Talk:Intelligent design

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Frequently asked questions

Many of these questions arise frequently on the talk page concerning Intelligent design (ID).

To view an explanation to the answer, click the [show] link to the right of the question.

Q1: Should ID be equated with creationism?

A1: ID is a form of creationism, and many sources argue that it is identical. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and Phillip E. Johnson, one of the founders of the ID movement, stated that the goal of intelligent design is to cast creationism as a scientific concept.^[1]^[2]

Not everyone agrees with this. For example, philosopher Thomas Nagel argues that intelligent design is very different from creation science (see "Public Education and Intelligent Design", Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 36, no. 2, 2008). However, this perspective is not representative of most reliable sources on the subject.

Although intelligent design proponents do not name the designer, they make it clear that the designer is the Abrahamic god.^[1]^[3]^[4]^[5]

In drafts of the 1989 high-school level textbook Of Pandas and People, almost all derivations of the word "creation", such as "creationism", were replaced with the words "intelligent design".^[6]

Taken together, the Kitzmiller ruling, statements of ID's main proponents, the nature of ID itself, and the history of the movement, make it clear—Discovery Institute's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding—that ID is a form of creationism, modified to appear more secular than it really is. This is in line with the Discovery Institute's stated strategy in the Wedge Document.

Q2: Should ID be characterized as science?

A2: The majority of scientists state that ID should not be characterized as science. This was the finding of Judge Jones during the Kitzmiller hearing, and is a position supported by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community.^[7] Scientists say that ID cannot be regarded as scientific theory because it is untestable even in principle. A scientific theory predicts the outcome of experiments. If the predicted outcome is not observed, the theory is false. There is no experiment which can be constructed which can disprove intelligent design. Unlike a true scientific theory, it has absolutely no predictive capability. It doesn't run the risk of being disproved by objective experiment.

Q3: Should the article cite any papers about ID?

A3: According to Wikipedia's sourcing policy, Wikipedia:Verifiability, papers that support ID should be used as primary sources to explain the nature of the concept.

The article as it stands does not cite papers that support ID because no such papers have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Behe himself admitted this under cross examination, during the Kitzmiller hearings, and this has been the finding of scientists and critics who have investigated this claim.^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10] In fact, the only article published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that made a case for intelligent design was quickly withdrawn by the publisher for having circumvented the journal's peer-review standards.^[11]^[12]

Broadly speaking, the articles on the Discovery Institute list all fail for any of four reasons:

The journal has no credible editorial and peer-review process, or the process was not followed
The journal is not competent for the subject matter of the article
The article is not genuinely supportive of ID
The article is published in a partisan ID journal such as PCID

If you wish to dispute the claim that ID has no support in peer-reviewed publications, then you will need to produce a reliable source that attests to the publication of at least one paper clearly supportive of ID that underwent rigorous peer-review in a journal on a relevant field.

Q4: Is this article unfairly biased against ID?

A4: There have been arguments over the years about the article's neutrality and concerns that it violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. The NPOV policy does not require all points of view to be represented as equally valid, but it does require us to represent them. The policy requires that we present ID from the point of view of disinterested philosophers, biologists and other scientists, and that we also include the views of ID proponents and opponents. We should not present minority views as though they are majority ones, but we should also make sure the minority views are correctly described and not only criticized, particularly in an article devoted to those views, such as this one.

Q5: Is the Discovery Institute a reliable source?

A5: The Discovery Institute is a reliable primary source about its views on ID, though it should not be used as an independent secondary source.

The core mission of the Discovery Institute is to promote intelligent design. The end purpose is to duck court rulings that eliminated religion from the science classroom, by confusing people into conflating science and religion. In light of this, the Discovery Institute can not be used as a reference for anything but their beliefs, membership and statements. Questionable sources, according to the sourcing policy, WP:V, are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no editorial oversight, and should only be used in articles about themselves. Articles about such sources should not repeat any contentious claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources.

Q6: Are all formulations of intelligent design pseudoscience? Was William Paley doing pseudoscience when he argued that natural features should be attributed to "an intelligent and designing Creator"?

A6: While the use of the phrase intelligent design in teleological arguments dates back to at least the 1700s,^[13] Intelligent Design (ID) as a term of art begins with the 1989 publication of Of Pandas and People.^[14] Intelligent design is classified as pseudoscience because its hypotheses are effectively unfalsifiable. Unlike Thomas Aquinas and Paley, modern ID denies its religious roots and the supernatural nature of its explanations.^[15] For an extended discussion about definitions of pseudoscience, including Intelligent Design, see Pigliucci, Massimo; Boudry, Maarten, eds. (2013), Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem, University of Chicago, ISBN 978-0-226-05179-6.

Notes and references

^ ^a ^b Phillip Johnson: "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of Intelligent Design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." Johnson 2004. Christianity.ca. Let's Be Intelligent About Darwin. "This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy." Johnson 1996. World Magazine. Witnesses For The Prosecution. "So the question is: "How to win?" That's when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the "wedge" strategy: "Stick with the most important thing"—the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, "Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?" and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do." Johnson 2000. Touchstone magazine. Berkeley's Radical An Interview with Phillip E. Johnson
^ "I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call The Wedge, which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science."…"Now the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn't true. It's falsified by all of the evidence and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, well, where might you get the truth?"…"I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves." Johnson 1999. Reclaiming America for Christ Conference. How the Evolution Debate Can Be Won
^ Dembski: "Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory," Touchstone Magazine. Volume 12, Issue4: July/August, 1999
^ Wedge Document Discovery Institute, 1999.
"[M]embers of the national ID movement insist that their attacks on evolution aren't religiously motivated, but, rather, scientific in nature." … "Yet the express strategic objectives of the Discovery Institute; the writings, careers, and affiliations of ID's leading proponents; and the movement’s funding sources all betray a clear moral and religious agenda." Inferior Design Chris Mooney. The American Prospect, August 10, 2005.
^ "ID's rejection of naturalism in any form logically entails its appeal to the only alternative, supernaturalism, as a putatively scientific explanation for natural phenomena. This makes ID a religious belief." Expert Witness Report Barbara Forrest Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, April 2005.
^ Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., pp. 31 – 33.
^ ^a ^b Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., 4. Whether ID is Science, p. 87
^ "Science and Policy: Intelligent Design and Peer Review". American Association for the Advancement of Science. 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-19.
^ Brauer, Matthew J.; Forrest, Barbara; Gey, Steven G. (2005). "Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationism and the Constitution" (PDF). Washington University Law Quarterly. 83 (1). Retrieved 2007-07-18. ID leaders know the benefits of submitting their work to independent review and have established at least two purportedly "peer-reviewed" journals for ID articles. However, one has languished for want of material and quietly ceased publication, while the other has a more overtly philosophical orientation. Both journals employ a weak standard of "peer review" that amounts to no more than vetting by the editorial board or society fellows.
^ Isaak, Mark (2006). "Index to Creationist Claims". The TalkOrigins Archive. With some of the claims for peer review, notably Campbell and Meyer (2003) and the e-journal PCID, the reviewers are themselves ardent supporters of intelligent design. The purpose of peer review is to expose errors, weaknesses, and significant omissions in fact and argument. That purpose is not served if the reviewers are uncritical
^ "Statement from the Council of the Biological Society of Washington". Biological Society of Washington. Retrieved 2007-07-19.
^ See also Sternberg peer review controversy.
^ Wilkins, John (9 November 2013), "The origin of "intelligent design" in the 18th and 19th centuries", Evolving Thoughts (blog)
^ Matzke, Nick (2006), "Design on Trial: How NCSE Helped Win the Kitzmiller Case", Reports of the National Center for Science Education, 26 (1–2): 37–44
^ "Report of John F. Haught, Ph. D" (PDF). Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (NCSE). 2005-04-01. Retrieved 29 August 2013.

Intelligent design is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on October 12, 2007.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 2, 2005	Peer review	Reviewed
January 21, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
October 16, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
January 9, 2007	Peer review	Reviewed
February 23, 2007	Featured article candidate	Promoted
July 24, 2007	Featured article review	Kept
December 14, 2008	Featured article review	Kept
Current status: Featured article

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