Intelligent design ““ the belief that an intelligence is
responsible for the order of the universe ““ is frequently
attacked by proponents of evolution with arguments about the
demarcation of science itself.
These arguments attempt to dismiss the theory by definition,
saying that science is defined as following certain criteria and
intelligent design does not meet those criteria, so it is therefore
not science.
But demarcation arguments like this are inherently unscientific
themselves. The definition of science is in fact typically
discussed within a subfield of philosophy.
So it would be perfectly valid for philosophers to dismiss
intelligent design as unscientific. But scientists must back up
their claims with evidence and experiments, and this cannot be done
with a definition.
Also, demarcation arguments have the danger of being able to
prevent major advances in science. If demarcation arguments were
valid and were used against Darwinian evolution in 1859, the theory
wouldn’t exist today.
The same is true of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and Bacon, all
of whom not only rocked the world with their science, but also with
new philosophical paradigms.
It is those who challenge accepted methods, both in science and
philosophy, who make true progress.
Dismissing intelligent design using demarcation arguments is not
valid. According to a leading philosopher of science, Martin Eger,
“Demarcation arguments have collapsed. Philosophers of
science don’t hold them anymore.”
Nevertheless, let us assume demarcation arguments are valid and
discuss the ones most commonly used to show that evolution and
intelligent design are on equal footing.
1. Science is observable.
But are forces, work, electrons or entropy observable? Not
directly, but they are certainly the result of scientific work.
If science must be observable, should we stop wasting money on
theoretical physics professors? No, they are scientists who infer
the unobserved from the observed.
Is evolution directly observable? Have we observed the
innumerable transitional life forms supposedly in our family trees?
No, we haven’t observed them, and can’t observe them.
They are inferred by theory.
Does this make evolution unscientific? No, unobserved
transitional forms make evolution no less scientific than the
unobserved working of an intelligence.
2. Science is testable.
Yet many theories in science cannot be tested directly. Theories
we cannot test directly can nonetheless be tested indirectly by
examining the consistency, predictions and inferences of the
theory.
This was how we learned about the nature of light. We
couldn’t directly observe its behavior, but because of things
like diffraction, we inferred that it traveled as a wave.
The wave model worked well until the photoelectric effect
produced observations that could not be predicted from the original
theory, so a new one was developed by Einstein.
Through it all, the movement of photons was never directly
observed, yet a theory concerning beams of photons was still
developed and changed.
We can do the same with theories on origins. Even if we
can’t observe and test the theories directly (no one was
around to see biogenesis), we can test their consequences and
attempt to explain them, as Darwin put it, through “large and
independent classes of facts.”
Evolution is considered a scientific theory because its
predictions on mutation, natural selection and genetic drift can be
tested, even though the theory itself cannot.
No indirect experiment could ever disprove evolution or
intelligent design ““ it could only make the theories more or
less credible by verifying or falsifying their inferences.
Demarcation arguments are not sufficient to reject a scientific
hypothesis. You cannot reject the arguments of your opponents just
because they don’t believe the same popular philosophical
dogma as you.
In the end, the biggest question I have for those scientists who
ignore intelligent design is this: Why are you so afraid of
participating in this debate?
If intelligent design is wrong, why don’t you look at the
theory and defeat it as you would any other flawed scientific
proposition?
Intelligent design scientists make predictions and inferences
that can be tested. Why don’t you discuss or even acknowledge
these, and then prove them wrong?
Carreon is a third-year bioengineering student.