Both are the results of natural causes – wind, rain, ice…

Do you agree?

Intelligent Design (ID)

The science that studies signs of intelligence – 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.

Two intelligent design ideas:

1. ‘specified complexity’

specified – the object exhibits a pattern

complexity – a highly improbable event; not readily repeated by chance. (it’s not so simple that it can be readily explained by chance)

start

yes

complexity chanceno

yes

specification chanceno

design

yes

The combination of complexity and specification convincingly pointed the radio astronomers in the movie CONTACT to an extraterrestrial intelligence. WHY?

1. The prime number sequence is long enough to be considered ‘complex’. (improbable)

2. The prime numbers are a mathematically significant pattern – exhibits ‘specification’

2. ‘irreducible complexity’ – a system is irreducibly complex if it consists of several interrelated parts for which removing even one part completely destroys the system’s function.

An irreducibly complex object will be composed of several parts, all of which contribute to the function – e.g. mousetrap

Made of:a. A flat wooden platformb. A metal hammerc. A spring that ‘snaps’ the metal hammerd. A ‘catch’ that releases the hammere. A bar that holds the hammer back – so that it can be ‘loaded’

Are all five components required for this device to function? YES!

Will the mousetrap still trap mice if any of the parts are missing? NO! It won’t work!

The mousetrap is irreducibly complex – all the parts are needed for function.

Is “Intelligent Design” the same thing as “creationism”?

NO! Despite the claims of many (every) evolutionist, ID differs from creationism.

Creationism holds to two presuppositions:

1. God created and orders the world.

2. The biblical account of creation (as recorded in Genesis) is scientifically accurate.

Intelligent design makes no attempt to identify the intelligent cause responsible for the design of nature. ID simply focuses on the way materials are arranged that point to a designing intelligence.

Intelligent design has theological implications, but that does not

make it a theological enterprise.

• Many ‘non-believers’ support intelligent design.

SpecifiedComplexity

Intelligent design

Methods of Science

Creationism

Faith

Courts have ruled that scientific creationism is not just similar to the Genesis account of creation but is in fact identical to it and is parallel to no other creation story. Because scientific creationism corresponds point for point with the creation and flood narrative found in Genesis, courts have found scientific creationism to be a religious doctrine and not a scientific theory.

Intelligent design, by contrast, is free from such charges of religious entanglement. Intelligent design is not scientific creationism cloaked in a newer and more sophisticated terminology. Intelligent design shares none of scientific creationism religious commitments. Scientific creationism describes the origin of the universe, its duration, the mechanisms responsible for geological formations, the limits to evolutionary change and the beginnings of humanity, all the while conforming its account of creation to the first chapters of Genesis. In contrast, intelligent design makes no claims about the origin or duration of the universe, is not committed to flood geology, can accommodate any degree of evolutionary change, does not prejudge how human beings arose and does not specify in advance how a designing intelligence brought the first organisms into being.

-- William Dembski – The Design Revolution