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Revision as of 02:33, 1 December 2001 by 200.191.188.xxx (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Intelligent design (ID) is the the belief that some observed aspects of the natural world are too complex to have evolved by random processes, and that they therefore must have been guided or designed by a God. Intelligent design is generally classified as a creationist theory.
The basis of ID is the belief that some differences between species are too complex to have come about without having been designed (irreducible complexity).
ID differs from Sudden Creationism on three closely related points. First, ID accepts geologists' estimates for the age of the Earth (billions of years), while Sudden Creationism says the earth was created only 6,000 years ago. Second, ID accepts evolutionary biologists' estimates of when the various species of life appeared and disappeared, according to the fossil record. Third, ID accepts that aspect of Natural Selection commonly known as survival of the fittest.
Where ID parts company from Sudden Creationism is where it begins to agree with Darwinian evolution. These agreements end rather quickly, though, and the remainder of the article contrasts ID with the findings of science.
The Darwinian view of evolution is based on two premises. Variations occur in the genetic makeup of organisms, and through the process of Natural selection, the most fit of those variations survive while the others die out.
Intelligent Design accepts much of the Darwinian theory, but differs in one crucial aspect -- the role of God in causing the variations.
It accepts that fact that there has been evolution, i.e., species have changed and diverged over time from earlier forms of life to the forms which exist today. It accepts that there is speciation, the creation of more than one species out of a single species. It accepts the fossil record as an accurate representation of the history of the evolution of species, and accepts that analysis of the fossil record gives accurate and useful results. It accepts that there is a process of natural selection, and it accepts the scientific view of how it works. Once the variation has been caused due to deliberate acts of God, the survival or extinction of a newly arisen species is believed to then be subject to natural selection.
In the scientific view, these variations are random and usually small. In the Intelligent Design viewpoint, these small, random variations exist but are not the explanation for speciation. Instead, speciation occurs when God steps in and causes the variation to occur.
Unlike Darwinian evolution, which says new species arise due to various random forces which Darwin did not attempt to explain but which modern science attributes to DNA transcription errors, chemicals, or radiation, ID propenents argue that new species arise only (or chiefly) by an intelligent force, that is, God.
They point to complex biological structures such as the eye, saying that such structures could not have possibly have developed due purely to random chance. Symbiotic relationships, such as plants who can only be pollinated by a specific species of insect, which in turn can only reproduce by using the plant, could not have arisen -- a typical chicken-and-egg problem.
Adherents of ID consider their idea that God causes speciation a viable scientific hypothesis. Scientists generally consider it unscientific, because it is not falsifiable and so merely a philosophical or religious idea outside the realm of science.