Wikipedia: Intelligent design/Talk

ID/IDT discussions seem always to speak of god as the putative intelligent designer. This is curious, since a plurality of intelligent designers fits what we know of the universe much better than a single designer. The only basis we have for judging evidence of design is by analogy with humanly designed things. The universe as well as various of its parts are very complex systems. Some characteristics of human design of complex systems: it's done by a design team, not an individual; different members of a design team have different abilities and areas of expertise; they disagree among themselves and make compromises; the designed systems require testing, preliminary models, beta versions, etc.; the resulting systems always have bugs in them and require regular tinkering, adjustments and improvements; design teams don't do their designing from scratch - they use some off-the-shelf components, and rely to varying degrees on data gathered by others. All this fits much better with the hypothesis that the universe (or life, or . . .) was designed by a group or many groups of finite, fallible designers working with pre-existing materials than it does with the hypothesis of single super-designer-creator.

In addition, some human design teams have good purposes and goals, others bad or sometimes evil ones. By analogy, given the presence of both good and evil in the world, one should extrapolate that the intelligences that designed the universe included both good guys and bad guys. FW

: Sure, maybe God talked over his ideas with the angels or even let them try their own experiments. A heavenly design team. I'm open-minded on this detail. But as I reject dualism, I can't agree with your combination of good guys and bad guys (as creators). Ed Poor

Pretty sure this [? the ID/IDT distinction?] is wrong. ID surely believes the opposite. However, it might be true of Creationism in general, or some aspect of it.

: However, the term 'intelligent design' has a broader usage than that given in the Intelligent Design Theory. It can refer simply to the belief that God designed the universe, without any specific claim as to how or when he did so. Many people consider this belief entirely compatible with standard Darwinian evolution, with no divine intervention -- life could be produced by a purely natural process, evolution, designed by God.

: Hmmm, hold on, I'm confused! There are two articles in this encyclopedia--one on "Intelligent Design Theory", which is what you are referring to as ID, and "Intelligent Design", which is this article. They are meant to be separate articles so as to distinguish between ID and a general idea of some sort of intelligent design lying behind what happens in the universe. I think that the paragraph you removed belongs here in this article, unless you are arguing that these two articles need to be merged or otherwise you think that this article doesn't need to exist, in which case you should just delete the entire article.

ID specifically rejects standard Darwinian evolution, if I recall correctly. (Perhaps it's time for me to hit the books again, instead of shooting from the hip.)

As far as I know - the term "Intelligent design" covers a variety of beliefs that range from outright rejection of Darwinism, to complete acceptance of it. What all variations have in common is the notion that God created life, by virtue of creating the scientific processes which generated life. Creationism is distinct in that it says that God created life directly, and did not resort to scientific processes per se. One variation says that Darwinist "natural selection" is invalid, and that God directs the improvements of evolution specifically. Another says that evolution occurs completely as scientifically understood, but only because "God wills it that way". - MMGB

The article does not clearly distinguish between intelligent design and creationism. The terms look synonymous in some places, or perhaps their meaning is shifting.

Maybe we need a chart with categories such as:

believes God was involved in creation of the various species
believes in some sort of evolution
accepts the Darwinian theory of evolution completely
believes that God created/initiated life on earth

These would be overlapping categories, and the various terms could be defined in reference to them. --Ed Poor

However, the term "intelligent design" has a broader usage than that given in the Intelligent Design Theory. It can refer simply to the belief that God designed the universe, without any specific claim as to how or when he did so. Many people consider this belief entirely compatible with standard Darwinian evolution, with no divine intervention -- life could be produced by a purely natural process, evolution, designed by God. God might merely have written the laws of physics, or chosen the fundamental constants, and left the universe to run like clockwork afterwards. The belief that the laws of the universe were constructed to allow for the existence of intelligent life is known as the [Anthropic Cosmological Principle]?.

: Above not about ID per se, but creationism in general. Ed Poor

If Intelligent Design "Theory" does indeed attribute design to "God", how does it define this property? The multitude of possible definitions and interpretations makes this statement irrelevant. If ID"T" does indeed use the term "God" without definition, then it should not be labeled a theory, even if it calls itself so. Otherwise, include the definition or a more appropriate term ("unknown creating entity"). I would suspect that such terms already exist, given that IDT likes to pretend that it is "scientific".

Ed: What ever happened to the division into one article on Intelligent Design, and one article on Intelligent Design Theory. The above is an entirely accurate statement which belongs in an article about intelligent design. "Intelligent design" can refer simply to the belief that God designed some aspects of the universe; the "intelligent design" you talk about is a specific theory about how God did so (i.e. individually designing species, causing them to come into existence from earlier species). You are confusing a specific theory with a general bunch of theories. Some intelligent design theories are entirely compatible with Darwinism, e.g. that suggested by the argument for the existence of God based on the values of the cosmological constant. -- SJK

I never liked the division into ID and IDT, what was it for?
The general idea that God simply created the universe isn't called ID or IDT. Also, ID isn't about the universe, but only species of life.
I think your last sentence is true if you substitute "creationist", as in "Some creationist theories are entirely compatible with Darwinism" if you include Deism as creationist.

Ed Poor

No, the general idea that God *created* the universe isn't called intelligent design -- but the idea that God *designed* the universe with some purpose in mind is. You are ignoring that there are multiple meanings to the term "intelligent design" -- it can refer both to the specific theory you are referring to (intelligent design of species), and the more general idea I mentioned.

An example of an intelligent design theory, is that God chose the cosmological constants so that intelligent life could exist. Another example is what you call "intelligent design theory", where God designs each species. Both of these are intelligent design theories, although yours is indeed often referred to as "Intelligent Design Theory" as if the other intelligent design theories didn't exist. Which is why we had two articles -- one to talk about theories involving intelligent design in general, and another to talk about the specific theory you refer to.

Also, deism is neither creationist nor non-creationist. Deism says God created the universe and then had nothing more to do with it. He could have created it in six days and then had nothing more to do with it. And he could have created it fifteen billion years ago in the Big Bang and then had nothing more to do with it. Deism also says that God doesn't cause miracles or answer prayers; and it is entirely possible to believe in miracles and the answering of prayers and still accept Darwinian evolution (so long as you don't claim the creation of life as one of the miracles.) -- SJK

SJK, as I said, the terms "God" and "theory" do not fit nicely into an encyclopedia article. Define God or replace it with a better term. Otherwise I think I'll change "theory" to "belief".

IDT is a "theory" in a general sense. In a general sense, theory and belief are synonyms. Now in a more specific sense, they are not synonyms; a theory implies other things as well (e.g. testability). IDT claims to be a theory in this sense also. So in any case, it is a theory, at least in the broad sense, and possibly even in the narrower sense as well. (I'd prefer to give them the benefit of a doubt, and call it a theory, if thats what they claim it is; then the article can point out why some people think it isn't really a theory, despite its title.)

Secondly, use of the word "God" in encyclopedia articles about religious and semi-religious topics is inevitable. Even if the word has no clear definition at all (which at times I myself have thought might be the case), we still have no choice but to use it. -- SJK

Sure, people may say "it's just a theory", but in an encyclopedia, when we use the term "theory", we should use it in the scientific sense to separate theory from fiction and beliefs. Otherwise, should I also write an entry about the "Superman / Lois Clark theory"?

So if IDT claims to be a theory in the scientific sense, which I presume, does it refer to "God" without defining it? Then it should be characterized as a "belief set which claims to be a scientific theory (see pseudoscience)". But I'll be nice and just change theory into belief until someone comes up with better data.

I vote for restoring the deleted paragraph. There is absolutely no reason to remove that text given the current division into two articles, one on "Intelligent Design" and the other on "Intelligent Design Theory". Otherwise, what is the point? Is this article supposed to be a clone of the other one? Or are we to have two similar articles on the same subject? If not, then we need to restore the deleted paragraph. -- Egern