One of the most significant ways in which Intelligent Design is revealed as being political and ideological rather than scientific is by the methods used by Intelligent Design apologists. In science, researchers are expected to provide substantial evidence in support of their claims and to show how their explanations do a better job than the alternatives. Intelligent Design, in contrast, invests all its time attacking evolution and little to no time coming up with anything better.
Intelligent Design as a Legal Strategy
This method of not making an independent case for one's own theory but rather focusing on undermining another theory may not be good science, but it is a good legal strategy. This shouldn't be surprising, because the one person most responsible for the development of the Intelligent Design movement — indeed, the person who can be described as the founder of the movement — is Philip Johnson, a law school professor and recognized authority on criminal law.
In a sense, Intelligent Design is a movement made by lawyers for lawyers. This goes a long way towards explaining why Intelligent Design is only able to get attention by filing lawsuits or at least threatening to file lawsuits. Evolutionary biologists, in contrast, get attention when they make important discoveries. Which sounds like the product of real science and when sounds like the product of an political ideology?
In court, it isn't technically necessary for the defense to make a case for why the accused is innocent. Instead, all that is necessary is for the defense to demonstrate that the case for the prosecution is inadequate. For Johnson, evolution is the case made by the prosecution, so based upon his perspective on how to conduct disagreement or debates, all he should need to do is demonstrate that the explanation provided by evolution is not absolutely certain.
Intelligent Design vs. Science
Unfortunately, this line of argumentation is fallacious in science. The idea that one theory (evolution) cannot explain all of the facts at hand does not automatically mean that an alleged alternative (Intelligent Design) should be considered more valid or justified. Indeed, there are no theories in science which do explain all of the facts — they are, rather, models which are the closest and most accurate approximation of what happens in nature that we have thus far been able to construct.
What this means is that pointing out gaps or flaws in one of those theories or models simply isn't enough. Supporters of alternative theories (including Intelligent Design) must instead demonstrate that their model is clearly superior to that which they are criticizing. Their theory must explain more facts and make better predictions than anything else before it can have any reasonable expectation of becoming accepted in the scientific community.
Yet that doesn't seem very likely to happen. Intelligent Design theorists have done very little in the way of scientific investigations which would tend to demonstrate that Intelligent Design is an accurate model of nature. Even William Dembski, one of the leading figures in the Intelligent Design movement, has offered this explanation for that lack of research:
I'm mainly a theoretician, so I'm not in a position to lay out a detailed set of research problems for intelligent design. Nonetheless, as an interdisciplinary scholar who rubs shoulders with scientists from many disciplines, I am in a position to lay out some research themes that may prove helpful to scientists who are trying to find a way to contribute usefully to intelligent design research.
So, if you "rub shoulders" with real scientists, it's OK to promote an ideology that doesn't have any actual research to back it up yet say that it is real science? If you are a "theoretician," it's acceptable to just point out "themes" which might, possibly, lead to real research done by someone down the road? I don't think so.
If William Dembski doesn't have the knowledge or skills to do real, original research himself, that's one thing — I don't either — but in such a situation he can't justifiably sit in his office and claim that the Intelligent Design program he's defending amounts to anything like real science yet. He almost implicitly admits that it's not real science when he notes that scientists are trying to find a way to contribute to Intelligent Design research — trying, but not succeeding. He and other apologists should just come out and admit this openly, honestly, and sincerely.
