1 INTELLIGENT DESIGN THEORY AND THE SUPERNATURAL THE GOD OR EXTRA TERRESTRIALS REPLY Elliott Sober Abstract When proponents of Intelligent Design ID theory deny that their theory is religious the minimalistic theory they have in mind the mini ID theory is the claim that the irreducibly complex adaptations found in nature were made by one or more intelligent designers The denial that this theory is religious rests on the fact that it does not specify the identity of the designer a supernatural God or a team of extra terrestrials could have done the work The present paper attempts to show that this reply underestimates the commitments of the mini ID Theory The mini ID theory when supplemented with four independently plausible further assumptions entails the existence of a supernatural intelligent designer It is further argued that scientific theories such as the Darwinian theory of evolution are neutral on the question of whether supernatural designers exist 1 Will the Real ID Theory Please Stand Up What is Intelligent Design ID theory Answering this question is complicated by the fact that one version of the theory is minimalistic while others are more contentful The minimalistic version which I ll call the mini ID theory says only that the irreducibly complex adaptations that organisms possess were made by one or more intelligent designers Behe 1996 2005 Dembski 1995 1998b p 15 The identities of these designers are not specified maybe the vertebrate eye was made by a team of Extra Terrestrials or by a God who lives outside of space and time The mini ID theory does not deny that human beings have common ancestors with other species nor does it insist that the earth is young nor does it offer an explanation of the origin of the universe The mini ID theory differs from some earlier versions of Creationism by virtue of its modesty 1 Defenders of the mini ID theory have a lot more to say about intelligent design and this is where more contentful versions of ID theory make their appearance For example Philip Johnson 1996 one of the main architects of ID theory endorses theistic realism affirm ing that God is objectively real as Creator and that the reality of God is tangibly recorded in evidence accessible to science particularly biology he says that this is the defining concept of our movement In their widely used ID textbook Of Pandas and People Percival Davis and Dean Kenyon 1993 p 7 p 26 p 100 frequently contrast natural and intelligent causes this indicates that the intelligent designers they have in mind are supernatural And Dembski 1998b p 20 rejects theistic evolutionism which is the thesis that God used the evolutionary process to produce organisms and their adaptive features Dembski s gripe is with evolutionary theory not with divine design 2 Given the many ways in which ID theorizing goes beyond the mini ID theory why was the mini ID theory ever formulated as a separate claim One reason is suggested by Johnson s comment that people of differing theological views should learn who s close to them form alliances and put aside divisive issues til later I say after we ve settled the issue of a Creator we ll have a wonderful time arguing about the age of 1 2 the Earth quoted in Walker 1998 p 24 A modest theory has the virtue of uniting the warring factions against a common enemy In addition by not using the word God the mini ID theory may have a better chance than some of its Creationist predecessors of passing the Constitutional test that bars promoting religion in public schools Another motive is revealed by the Discovery Institute s Wedge Strategy available at http www antievolution org features wedge html The Discovery Institute in Seattle is the flagship ID think tank and the Wedge Strategy is its political manifesto The document is an internal memo that was leaked on the Internet in 2001 the Institute says its goal is to replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God Philip Johnson s 1991 critique of Darwinism and Michael Behe s 1995 application of the mini ID theory to some complex biochemical adaptations are described as the thin edge of the wedge whose purpose is to split the giant tree of materialistic science According to the Wedge Strategy design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions What then is ID theory Is it just the mini ID theory or the more contentful hypothesis that the adaptations of organisms and the universe itself were created by the Christian God or is it something in between The second of these is obviously religious in content but the first apparently is not It is not the point of the present paper to discuss any further the motives behind the construction of the mini ID theory nor to argue that one of these versions of ID theory is the real theory of intelligent design Rather the goal is to trace out the implications of what the mini ID theory actually asserts The mini ID theory does imply the existence of a supernatural intelligent designer when it is supplemented by four propositions that are independently supported 2 A First Cause Argument Applied to the Mini ID Theory Consider the following argument which owes a debt to Thomas Aquinas It is not an argument that I am advocating but one to which ID theorists need to respond 1 If a system found in nature is irreducibly complex then it was caused to exist by an intelligent designer 2 Some of the minds found in nature are irreducibly complex 3 Therefore some of the minds found in nature were caused to exist by an intelligent designer 4 Any mind in nature that designs and builds an irreducibly complex system is itself irreducibly complex 5 If the universe is finitely old and if cause precedes effect then at least one of the minds found in nature was not created by any mind found in nature 6 The universe is finitely old 2 3 7 Causes precede their effects 8 Therefore there exists a supernatural intelligent designer In this argument apparently non religious premises lead to an apparently religious conclusion 3 Comments on the Argument Premise 1 is the central claim of the mini ID theory I use Behe s 1996 p 39 term irreducible complexity which he defines as a single system composed of several well matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the
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