Intelligent design

Intelligent Design (or ID) is the controversial assertion that certain features of the universe and of living things exhibit the characteristics of a product resulting from an intelligent cause or agent, not an unguided process such as natural selection. Though publicly most ID advocates state that their focus is on detecting evidence of design in nature, without regard to who or what the designer might be, in statements to their constituents and supporters nearly all state explicitly that they believe the designer to be the Christian God.

Related Topics:
Controversial - Universe - Living things - Intelligent - Natural selection - Nature - Christian - God

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Adherents of ID claim it stands on equal footing with the current scientific theories regarding the origin of life and the origin of the universe {{ref|intro_meyer}}. This claim has not been accepted by the scientific community and intelligent design does not constitute a research program within the science of biology. Despite ID sometimes being referred to popularly and in the media as "Intelligent Design Theory", it is not recognized as a scientific theory and has been categorized by the mainstream scientific community as creationist pseudoscience. The National Academy of Sciences has said that Intelligent Design "and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life" are not science because their claims cannot be tested by experiment and propose no new hypotheses of their own {{ref|nas_id_creationism}}. Critics argue that ID proponents find gaps within current evolutionary theory and fill them in with speculative beliefs, and that ID in this context may ultimately amount to the "God of the gaps" {{ref|intro_shanks}}.

Related Topics:
Origin of life - Origin of the universe - Scientific community - Research program - Science - Biology - Media - Scientific theory - Creationist - Pseudoscience - National Academy of Sciences - Supernatural - Experiment - Hypotheses - Evolutionary theory - Beliefs - God of the gaps

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Both the Intelligent Design concept and the associated movement have come under considerable criticism. {{ref|economist}} This criticism is regarded by advocates of ID as a natural consequence of philosophical naturalism which precludes by definition the possibility of supernatural causes as rational scientific explanations. As has been argued before in the context of the creation-evolution controversy, proponents of ID make the claim that there is a systemic bias within the scientific community against proponents' ideas and research based on the naturalistic assumption that science can only make reference to natural causes.

Related Topics:
Philosophical naturalism - Creation-evolution controversy - Systemic bias

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Media organizations often focus on other qualities that the designer(s) in Intelligent Design theory might have in addition to intelligence, e.g., "higher power"{{ref|wash_post01}}, "unseen force"{{ref|wash_post02}}, etc.

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