Defining ID

This is a definition of intelligent design by Jay Richards of Discovery Institute.

ID proponents argue, on the basis of public evidence, drawn from natural science, that nature, or certain aspects of nature, are best explained by intelligent agency. Most ID proponents are critics of neo-Darwinism as an adequate explanation for the adaptive complexity of life, and of the materialistic theories of the origin of life and biological information. Since ID is minimal, it is logically consistent with a variety of creationist and evolutionist views, but is identical to none.

I wonder if some people (Feser perhaps) conflate intelligent design with certain ways of arguing for it.

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Nagel on ID and Public Education

Here.

I really think the ID message is getting skewed, partly, by the debate about public education. Still, the attempt to suppress discussion of questions concerning Darwin's theory strikes me as troubling.

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Doctor Logic and Lydia McGrew on Likelilhoods, Design, and Probabilities

Doctor Logic: If an all powerful being were designing life, we don't expect descent, common descent, common composition or a gradual appearance of features and species. How many ways can a God create life in a universe? The number of ways a God can do this is vastly greater than the number of ways unguided evolution can do so. For example, gods don't even need to create life consistent with physical laws because they can create ghosts. There's no need for descent (birth) because God can make animals outright or create factories (no car has ever been born to another car). Even keeping the species the same and changing their natural histories and genomics gives a God vastly more options than evolution. I think theists would be tempted to say that there are infinitely more ways God could create life than ways that evolution could create life.


This is a simple problem in Bayesian reasoning. Finding ourselves in a world that is consistent with unguided evolution implies that the probability that we're designed is extremely close to zero.

In other words, if God exists, then there are a million ways in which God could create things, including Young Earth Creationism, etc. If atheism is true, then if intelligent life is going to emerge, it's got to emerge through naturalistic evolution. So, if the evidence is compatible with naturalistic evolution, then the evidence very strong supports naturalistic evolution, since this evidence is very likely given atheism and vanishingly unlikely given theism.

Lydia McGrew's paper on design and likelihoods might serve as a way for theists to respond here. Because God could do it a certain way doesn't mean that it would be reasonable for God to do so.

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Darwin's nominalism

"I look at the term 'species' as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience, to a set of individuals closely resembling each other." (Origin of Species).


Does Darwinian theory commit you to nominalism? Logan Paul Gage, in his essay "Can a Thomist be a Darwinist," gives this as a reason why Thomists shouldn't embrace Darwinism.

From God and Evolution (Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2010).

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Is evolution past its prime?

This is by Douglas Axe.

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Several definitions of evolution

Jay Richards delineates six definitions of evolution. Can a Christian accept all six? Should a Christian do so

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The Magician's Twin

I have a contribution in this Discovery Institute volume, which is another presentation of the AFR.

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Coyne attacks Nagel

Here is a discussion of Jerry Coyne's reply to Nagel. He considers it outrageous that an atheist would admit any legitimacy whatsover to Intelligent Design.

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Robin Collins on ID

A redated post. 

This is a paper by Robin Collins, who seems sympathetic to the overall goals of ID but does not consider it to be a scientific theory per se.

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If there is intelligent design, science may be the last to know

It seems to me that if there were an intelligent agent guiding evolution, it would be one whose activity was less predictable and less tractable to science than the other kinds of forces that science is pretty good at predicting and explaining. So, it seems to me to be sensible for science to go as far as it can analyzing and predicting discoveries without taking design into consideration. Only when these sorts of explanations run into trouble should science look for something else. 

If I understand a particle, I know what the particle is going to do, always and everywhere. If I am dealing with an agent, there is some predictability, but such an agent is less predictable than a particle. It's not as if I can't make any predictions for form any expectations, I can. If I am playing chess with a world title contender, I have some idea of what they will do, but surely not a perfect idea, otherwise I would be as good as my opponent. So, if there is a God, I think we should expect science not to be able to bring it in until we had everything else understood. And, I suspect, that will be be awhile.

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