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Putting this here both for people to read, and so I can find it again easily should I need to reference it. Also gives ammo to all you guys if you need it for debates.

Is Intelligent Design different than Creationism?

To answer this question, we must first define what is meant by "Creationism" so that we may compare it with the Intelligent Design movement. Ultimately, the only defining feature of Creationism is a belief that a supernatural being (generally the Abrahamic God), created the universe and that there is physical evidence for this. This is not the same as "Theism" which posits that a creator created the universe but does not maintain that there is physical evidence.

Creationism is generally found in one of two forms. The first is a "young-Earth" model in which the age of the Earth is around 6,000 years old. The other model is labeled "old-Earth". It is this form that Intelligent Design typically mirrors in both intent and methodology (although it is also compatible with the former).

The only true difference between Intelligent Design and this form of Creationism is that the former pretends not to claim who the designer is. However, as this post intends to explore, this is a facade aimed at disguising Creationism in an attempt to make it constitutionally acceptable to teach in public school classrooms (since Creationism was ruled unconstitutional in the 1987 Supreme Court case Edwards v. Aguillard). Aside from the explicit naming of God as the creator (or "designer"), Intelligent Design is identical to Old-Earth Creationism. However, while Intelligent Design pretends not to name the designer, their hand is revealed in a variety of ways.

Knowing that Intelligent Design must be free of references to a specific god, Intelligent Design proponents are forced to sanitize their language. Unfortunately for them, they are frequently very poor at doing so. This is highlighted in a document from the chief organization in support of Intelligent Design, the Discovery Institute. In 1998, the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (since changed to the Center for Science and Culture), a subset of the Discovery Institute, penned a document that has become infamously known as the "Wedge Document."

In it, the authors explicitly state that their goal is not scientific in nature, but intend to "replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan[sic] beings are created by God (emphasis added)." Here, it is explicitly stated that the goal of the Intelligent Design movement is not the promotion of an anonymous designer, but explicitly the Abrahamic God.

In defense, the Discovery Institute frequently claims that this document was part of a fund raising campaign. However, if this was the case, and the Wedge Document was not to be taken seriously, then this would imply that the Discovery Institute is, at best, dishonest in their goals which should still give one reason to be concerned.

But given the writings of many of its most prominent members, we can see that this is not just a fund raising strategy meant to draw money from religious organizations. Rather, this view that the Abrahamic God is responsible for the perceived design, is the driving force behind Intelligent Design.

One of the chief proponents of Intelligent Design is Phillip Johnson. Johnson is the principal architect of the Wedge Document as well as the co-founder of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute. As such, he is well qualified to speak as representative of the Discovery Institute. In an article he wrote entitled Starting a Conversation about Evolution, he refers to the Intelligent Design movement by saying,



Again, we see that Intelligent Design affirms a supernatural (and explicitly Christian) force which makes it synonymous with Creationism. However, Johnson has revealed that the supposedly anonymous designer is God in other sources. In his 1997 book, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds he writes,



During a Christian radio talk show from 2004, Johnson states,



In an article from 1996 we find Johnson saying,



In the forward to his book, Unapologetic Apologetics Johnson explicitly ties Intelligent Design to Christian religion during the forward in which he states:



In Church & State magazine, the April 1999 issue reports on a speech of Johnson's at a Coral Ridge Ministries' conference (Feb. 26-27) in which he makes the goal of Intelligent Design even more explicit:



So what we now see is that Phillip Johnson, hailed as the founder and head of the Intelligent Design movement, repeatedly states that Intelligent Design has nothing to do with science, but rather, is about promoting the Abrahamic God. By promoting God as the designer, Intelligent Design fails to distinguish itself from Creationism. These are but a small collection of Johnson's statements inexorably linking Intelligent Design and Creationism (many more from him and other Intelligent Design advocates can be found by reading the transcripts of Day 6 of the Dover trial of Barbra Forrest's testimony).

But Johnson is far from the only head of the Intelligent Design movement that holds this position. Another voice of the Discovery Institute is Dr. William Dembski. In his book 2002 book, Intelligent Design, Dembski states:



Here we see the true motive of Dembski; He views the methodological naturalism of science as idolatry and seeks to overthrow it. Furthermore, Dembski also tips his hand in a paper presented at the Millstatt Forum August 10, 1998 in which he states:



In this paper (which also appears as Chapter 8 of Intelligent Design) Dembski clearly suggests that Intelligent Design is a result of divine creation as stated in Scripture as a miracle.

Dembski also refutes the argument that Intelligent Design could be the result of some sort of naturalistic entity (such as space aliens) in his 1992 work Incredible Talking Pulsar in which he states,



Thus, regardless of whether or not Dembski is promoting the Abrahamic God of his faith, he claims that Intelligent Design demands a supernatural intelligence. A supernatural being can only be defined in religious or mythological terms, thus, again showing that Intelligent Design is religious in nature.

Much like Johnson, Dembski has far more quotes showing the indistinguishable nature of Intelligent Design and Creationism but for sake of space, they shall not be listed here. Instead, this is merely a representative sampling.

At this point, we have seen that two of the figureheads for the Intelligent Design movement both argue that Intelligent Design supports a supernatural creator and readily identify it as the Abrahamic God. Both are exceptionally well qualified to speak to the goals and properties of Intelligent Design. In this analysis we shall forego quotes from numerous other Intelligent Design proponents along the same lines for the sake of redundancy. However, one more conspicuous piece of evidence remains to be addressed.

One of the most prominent and condemning pieces of evidence of the similarity between Intelligent Design and Creationism arose in the 2005 court case Kitzmiller v. Dover. In this case, it was revealed that one of the prime textbooks hailed as representative of Intelligent Design, known as Of Pandas and People, which featured contributing work from Intelligent Design advocate Michael Behe, was a creationist textbook, prior to the 1987 Supreme Court ruling. Following the ruling, the publishers merely replaced all instances of "God" or "creator" with "designer". This is exceptionally well highlighted by a single passage. Prior to the Edwards v. Aguillard ruling, this passage read,



Immediately following the ruling, the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (Panda's publisher), released a new edition of the book which read as follows,



From this, we can see that Intelligent Design is a word for word repackaging of Creationism. It should be noted that, aside from the Discovery Institute, the Foundation for Thoughts and Ethics is one of the other major proponents of Intelligent Design. One of its main members is William Dembski who is also assosciated with the Discovery Institute. The articles of incorporation of the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (which is conspicuously absent on their website) states its explicitly Christian goals:



By now it should be clear that the religious motivations are identical for both Creationism and Intelligent Design. But we can go further and look at the methodologies used.

Aside from the motivation driving Intelligent Design mirroring that of Creationism, Intelligent Design also mimicks the methodologies. First and foremost among these is the attempt from both to create a false duality through which, if Creationists or Design proponents can cast doubt on evolution, they, by default, support their own position. As such, both spend exorbitant amounts of resources trying to discredit evolution. Although Intelligent Design uses more technical terms than most Creationists, their arguments are ultimately synonymous.

For example, creationists often cite William Paley who often argues that there are objects too complex to have arisen through natural means. Thus, they must have arisen by means of a creator. His canonical example is that of a watch which necessitates a watchmaker. The analogous Intelligent Design version is of course, Dr. Behe's notion of Irreducible Complexity. During the Dover trial, Dr. Behe admits that the basis for this concept is not original and predates even Paley's claim (pp. 71, lines 9-13). Behe has done little but dress up a standard creationist argument up in more scientific language.

Aside from philosophical arguments couched in scientific terms like these, both Creationism and Intelligent Design proponents have an obsession with trying to present evolution as the root of all evil.

All of evidence, as well as the explicit mission statement set forth in the Wedge Document, along with direct testimony of many of the founders of the Intelligent Design movement (although we only cite two here for brevity) provide ample evidence that Intelligent Design merely pretends not to name the designer in order to bypass constitutional protections. In reality their hidden goal is to destroy the methodological naturalism that has made science so powerful, and in doing so, pave the way for a theistic (read: Creationist) worldview.

So now that we've established that Creationism and Intelligent Design are the same in all respects, we should then ask if either one is actually science. To address this question, we must first define the criteria which something must fulfill to become science. One of the foremost requirements is that science follow the scientific method. This method requires that explanations be testable. To be testable, the explanation must not invoke any supernatural explanations. As I will show, by the admission of Intelligent Design's own leaders, Intelligent Design requires a supernatural designer.

In his article "Response to my Critics", Behe states,



He later goes on to ask whether or not it is "possible that the designer is a natural entity." His response is definative:



He concludes his address of this question by stating:



This position that it is implausible for the designer to be a natural entity is confirmed by Behe's fellow Intelligent Design proponent, William Dembski, in his work Incredible Talking Pulsar, again, placing the designer outside nature.

In the Dover trial, defense witness Steve Fuller was asked during his deposition whether or not Intelligent Design aspired to change these rules to allow supernatural causation. His response (p 26), was that indeed Intelligent Design sought to remove this restriction.

But this was not the only restriction that would have to be removed. Later in the trial, Behe admitted that, in order to broaden the definition of science enough to include Intelligent Design, this new broadened definition would have to include astrology.

Thus, by the admission of a number of Intelligent Design's most vocal proponents, it posits a supernatural creator. Thus, Intelligent Design is disqualified as being science on these grounds alone but seeks to change the rules of science to allow supernatural causation.

Another requirement of the scientific field today, is that ideas must be peer reviewed. This is generally done in the form of journal articles. To date, Intelligent Design has no peer reviewed journal articles explicitly supporting its position. Intelligent Design advocates claiming that there are peer reviewed articles in favour of Intelligent Design can only refer to articles that offer criticisms of aspects of evolutionary theory, which have been published in journals. However, arguing against one position does not make another stronger by default. Thus, despite the fact that articles are routinely published criticizing various aspects of the mechanisms of evolution, there have yet to be any peer reviewed articles directly supporting Intelligent Design.

To avoid this peer review process, Intelligent Design advocates routinely publish their materials to non-technical venues, explicitly books and websites. However, these are published without the benefit of peer review. Occasionally, Intelligent Design proponents claim that their books have been peer reviewed, but as was revealed in the Dover trial, peer review the most celebrated of those books, Darwin's Black Box, had almost no scholarly review. Instead, Dr. Michael Atchison, one of those that "reviewed" the book, had this to say:



In case there is any confusion on the matter, a 10 minute synopsis does not constitute peer review in an academic sense.

Defenders of Intelligent Design generally claim that they are unable to get their research published because of some grand conspiracy by "Darwinian" scientists eager to suppress their data. However, as shown by shown by the New York Times, this is not the case:



So we see that, when explicitly asked for research by an organization that is friendly to their cause the Intelligent Design crowd is unable to produce. Thus, the reason that they have no peer reviewed articles is not due to censorship, but rather due to the fact that Intelligent Design has produced no research. During the Dover trial (pp 22-23), Intelligent Design supporter Michael Behe was asked:



Behe indicated that this was indeed correct. Rather, what Intelligent Design seeks to do is support their position through a negative critique of evolutionary theory. However, the negation of one theory does not inherently support the other.

Thus, what we have seen is that Intelligent Design fails as a science by failing to conduct research, have any peer-reviewed supporting its position, and due to violation of the restriction to natural causation. Thus, despite the claims of Intelligent Design supporters, it fails wholly as a science.


Cliff notes:
ID = Creationism
Neither are real science

It could be aliens.