38 Facts About Intelligent design

Intelligent design is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins".

Intelligent design is presented as science, and shares other arguments with creation science but avoids literal Biblical references to such topics as the Flood story from the Book of Genesis or using Bible verses to age the Earth.

Barbara Forrest writes that the intelligent design movement began in 1984 with the book The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, co-written by creationist Charles B Thaxton, a chemist, with two other authors, and published by Jon A Buell's Foundation for Thought and Ethics.

Intelligent design argued that science is based upon "foundational assumptions" of naturalism that were as much a matter of faith as those of "creation theory".

Intelligent design provides the following examples: "A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex.

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Intelligent design proponents have occasionally appealed to broader teleological arguments outside of biology, most notably an argument based on the fine-tuning of universal constants that make matter and life possible and that are argued not to be solely attributable to chance.

Beyond the debate over whether intelligent design is scientific, a number of critics argue that existing evidence makes the design hypothesis appear unlikely, irrespective of its status in the world of science.

Intelligent design says that "Another problem with the argument from imperfection is that it critically depends on a psychoanalysis of the unidentified designer.

Intelligent design movement is a direct outgrowth of the creationism of the 1980s.

The Discovery Institute's intelligent design campaigns have been staged primarily in the United States, although efforts have been made in other countries to promote intelligent design.

Leaders of the movement say intelligent design exposes the limitations of scientific orthodoxy and of the secular philosophy of naturalism.

All leading intelligent design proponents are fellows or staff of the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture.

In statements directed at the general public, they say intelligent design is not religious; when addressing conservative Christian supporters, they state that intelligent design has its foundation in the Bible.

Intelligent design's has written that the movement's "activities betray an aggressive, systematic agenda for promoting not only intelligent design creationism, but the religious worldview that undergirds it.

Strategy of deliberately disguising the religious intent of intelligent design has been described by William A Dembski in The Design Inference.

Intelligent design's writes that the leading proponents of intelligent design are closely allied with the ultra-conservative Christian Reconstructionism movement.

Unequivocal consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science and has no place in a science curriculum.

Advocates of intelligent design seek to keep God and the Bible out of the discussion, and present intelligent design in the language of science as though it were a scientific hypothesis.

Intelligent design proponents seek to change this fundamental basis of science by eliminating "methodological naturalism" from science and replacing it with what the leader of the intelligent design movement, Phillip E Johnson, calls "theistic realism".

Intelligent design proponents argue that naturalistic explanations fail to explain certain phenomena and that supernatural explanations provide a very simple and intuitive explanation for the origins of life and the universe.

Many intelligent design followers believe that "scientism" is itself a religion that promotes secularism and materialism in an attempt to erase theism from public life, and they view their work in the promotion of intelligent design as a way to return religion to a central role in education and other public spheres.

The intelligent design movement has not published a properly peer-reviewed article supporting ID in a scientific journal, and has failed to publish supporting peer-reviewed research or data.

The only article published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that made a case for intelligent design was quickly withdrawn by the publisher for having circumvented the journal's peer-review standards.

The Discovery Institute's "Teach the Controversy" campaign promotes intelligent design while attempting to discredit evolution in United States public high school science courses.

Scott and Branch say that intelligent design is an argument from ignorance because it relies on a lack of knowledge for its conclusion: lacking a natural explanation for certain specific aspects of evolution, we assume intelligent cause.

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Particularly, Michael Behe's demands for ever more detailed explanations of the historical evolution of molecular systems seem to assume a false dichotomy, where either evolution or Intelligent design is the proper explanation, and any perceived failure of evolution becomes a victory for Intelligent design.

Scott and Branch contend that the supposedly novel contributions proposed by intelligent design proponents have not served as the basis for any productive scientific research.

Intelligent design is distinct because it asserts repeated miraculous interventions in addition to designed laws.

Further, repeated interventions imply that the original Intelligent design was not perfect and final, and thus pose a problem for any who believe that the Creator's work had been both perfect and final.

Intelligent design has been characterized as a God-of-the-gaps argument, which has the following form:.

The plaintiffs successfully argued that intelligent design is a form of creationism, and that the school board policy thus violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

On December 20, 2005, Judge Jones issued his 139-page findings of fact and decision, ruling that the Dover mandate was unconstitutional, and barring intelligent design from being taught in Pennsylvania's Middle District public school science classrooms.

On November 8, 2005, there had been an election in which the eight Dover school board members who voted for the intelligent design requirement were all defeated by challengers who opposed the teaching of intelligent design in a science class, and the current school board president stated that the board did not intend to appeal the ruling.

Intelligent design has conflated Discovery Institute's position with that of the Dover school board, and he totally misrepresents intelligent design and the motivations of the scientists who research it.

Decision has been examined in a search for flaws and conclusions, partly by intelligent design supporters aiming to avoid future defeats in court.

The DfES subsequently stated that "Intelligent design is not a recognised scientific theory; therefore, it is not included in the science curriculum", but left the way open for it to be explored in religious education in relation to different beliefs, as part of a syllabus set by a local Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education.

Ideas similar to intelligent design have been considered respected intellectual options among Muslims, and in Turkey many intelligent design books have been translated.

In Istanbul in 2007, public meetings promoting intelligent design were sponsored by the local government, and David Berlinski of the Discovery Institute was the keynote speaker at a meeting in May 2007.