This is the first of a series of posts on ‘The Science of God’, aka my response to the charge that ID is indistinguishable from Pastafarianism. Let me start with a familiar Q and A:
Q: What, in a nutshell, is the Darwinist argument against ID?
A: First of all, nature doesn’t exhibit the sort of design that requires a prior intelligence to explain it. But even if nature were shown to exhibit ‘intelligent design’, ID has no way of specifying the responsible intelligence. It might as well be the Flying Spaghetti Monster. So at best ID might undermine the adequacy of Darwinist accounts without advancing anything positive on its own behalf.
The import of this analysis is obvious: ID is a science-stopper: ID tries to leverage Darwinism’s own difficulties into grounds for concluding that science can only go so far before one needs to turn to something else, presumably blind faith of some sort. It’s easy to see why Judge Jones didn’t have much time for ID at the Dover Trial. He basically bought this analysis, as spoon-fed to him by the ACLU lawyers. What worries me is that some ID supporters may buy it as well. In other words, they would wish to have ID taught in science classes, not as an alternative to Darwinism but as a means of demonstrating the limits of scientific inquiry altogether.
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