Evolution vs. Intelligent Design - The Larger Story

After another lengthy absence, I have decided to start writing again. This time, however, the posts will include a radically different structure. I've concluded that embedding sentences into paragraphs (like I'm doing right now) obfuscates their meaning, so in a bid to alter that course, I will now write single-sentence points (sometimes I'll have more than one sentence though) to be designated by roman or Arabic numerals. The main points may be appended by letters that indicate new thoughts on the same line of reasoning. The "dolce stil nuovo" ("sweet new style," harking back to Dante's days) if you will, is called 'derivative continuation,' whereby successive points will be derived from preceding ones. I am not going to use this mode for all articles here; I am practicing with it for other reasons.

Today's topic is a hell raiser, at least in America. I should warn people now that this post will focus more on the underlying ideological and philosophical issues surrounding this debate rather than the tenets of the two respective positions.

I. Intelligent Design argues that the supposed complexity of biological life on planet Earth could not have resulted through naturalistic mechanisms alone.

II. The theory of evolution argues that all organisms on planet Earth have a common ancestor that was created through materialistic mechanisms.

III. Materialistic and/or naturalistic mechanisms occur strictly through matter-forces (fermionic-bosonic) interactions and obviously do not permit the existence of supernatural phenomena.

IV. Intelligent design is not a new proposition; philosophers spanning several millennia have made points exactly coinciding with or loosely related to the main points of contemporary intelligent design arguments.

V. Evolution originated in the 18th century, but was given impetus by Darwin's landmark 1859 work, On the Origin of Species.

VI. As a consequence of point I, intelligent design states that a creator, or a designer, had to first initiate the processes that eventually culminated in the alleged complexity of life on Earth.

VII. As a consequence of point II, evolution states that life on Earth was not arbitrarily imposed by any supernatural force.

VIII. Scientific theories must be materialistic; they must be constructed on the basis that the interwoven mechanisms have comprehensible sources whose behavior can be explicated and modeled in non-supernatural terms.
A. Intelligent design posits a source that it does not explicate and that, as of recent
times, has no intention of explicating.
B. As a consequence of point VI, VIII, VIII (A), Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory.

IX. Scientific theories must be falsifiable; one ought to make some sort of observation that contradicts the theory.
A. Intelligent design posits a source whose existence no observation or experiment can confirm.
B. Recent scientific theories have posited entities whose existence has not been validated (theorized particles), but whose existence can be validated through the scientific method.
C. As a consequence of the points mentioned in VIII (B) as well as well as IX, IX (A), and IX (B), Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory.

X. Scientific theories must offer predictions.
A. Intelligent Design offers no predictions.
B. As a consequence of aforementioned points (now too lengthy to list), Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory.

XI. Intelligent designers have made statements decrying the dominance of materialism in scientific thought.

XII. Recent efforts to place Intelligent Design in the scientific curriculum are designed not just to offer an alternative viewpoint, but also to challenge a quasi-sacred scientific tradition of materialism.


That is all.