Why saddle the Intelligent Design movement with the label of creationism? It was originally conceived of as a means to attack evolution on more scientifically respectable ground and thus avoid the problems of creationism, so why haven’t they succeeded? To put it simply, they have failed because they were never really interested in science to begin with.
Science is ultimately a process, a means for investigating and learning about the world. It’s a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. That’s one reason why the process of science has changed over the years — as we learn more about how to best understand the world, we incorporate those lessons into what we do.
Creationism was never about a process, it was always about end. Creationism was developed as an alternative to evolution not because religious folk found fault with the means by which scientists reached conclusions about life; instead they found fault with the implications those conclusions had for their religious beliefs. Conclusions that validate, or at least don’t affect, their dogmas are fine — all others must be challenged by whatever means available.
The first means was “scientific” creationism. This largely haphazard conglomeration of the work of amateur researchers was edited together in the hopes of demonstrating that the “orthodoxy” of evolutionary science was doubtful at the very least. Nobody outside of narrow religious circles bought it, however, and the overtly religious nature of the program ensured that courts wouldn’t permit it to be taught in public schools.
As the movement waned and true believers flailed about for anything to grab on to, Philip Johnson entered the picture. He’s the reason that the Intelligent Design movement exists and why it exists in the form it does. He’s not a scientist, which is why the movement isn’t based upon scientific principles. He’s a lawyer, and the movement has always been based upon lawyerly rhetoric that is designed to find fault — however minute — in the opponent rather than mount a credible and independent argument for one’s own position.
Like traditional creationists, however, Philip Johnson was never really concerned with the process of science — just the results. The implications of evolutionary science are what motivated him to attack it because they contradicted his religious beliefs. He even helped develop a long-term agenda for undermining the process of science in order to protect his dogmas from any future challenges.
I’d like to add one of my favorite quotes from the book, coming near the end:
- “The fine-tuning argument would tell us that the sun radiates light so that we can see where we are going. In fact, the human eye evolved to be sensitive to light from the sun. The universe is not fine-tuned for humanity. Humanity is fine-tuned for the universe.”
This is similar to the anthropic rebuttal to the fine-tuning argument that if the universe weren’t suitable for life, we wouldn’t be here to debate the meaning of that fact — but it’s a far more poignant and interesting way of putting it.
The Bottom Line
Intelligent Design is worthless from a scientific perspective, but it’s designed to work on a political and social level and this it manages quite well. It won’t convince scientists, but its rhetoric convinces parents, school boards, and politicians eager for any alternative to evolution. Matt Young and Taner Edis have created an excellent resource for refuting the so-called “science” of this religious movement. Now we need a means for countering its political and social agenda. If the science were sufficient, it wouldn’t making such in-roads among non-scientists.
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