4 BACKGROUND: INTELLIGENT DESIGN, SCIENCE, AND
4.1 Intelligent Design
4.1.1 Birth of the Intelligent Design Movement
Phillip E. Johnson, a former professor of law at UC Berkeley, is usually considered to be the father of the Intelligent Design movement. After turning to Christianity at the age of 38 in 1987 and becoming convinced of the futility of chasing academic achieve-ments,102 Johnson started to wonder why the scientific community was so much dom-inated by naturalism and agnosticism. Johnson was sure that it was quite possible to pursue science without these kinds of metaphysical commitments.103
Johnson discovered a new meaning to his life after having read Richard Dawkins’s The Blind Watchmaker104, in which Dawkins claims that all that exists in the universe is mere physics, free will is only an illusion and religion a virus plaguing humanity.
Another book that strongly influenced Johnson’s thinking was biochemist Michael Denton’s evolution-critical Evolution. A Theory in Crisis105. After reading the books, Johnson became more and more fascinated with the issues of creation, evolution, and naturalism and finally realised that “This is it. This is where it all comes down to, the understanding of creation.”106
Eventually, Johnson came to suspect that he might not be alone with his thoughts in academia. In the early 1990s, he started gathering like-minded scientists to his network and so the Intelligent Design movement gradually began to take shape. Johnson dates the birth of the movement to March 1992, when a group of intelligent design propo-nents (and oppopropo-nents) got together in a symposium held at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas.107 The symposium was triggered by the publication of Johnson’s book Darwin on Trial, in which he attacked naturalism and the theory of evolution.108 Alongside Johnson, biochemist Michael Behe, philosopher of science Stephen C. Mey-er and mathematician William A. Dembski—all of whom would latMey-er become leading forces in the Intelligent Design movement—attended the symposium. According to
102 Johnson has stated that “academic life is the business of showing that you’re more intelligent than other people by publishing papers hardly anybody reads” (Goode 1999). Although this might not be a completely incorrect perception, countless scientific problems would have been left unsolved without academics who are willing to engage in such endeavours.
103 Goode 1999.
104 Dawkins 2015.
105 Denton 1986.
106 Stafford 1997. Emphasis in the original.
107 The symposium was titled “Darwinism: Scientific Inference or Philosophical Preference?” (Buell & Hearn 1992).
108 Johnson 1991.
Dembski, this was the first time that Darwinism109 was truly challenged in an academic context “without anyone promoting a religious or sectarian agenda.”110
4.1.2 Intelligent Design in Public Discussion
Johnson’s Darwin on Trial is usually regarded as the first major work published in the Intelligent Design movement, although the honour could also be given to Mystery of Life’s Origin. Reassessing Current Theories111, a 1984 book by Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley and Roger L. Olsen criticising the incompleteness of the theory of evolution.
In any case, Darwin on Trial was undoubtedly the single most important factor in the Intelligent Design rise to general awareness. For example, Dembski describes the book as “a sensation” whose impact “is hard to overestimate.”112
After the publication of Darwin on Trial, Intelligent Design became a subject of somewhat heavy debate in the United States. According to a review by paleontol-ogist Stephen Jay Gould, published in Scientific American, Johnson’s book was “full of errors, badly argued, based on false criteria, and abysmally written.”113 In 1993, when the magazine declined to publish Johnson’s rebuttal of the review114, a group of pro-Intelligent Design scientists and philosophers questioning Darwinism posted the paper to thousands of university professors in the United States, accompanied with a letter supporting Johnson and emphasizing the importance of a balanced dis-cussion instead of a “one-sided view” on the issue. The group called themselves “Ad Hoc Origins Committee” and included all the leading figures of Intelligent Design.115
Despite these openings and some pro-intelligent design articles in the media, In-telligent Design remained relatively unknown to the general public and the organisa-tion of the movement rather loose. This changed in 1996, when Michael Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box. The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution116 was published.117 In the book, Behe introduced the concept of “irreducible complexity” and aimed at showing that there exist many complex biochemical systems in living creatures that could not have been developed through unguided evolutionary processes. Instead, a designer
109 The term “Darwinism” can be used to refer either to the theory of evolution developed by Charles Darwin (or to some of its later variants such as the modern synthesis) or to a wider naturalistic ideology asserting that the origin of life can be explained without supernatural causes. In this study, the term is used mainly when citing the advocates of intelligent design and therefore in the latter sense. Some scholars, e.g., Scott and Branch (2009, 90) have suggested that the term “Darwinism” should not be used to refer to the theory of evolution at all, in order not to compromise the scientific nature of the theory. For the history of the term
“Darwinism,” see McGrath 2011, Pt. 1.
110 Dembski 2006b. Contrary to what Dembski claims, there is actually a long history of disputing the Dar-winian approach to evolution (see Bowler 1983; Bowler 2003; Bowler 2007).
111 Thaxton, Bradley & Olsen 1984.
112 Dembski 2006b, 13.
113 Gould 1992.
114 Ad Hoc Origins Committee 1993. Johnson’s response was eventually published in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (Johnson 1993).
115 Ad Hoc Origins Committee 1993.
116 Behe 1996.
117 The idea of intelligent design gained some visibility already before Behe; see Woodward 2003.
(of some kind) must have designed and created these “irreducible complex” systems.
Behe’s claims boosted Intelligent Design’s rise to public visibility more than anything before. Consequently, the objections among the scientific community became increas-ingly stronger.118
4.1.3 Intelligent Design and the Discovery Institute
In addition to the publication of Darwin’s Black Box, the year 1996 also marked another major event in the history of Intelligent Design, namely, the founding of the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. Affiliated with the Discovery Institute119, a Seattle-based think tank, the research centre immediately became the unofficial headquarters of Intelligent Design. Ever since its establishment, the centre has been directed by Stephen C. Meyer and political scientist John G. West. The list of senior research fellows has included many of the most prominent proponents of Intelligent Design: Dembski, Behe, and biologist Jonathan Wells, among others.120 Officially, the mission of the Center for Science and Culture—as it is called today—is to “advance the understanding that human beings and nature are the result of intelligent design rather than a blind and undirected process.”121 According to Barbara Forrest, the estab-lishment of the centre has been the single most important factor in the development of Intelligent Design.122
The visibility—and, to some extent, the popularity—of Intelligent Design has been growing steadily since the late 1990s, both in the United States and globally.123 The main activities of the movement have been organising conferences and public debates on the possibility of supernatural design,124 producing “alternative learning material“
questioning the theory of evolution,125 as well as publishing a variety of (academic and popular) books on intelligent design.126 Intelligent Design has repeatedly been criti-cised for its lack of peer-reviewed publications.127 To defend against this critique, the Discovery Institute has compiled an extensive list of peer-reviewed articles
which—ac-118 See, e.g., Coyne 1996; Miller 1996; Orr 1996.
119 The Discovery Institute was itself founded in 1991 (Discovery Institute 2018e). It defines its mission as
“to advance a culture of purpose, creativity and innovation” (Discovery Institute 2018c).
120 Discovery Institute 2018b.
121 Discovery Institute 2018a.
122 Forrest 2001, 10. The initiation of the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture was sparked by a conference (“The Death of Materialism and the Renewal of Culture”) organised by Johnson in 1995 (Forrest
& Gross 2005, 19).
123 In Finland, for example, Intelligent Design has been promoted by Matti Leisola (2013) and Pekka Rein-ikainen (2011). Recently, a Finnish website (www.intelligentdesign.fi) dedicated to promoting ID was es-tablished.
124 See, e.g., Dembski 1998b; Yale News 2000.
125 Davis & Kenyon 1993; Dembski & Wells 2007; Meyer et al. 2007. The learning material produced within the Intelligent Design community has widely been regarded as highly questionable and misleading (Padian 1989; Elsberry 2007; Perakh 2007; Bennett 2008).
126 E.g., Behe 1996; Dembski 1999; Wells 2002; Dembski 2004a; Wells 2006; Dembski & Wells 2007; Meyer 2009; Dembski 2010.
127 Forrest & Gross 2005, 35–47; Jones 2005, 87–89; Lilienfield 2006.
cording to the institute—support the idea of intelligent design.128 However, commen-tators have argued that most of the listed papers either do not offer enough support for the theory of intelligent design or are published in pseudo-scientific129 journals sustained by the Intelligent Design community.130
The Center for Science and Culture has maintained its role as the most important patron of Intelligent Design. Currently, the center lists as its fellows more than forty scientists from different fields (although they are not all actually employed by the center but are more or less loosely connected to it).131 The Discovery Institute—and hence also the Center for Science and Culture—is funded primarily by conservative Christian movements.132 There are, however, other sources of funding; for instance, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated millions of dollars to the institute.133
Intelligent Design has also gathered some degree of worldwide support, even with-in academia.134 By November 2016, more than one thousand scientists had signed
“a scientific dissent from Darwinism” statement initiated by the Discovery Institute, stating that they are “skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life” and encouraging a “careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory.”135 Based on the fact that the number of names on the list has been growing steadily,136 it is well possible that Intelligent Design is not ready to disappear in the near future (although I have offered a slightly different sce-nario in Article IV). Of course, being sceptical of the theory of evolution does not neces-sarily equate with supporting Intelligent Design, and the purpose of many signers was merely to promote academic freedom and support critical evaluation of the evidence for evolution. In all, Walter L. Bradley’s assertion that Intelligent Design “is making an intellectual beachhead, cracking the stranglehold that materialistic and methodological naturalism have had” sounds more like wishful thinking than realism.137
4.1.4 Intelligent Design and Creationism
Throughout its history, Intelligent Design has been criticised for incorporating hidden societal and religious purposes. In the United States, the movement has been seen as
128 Discovery Institute 2018d. See also Luskin 2012.
129 A phenomenon can be classified as pseudoscientific, if “1) it is not scientific [accepted by the scientific community], and 2) the person(s) responsible for the phenomenon try to create the impression that it is scientific” (Hansson 1996, 172).
130 Brauer, Forrest & Gey 2005; Branch 2010.
131 Discovery Institute 2018b.
132 Willoughby 2001; Slevin 2005.
133 Wilgoren 2005.
134 See, e.g., Kutschera 2003; Forrest 2014; Wells 2017; Centre for Intelligent Design 2018. A popular evo-lution-sceptical textbook promoting intelligent design (to some extent, at least) translated into several European languages is Scherer & Junker 2013.
135 A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism 2016.
136 Crowther 2006; Discovery Institute 2007; A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism 2013 [more than 800 names]; A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism 2016 [more than 1000 names; an updated version of the same website as in the previous reference].
137 Bradley 2006, 310.
“inextricably intertwined with extremist conservative politics and social agendas”138 and “religious to its core,”139 being the latest weapon of religious extremists in the cultural war between religion and naturalistic science. According to its proponents, however, intelligent design is first and foremost a scientific theory and any political or societal consequences of the theory are of secondary importance. Nevertheless, they argue that if intelligent design would actually be the best explanation of some phenomena occurring in the universe (as they believe to be the case), it is only natural to defend this view in public discussion and to promote the teaching of the theory in schools.140 Critics are not convinced: for them, intelligent design is only “creationism in a cheap tuxedo.”141
Indeed, intelligent design is often regarded as a manifestation of creationism. Crea-tionism can be defined as “the belief that mankind and all kinds of living organism, or, more widely, the earth and the physical universe generally, originated in specific acts of divine creation as related in the Bible or other sacred book rather than by natural processes as described by science, in particular evolution.”142 Often, creationism is divided into two major categories: young Earth creationism and old Earth creationism.
Young Earth creationists believe that the Genesis creation narrative must be taken literally and that God created the world in six 24-hour days 6000–10000 years ago.
They interpret the fossil record as evidence of Noah’s flood, not of a 4.5 billion-year-old Earth. Young Earth creationism approves of the idea of “microevolution” within existing “created kinds”143 but denies the possibility that the mechanisms of evolution could produce new kinds of animals.144 Unlike young Earth creationism, old Earth creationism has no problem with accepting the scientific estimates regarding the age of the Earth. Old Earth creationists believe that the creation story in Genesis should be interpreted figuratively and that creation took place during a longer period of time.
However, old Earth creationists also deny “macroevolution” and hold that God has created the kinds separately.145
Another approach that is often mentioned when discussing creationism—but is clearly distinct from it—is theistic evolution (or evolutionary theism). Its supporters endorse both “micro-“ and “macroevolution” but think that God has guided—or at
138 Shanks 2004, 252.
139 Forrest 2001, 30.
140 The teaching of the theory of intelligent design in schools has been a subject of heavy debate in the Unit-ed States. See, e.g., Wells 2002; Beckwith 2003; Campbell & Meyer 2003 (esp. Ch. I); Scott & Branch 2006.
The most famous example of the conflict between proponents and opponents of the theory of intelligent design was the so-called Dover Trial, during which intelligent design was deemed as a religious theory and the teaching of intelligent design as a scientific theory alongside the theory of evolution was prohibited (Russell 2005; Jones 2005). Still, studies show that 40 percent of Americans are of the opinion that intelligent design and creationism should be taught in public schools, while only 32 percent oppose the idea (Hafiz 2013; YouGov 2013).
141 Melott 2002, 48.
142 Oxford English Dictionary 2018a.
143 Friar 2000. The idea of (created) kinds—a limited number of discrete life forms—is based on the literal reading of Genesis 1:11–25, where it is mentioned that God created living things “according to their kinds”
(as translated in the New International Version of the Bible).
144 McGrath 2010, 39–40; Ruse 2014. For more on microevolution and macroevolution, see, e.g., Stanley 1979;
Erwin 2000; Reznick & Ricklefs 2009.
145 McGrath 2010, 40; Ruse 2014.
least launched—the process of evolution.146 In other words, evolution would be God’s method of creating all the lifeforms that have ever existed on Earth. Many Christian scientists consider theistic evolutionism to be the most convincing way of combining their faith in God with the results of modern science. Within Intelligent Design, the-istic evolutionism is normally not seen as a form of creationism. For instance, Behe identifies himself as a theistic evolutionist while at the same time steering clear of creationism.147 Dembski rejects both creationism and theistic evolutionism, the latter of which he calls a “baptised” version of Darwinism and, as far as the scientific content is concerned, “no different from atheistic evolution.”148
If we decide to take seriously the self-understanding of Intelligent Design and to follow Dembski’s definition of intelligent design as a “field of study that investigates signs of intelligence,”149 intelligent design cannot be classified as creationism. On the other hand, there are strong similarities in the argumentation of many creationist movements and Intelligent Design, such as opposing Darwinism and promoting supernatural design. According to some critics, the differences between Intelligent Design and creationism are only terminological, not substantial.150 Recently, Jared Coopersmith has convincingly argued that Intelligent Design is neither a creationist movement (despite some ideological overlap) nor a scientific enterprise. Instead, it has its own distinct identity and organisational community.151
4.1.5 William A. Dembski and Intelligent Design
William A. Dembski was born in Chicago in 1960 as the only child of a college biolo-gy professor father and art dealer mother. His parents were Catholics and Dembski attended a Catholic preparatory school in his youth. However, he found incompre-hensible the idea of a God to whom humans would be accountable or with whom we could be connected in any way. Dembski graduated from high school a year early, showing remarkable talent in mathematics. At the age of 17, he then went on to study mathematics at the University of Chicago, but dropped out due to social problems and the disappointment of doing only moderately well on some advanced mathematics
146 Haught 2004; Van Till 2012.
147 Behe 2000.
148 Dembski 1999, 109–114; Dembski 2000a. According to Dembski, theistic evolutionism places evolution and theism in a tension. If God has created the world but only acts through evolution, it is impossible for humans to empirically observe his actions. Theism therefore becomes a superfluous addition to the theory of evolution. Intelligent design, Dembski claims, is a much more fruitful approach since it makes it possible to empirically detect signs of God’s actions. Similar—although much more profound—criticism against theistic evolutionism can be found in Moreland et al. 2017.
149 Dembski 2006a, 716.
150 Forrest & Gross 2005, 282. Forrest has, for example, pointed out that members of the Intelligent De-sign movement had attempted to artificially distance themselves from creationism by replacing the words
“creation” and “creationism” with “intelligent design” and “design proponent” in drafts for the textbook Of Pandas and People (Davis & Kenyon 1993) after the teaching of creationism in public schools the United States was banned but the teaching of alternative scientific theories was allowed (National Centre for Science Education 2008).
151 Coopersmith 2012. Denis Alexander (2008, 295) also points out that intelligent design should not be con-fused with creationism, although it can be seen as a “first cousin” of creationism, particularly with respect to the resistance to accepting the theory of evolution.
courses. While working temporarily at his mother’s firm, Dembski started reading the Bible, as well as many creationist writings, gradually becoming interested in the way they challenged Darwinism. Still, Dembski was always convinced that the creationist argumentation based on literal interpretation of the Bible was insufficient.152
Dembski soon returned to the academic world, studying statistics at the University of Illinois. During his studies, he began to think that it is statistically improbable that unguided evolution could be responsible for the entire diversity of life. His “eureka moment” was at a conference on randomness held at Ohio State University in 1988, when mathematician Perci Diaconis stated in his concluding remarks: “We know what randomness isn’t, we don’t know what it is.” Dembski describes these words by Diaconis as the decisive factor in his “conversion” into thinking that the world might not essentially be random but designed. Eventually, he became convinced that true randomness does not exist; instead, everything that for us appears as random is actually the work of a supernatural intelligent designer. For Dembski, this designer was the God of Christianity.153
Dembski has built a versatile academic career, obtaining degrees in Mathematics (PhD, 1988), Philosophy (PhD, 1996), Theology (MDiv, 1996), Statistics (MSc, 1983) and Psychology (BA, 1981). He has worked as a research fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1988), Princeton University (1990), Northwestern University (1992–1993), and University of Notre Dame (1996–1997), among other places, and held professorships at Baylor University (1999–2005), Southern Baptist Theological Semi-nary (2005–2006), Southwestern Baptist Theological SemiSemi-nary (2006–2012) and South-ern Evangelical Seminary (2012–2013). Between 1999 and 2014 (full-time 1996–1999 and 2012–2014), Dembski was a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, focusing on research into the theory of intelligent design.154 He has also
Dembski has built a versatile academic career, obtaining degrees in Mathematics (PhD, 1988), Philosophy (PhD, 1996), Theology (MDiv, 1996), Statistics (MSc, 1983) and Psychology (BA, 1981). He has worked as a research fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1988), Princeton University (1990), Northwestern University (1992–1993), and University of Notre Dame (1996–1997), among other places, and held professorships at Baylor University (1999–2005), Southern Baptist Theological Semi-nary (2005–2006), Southwestern Baptist Theological SemiSemi-nary (2006–2012) and South-ern Evangelical Seminary (2012–2013). Between 1999 and 2014 (full-time 1996–1999 and 2012–2014), Dembski was a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, focusing on research into the theory of intelligent design.154 He has also