Is Intelligent Design Just a Hypothesis?

If evolution is a well-established theory, just what is the status of Intelligent Design?

The point was raised in a comment to one of my earlier posts,

The problem with ID [Intelligent Design] is that's it's a hypothesis and not a scientific theory. A hypothesis is an educated guess, evolution on the other hand is a bonafide scientific theory which basically means it's a scientific law which is accepted to be true by the scientific community unless proven otherwise.

I want to grant an important point here that some people have missed. Evolution is a theory, but that doesn't mean there's substantial doubt about it among most biologists. The word "theory" does not mean a somewhat-educated guess, as Columbo used the word. It means a well-developed body of ideas supported by research.

That being the case, the history of science is filled with theories that had the same status and were later overthrown. They represented the best thinking and were useful in their time, but later research found them to be lacking. ID proponents argue that this is where evolution is headed. Time will tell.

In the meantime, what about the statement, "ID is a hypothesis and not a scientific theory"?

This is a good time for me to mention a great recent book on ID by one of the movement's leading thinkers, William Dembski: The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design. Dembski responds to the most penetrating criticisms of ID and shows that its standing is solid.

The latter part of the book surveys the current status of ID as a research program. It's still a young field, and its theory is still in development. Some of its work has not been directed to development of a new theory at all, but to showing the weakness of the old one. This is valid. It's still incumbent on ID to develop its own framework of theory, but as I said, the field is young and that work is developing.

There is a bit of a twist here, of course. The science of ID says there must be intelligence "beyond the horizon," as I've phrased it before--beyond the limits of what science can explain. Evidence within nature points to the existence and operation of that intelligence, but physical (scientific) evidence is necessarily limited in what it can say about that intelligence. There will be a blank space there in the science. Theology and philosophy can partner with science to fill that blank space, so ID may be not so much a scientific theory as a philosophic-scientific theory, or a theological-scientific theory.

Does this weaken it relative to evolutionary theory? I think not. Evolutionary theory stands or falls with its materialist philosophical presuppositions. It, too, is a philosophic-scientific theory.

Does it mean that ID should be kept out of American schools, in view of possible religious implications? (I can't speak to the situation in other countries' schools.) Teaching the weak points of evolution--staying strictly within what the physical evidence shows--should certainly be approved. (That's all they're asking for in Kansas.)

If ID ever succeeds in turning evolutionary theory over, it would still probably be best to teach up to the "horizon" and no further--that is, to show how science points to mysteries beyond its own ability to solve, without saying what may be out there. No one expects we'll ever come to agreement in society about what is beyond science, and we can leave that part of the matter out of the schools.

For today, the evidence in nature shows that evolution is lacking, that there are questions it cannot answer. It's dishonest not to present such information in the schools. Even if it might tread a little bit close to religious ground, the truth must be taught, not the partial truths of a theory that will not allow its weakness to be shown the light of day.

Posted: Tue - June 14, 2005 at 04:44 PM |

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson getCategoryName("<$CategoryUUID$>");

Is Intelligent Design Just a Hypothesis?

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson