as primary cause works through the secondary
causes that science investigates (neo-Thomism).
• Primary causality is a different order of explanation,
answering questions unlike those that scientists ask
about relationships between natural events.
• God is radically transcendent, not another cause like
natural causes.
• The integrity of the created order and the integrity of
science are preserved (William Stoeger).
• Nature is a developmental economy without
deficiencies requiring later intervention
( Howard van Til).
2. God as Communicator of Information
• Information: an ordered pattern in a sequence of elements
(DNA, computer digits, letters, sounds).
• Communication of information occurs when another
system responds selectively (cell, computer, human
person).
• Meaning of the message is not contained in the sequence
itself but is dependent on a wider context of interpretation.
• God’s action as “an input of pure information.”
Selection among possibilities in chaotic processes (John
Polkinghorne).
• Divine Word as rational principle (Greek logos) and as
creative power (Hebrew).
• The meaning of the message is discernable only in a
wider context of interpretation.
• For Christians, the message of creation is seen in the
person of Christ (“the Word made flesh”) but also in the
created order.
3. God as Top-down Cause
• An extension of the idea of top-down causality between
levels in the world (Arthur Peacocke).
• Upper levels produce constraints or boundary conditions
on lower levels without violating lower-level laws.
• Chance and law together are creative and expressive of
open-ended design.
• God’s purposes are communicated through the patterns of
events, expressing intentions but not a predetermined plan.
• Christ is a mode of God’s self-expression,
revealing God’s nature to us.
4. God’s Self-Limitation (Kenosis)
• Between the omnipotent God of classical Christianity and
the inactive God of Deism (Nancey Murphy & George
Ellis).
• God’s power is not omnipotent control but the
empowerment of other beings.
• An incomplete cosmos still coming into being.
• The cross shows a God who participates in suffering and
transforms it through redeeming love.
• Compare feminist critiques of male
images of coercive power (both in
human relations and in God’s action).
5. Process Theology
• Reality as a dynamic web of momentary events, not a
collection of enduring self-contained objects (Alfred North
Whitehead).
• Rejects mind-matter dualism and materialism. Defends a
two-aspect monism in a hierarchy of organizational levels.
• All integrated entities have objective and subjective
(experiential) features in varying degrees, but only higherlevel organisms are conscious.
• To every entity God presents new possibilities
with open alternatives, eliciting its response.
• God is the ultimate source of both order and
novelty, but the entity itself selects among
alternatives.
• An unfinished universe showing order and disorder is
compatible with the biblical message of promise and hope
but not with the idea of completed design (John Haught).
• A God of self-limiting love allows creaturely creativity in
the emergence of new forms of order, relationality, and
inclusive community.
• God’s participation in the suffering of the world contrasts
with God’s detachment in Deism.
• Promise and hope point toward the future rather than the
past.
The Biblical View of the Holy Spirit
• As God active in both nature and human life.
• “The earth was without form and void, and the darkness
was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was
moving over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).
• Plants and animals: “When thou sendest forth thy Spirit,
they are created” (Psalm 104:30).
• Inspiration of the prophets (Ezekiel 11:5).
• Worship: “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm
51:11).
• Christ received the Spirit at his baptism (Mark 1:10).
• His followers were empowered by the Spirit (Acts 2).
• The role of the Spirit in nature, religious experience, and the
life of Christ offers a common framework for creation and
redemption, which are often contrasted.
• “Come, Holy Spirit, renew thy whole creation.”
Theme of World Council of Churches 1991 Assembly
Conclusion
In a Theistic Framework:
Order includes lawfulness without excluding novelty,
creativity, and contingency.
Purpose can be expressed in open-ended design, but
intention and agency are needed to avoid Deism.
Human Responses:
To a Universe of Chance: pessimism or courage in
facing meaninglessness; search for security.
To a Universe of Law: resignation, alienation from
an impersonal cosmos.
To a Universe of Design: gratitude, trust, hope.
We can accept many biblical affirmations today,
even though our cosmology is very different.
Images accompanied by verses from the Psalms: