What are arguments for Intelligent Design?

Answer 1

Intelligent design is the assertion that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause. Intelligent design puts forth the intricacy of the bacteria flagellum & the finely tuned universe, as evidence for an intelligent designer.

1: The argument for the bacteria flagellum goes something like this: 'The bacteria flagellum is extremely intricate and works like a designed machine. If you were to remove any of the parts, it ceases to function completely, therefore God did it.'

• Rebuttal: Dr. Ken Miller removed not only one part, but 40 parts, and was still left with a bacteria that functioned. End of story.

2: The argument for the finely tuned universe goes something like this: (a) 'The universe is so finely tuned that the odds of it being the way it is, are almost improbable, therefore God did it. (b) And if any of the known laws/constants were to be wiped out, life as we know it would not exist. Therefore, the universe is finely tuned for life, therefore God did it.'

• Rebuttal (a): The chances of the universe being the way it is 1 in 1 (100%), because it already happened. Thus assessing the improbability of such event is simply pointless. People who make these sort of arguments aren't familiar with 'Statistical Thermodynamics.' Any configuration is almost infinitely improbable, but no matter how improbable, it still must exist in a state.

• Rebuttal (b):The "finely tuned for life" argument: Ignoring the fact that 99% of the universe would kill life instantly... let's pick a random example: There are more black holes in the universe than there are people, so with the intelligent design logic, we can conclude that the universe was fine-tuned for black holes.

Intelligent design summary: This looks complicated, therefore God did it.

This is why real scientists don't take intelligent design seriously.

Arguments in favour of Intelligent Design are offered by religiously biased persons (including scientists, like Michael Behe). Proponents of Intelligent Design offer arguments to discredit the Theory of Evolution. There are often no arguments in favour of Intelligent Design in this case. It seems assumed by the Intelligent Design proponents that by dismantling Darwinism, the automatic truth would then have to be Design.

There are no arguments for Intelligent Design offered by scientists who are not religiously biased. These scientists realise and accept that Evolution is a magnificent theory with very much evidence to show its veracity. Thus they continue to explore Evolution as the explanation for all of life's diversity.

Аnother answer:

1. We notice around us things that come into being and go out of being. A tree, for example, grows from a tiny shoot, flowers, then withers and dies.
2. Whatever comes into being or goes out of being does not have to be; its nonbeing is a real possibility.
3. Suppose that nothing has to be; that is, that nonbeing is a real possibility for everything.
4. Then right now nothing would exist. For
5. If the universe began to exist, then all being must trace its origin to some past moment before which there existed literally nothing at all. But
6. From nothing nothing comes. So
7. The universe could not have begun.
8. But suppose the universe never began. Then, for the infinitely long duration of cosmic history, all being had the built in possibility not to be. But
9. If in an infinite time that possibility was never realized, then it could not have been a real possibility at all. So
10. There must exist something which has to exist, which cannot not exist. This sort of being is called necessary.
11. Either this necessity belongs to the thing in itself or it is derived from another. If derived from another there must ultimately exist a being whose necessity is not derived, that is, an absolutely necessary being.
12. This absolutely necessary being is God.

The universe displays a staggering amount of intelligibility, both within the things we observe and in the was these things relate to others outside themselves. That is to say: the way they exist and coexist displays an intricately beautiful order and regularity that can fill even the most casual observer with wonder. For example, the organs in the body work for our life and health. Either this intelligible order is the product of chance or intelligent design. Not chance. Therefore the universe is the product of intelligent design. Design comes from only a mind, a designer. Therefore the universe is the product of an intelligent designer.

Rebuttal: This argument is not scientific, but religious/philosophical. As you can see in the examples given previously, all the "scientific" explanations provided by creationists/intelligent design supporters (and the two groups are one and the same) do not hold up scientifically. Intelligent design organizations do not do research, and do not practice actual science.

This is a purely religious explanation, and not based on science or research . Intelligent design claims that the universe is well ordered, everything in its place and ideally designed. The banana was designed to fit in the human hand, for instance.

Science shows us that there is much redundancy, nonsense and many mistakes in nature, our world and in ourselves. Our genetic code contains much DNA that codes for nothing, as well as for cancers and disease. Our own bodies have major design flaws that can best be understood as adaptations, over time, of structures for new uses to which they are not entirely suited.

So either the universe was not designed, or the designer was not a very good one.

Answer 2

See these linked pages for examples -

God's wisdom seen in His creations

More about God's wisdom

Here are some arguments for Creation or against Evolution.

These point to Divine Creation:

• The staggering complexity of every organ and every cell in the human body.
  
• The vastness of our minds and emotions.
  
• The fact that the universe has definite design, order, and arrangement which cannot be sufficiently explained outside a theistic worldview. (This is how Abraham, without benefit of teachers, came to reject the chaotic world-view of idolatry and the possibility of atheism). For example, theoretical physicist and popular science writer Paul Davies (whose early writings were not especially sympathetic to theism) states concerning the fundamental structure of the universe, "the impression of design is overwhelming" (Davies, 1988, p. 203).

• The laws of the universe seem to have been set in such a way that stars, planets and life can exist. Many constants of nature appear to be finely tuned for this, and the odds against this happening by chance are astronomical.
  

See: More detailed evidence of Creation

Also:

1) The glaring lack of transitional fossils has been noted by the evolutionists themselves, such as this statement from the famous paleontologist and evolutionist George G. Simpson; quote: "The regular lack of transitional fossils is not confined to primates alone, but is an almost universal phenomenon."
"The lack of transitional series cannot be explained as being due to the scarcity of material. The deficiencies are real; they will never be filled" (Nilsson, N. Heribert).
"To the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation" (Corner, E.J.H., Contemporary Botanical Thought).
2) Instances of falsifying of evidence by evolutionists, such as Haeckel's drawings, Archaeoraptor, the Cardiff "specimen," and Piltdown Man.
"Haeckel exaggerated the similarities [between embryos of different species] by idealizations and omissions, in a procedure that can only be called fraudulent. His drawings never fooled embryologists, who recognized his fudgings right from the start. The drawings, despite their noted inaccuracies, entered into the standard student textbooks of biology. Once ensconced in textbooks, misinformation becomes cocooned and effectively permanent, because textbooks copy from previous texts. We do, I think, have the right to be both astonished and ashamed by the century of mindless recycling that has led to the persistence of these drawings in a large number, if not a majority, of modern textbooks (Stephen Gould).
Dr. Jonathan Wells published a book in 2002 entitled Icons of Evolution. Dr. Wells states that the book shows that "the best-known 'evidences' for Darwin's theory have been exaggerated, distorted or even faked."

3) Creationists see the "survival of the fittest" and the dating of rock layers by fossils as being perfect tautologies.

4) The fact that some qualified, educated, normal scientists do not believe in evolution. Or at least question it, even if they still preach evolution: "Nine-tenths of the talk of evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not founded on observation and wholly unsupported by facts. This museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of their views. In all this great museum, there is not a particle of evidence of the transmutation of species" (Dr. Etheridge, Paleontologist of the British Museum).
"To postulate that the development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance mutations seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts. It amazes me that this is swallowed so uncritically and readily, and for such a long time, by so many scientists without murmur of protest" (Sir Ernest Chain, Nobel Prize winner).

5) The fact that there is a shared, worldwide tradition among every ancient society that the world was created.

6) Evolving of new organs or species has not been witnessed during known history.

7) Mutations are harmful, not beneficial. One of the tasks of DNA and of long-term breeding is to avoid or repair any changes brought about by mutations. This means that our genetic apparatus is programmed to resist change.

8) Mutations, even if beneficial, do not create new organs.

9) The fact that a great number of fossils have been found in the "wrong" rock-layers according to what evolutionary Paleontology would require.

10) The fact that you need DNA to make DNA. No genetic code can be demonstrated to have arisen by chance, together with the ability to read that code and carry out its instructions. Information does not arise spontaneously; and there is an incredible amount of information in even the tiniest cell.
"A living cell is so awesomely complex that its interdependent components stagger the imagination and defy evolutionary explanations" (Michael Denton, author).
"The astounding structural complexity of a cell" (U.S. National Library of Medicine).
Concerning a single structure within a cell: "Without the motor protein, the microtubules don't slide and the cilium simply stands rigid. Without nexin, the tubules will slide against each other until they completely move past each other and the cilium disintegrates. Without the tubulin, there are no microtubules and no motion. The cilium is irreducibly complex. Like a mousetrap, it has all the properties of design and none of the properties of natural selection" (Michael Behe, prof. of biophysics).

11) The problem of the impossibility of abiogenesis in general. "The concept of abiogenesis is not science. It's fantasy" (J.L. Wile, Ph.D.).

12) The fact that evolution was once used as support for the belief that Blacks (or others) are less than highly-evolved humans. "Darwin was also convinced that the Europeans were evolutionarily more advanced than the black races" (Steven Rose, author). He also "reasoned that males are more evolutionarily advanced than females" (B. Kevics, author).

13. The first and second laws of thermodynamics point clearly to a Creator, since things undergo entropy rather than get more orderly over time.

14. "Radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age-estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often very different. There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological clock. The uncertainties inherent in radiometric dating are disturbing to geologists and evolutionists." William D. Stansfield, Ph.D., Instructor of Biology, California Polytechnic State University.

15. "Even total rock systems may be open during metamorphism and may have their isotopic systems changed, making it impossible to determine their geologic age." Prof. Gunter Faure (Department of Geology, The Ohio State University, Columbus.)

16 a). At current rates of erosion the amount of sea-floor sediments actually found do not support a "billions of years" age for the Earth.
b) The amount of Sodium Chloride in the sea, also, is a small fraction of what the "old Earth" theory would postulate.
c) The Earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast to extrapolate a long age for the Earth.
d) The rate of accumulation of Moon-dust has been measured; and the amount of dust on the Moon was found to be vastly less than what scientists had predicted before the Moon-landings.

See: Problems in Evolutionary astronomy

e) Helium is generated by radioactive elements as they decay. The escape of this helium into the atmosphere can be measured. According to the Evolutionary age of the Earth there should be much more helium in the atmosphere, instead of the 0.05% that is actually there.Also see:

The facts

Discovering Creation

Understanding Creation

Answer 3

So-called Intelligent Design is a variation on the teleological argument, and seeks to prove the existence of God by showing that the marvels of nature could only have been created by a higher being for that intended end purpose. William Paley compared the intricacies of the human eye with a watch, and said that there clearly was a Designer. Numerous other analogies have since been put forward, such as the probability of a Boeing aeroplane being put together without a Designer. If the teleological argument makes its case, the God it would prove the existence of is not necessarily the Judeo-Christian God, nor for example the Hindu Brahma, but an unknown Mind and Power. In the end, the teleological argument does not make its case and is unable to prove the existence of God. It was fatally weakened by the discovery of evolution.
The main argument used now for Intelligent Design is the supposed irreducible complexity of various biological systems, such as the eye or bacterial flagella (the means by which bacteria can move around). When it was shown that simpler forms of the eye exist in nature and that evolution from the simplest to the most complex is both feasible and credible, the focus of those who support Intelligent Design moved to the bacterium flagella. However, scientists have since shown how the flagella would have evolved.

William H. Halverson (A Concise Introduction to Philosophy) says that those who find the teleological argument impressive are not usually convinced by the argument as such. They respond to it because of a sense of wonder about the universe around us. This applies equally to the Intelligent Design argument.