In this post, I appeal primarily to Christians who underestimate the harm caused by the mistaken beliefs driving Intelligent Design. But this article may also be of interest to others, as it partially explains prevalent anti-science behaviors of today.
What is Intelligent Design, and why does it matter? Wikipedia has several articles, but you could start here. A succinct definition:
Intelligent Design is a popular movement among some Christians that tries to use scientific methods to uncover evidence that an intelligent being must have created the physical realm, and that it cannot have arisen randomly from natural processes.
Many people would like to believe that things are under the control of a benevolent Creator, and most of us feel understandable awe of the beauty, complexity, and interconnectivity we find in nature. The deeper we look, the more amazing things can seem.
Concurrently, history has shown evolving beliefs in supernatural beings and the human tendency to ascribe unexplainable phenomena to these external powers. Many prehistoric and geographically dispersed cultures produced origin stories that involved supernatural powers or gods. These myths amount to pre-scientific hypotheses arrived at by observation combined with imagination. As cultures grew and bumped into each other, the various hypotheses found competitors. Civilization of human cultures over the millennia tended to weed out less plausible hypotheses, such as astrology or the Greek or Roman pantheon.
One could suggest that monotheism is the evolution of religion away from less plausible hypotheses. Yet, the advance of science has caused many to think that religion and belief in any supernatural realm should be jettisoned entirely.
Since the late 20th Century, a scientific imperialism has taken hold across most of the world, so that many people believe the only way to know anything is through science. This typically human egotism has given rise to many lectures and YouTube videos by popular science-trained advocates, taking advantage of pro-science biases in their listeners. Many of these speakers advocate atheism, desceptively implying that it is an obvious outcome of good scientific thinking. (In previous posts, I have suggested that such science-based atheism is just another form of religious belief. See my review of Sean Carroll’s The Big Picture.)
Reactions from religious people tend toward one of two tactics. On one hand, they view science as an enemy, so they document instances where scientists have been wrong, or their work has had harmful consequences, and attempt to sow distrust. Groups of religious people actively decide that scientists and scientific institutions are not to be believed.
On the other hand, many religious people want to gain some of the prestige science has acquired by using the same methods to prove that an intelligent designer of some kind must exist. They believe that science itself can provide evidence of an active Creator God.
In the first camp, we find climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers, and people with an underdeveloped ability to sort fact from fiction or evaluate evidence. I’ll address this group further below.
The second camp includes believers in Creationism and the more sophisticated version, Intelligent Design. These thinkers feel that the respectability of science should be afforded to their efforts, which they consider God-inspired. I will address this misconception and show why it is not only not inspired by the Creator, but also harms any effort to attract others to belief in a Creator.
When I suggest, “Just say no!” concerning intelligent design, I have good reasons from both the religious and scientific perspectives.
religious refutation
On religious grounds, particularly for Christianity, I suggest that many scriptures imply that seeking proof of God’s existence is uncalled for. The better way is to live by faith. Rather than seeking evidence of a Creator’s existence, trust that it is so and rely on prophetic writings and Jesus’ teachings. This path is difficult because, whereas certainty is like having ideas in the bank, no longer requiring thought, the uncertainty of faith continuously needs reapplication. Christians must constantly be reminding themselves to trust Jesus.
Even Jesus addressed the human tendency to desire proof. According to Matthew 12:38-39:
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees told Jesus, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” But he replied to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves a sign. Yet no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah…”
A more comprehensive refutation of Christians’ desire for certainty may be found in the prophet Habakkuk, who was later invoked by both Jesus and Paul in the New Testament. Habakkuk lived in chaotic times for the Hebrew people. Many were turning away from God and toward idolatry. Injustice was rampant. Worldly-wise Jews could see their relatively small community becoming more and more vulnerable to takeover by the rising empire of the day: Babylon.
A spiritual person today could identify with Habakkuk, since many see chaotic godlessness and feel hopeless to do anything about it. Yet, without a community of fervent zealots, Habakkuk had no political power and saw little hope for his nation. Instead of becoming an angry podcaster, Habakkuk turned to God and lamented the situation. His prophecy was not directed to the people; it was a conversation with God. Its prophetic value could only be realized with the benefit of hindsight.
In reaction to the violence and injustice all around him, Habakkuk cried out to God. Why wouldn’t the powerful Creator do something? In response, the Lord told him that things were going to get worse rather than better. It may have seemed like punishment for all the injustice, but the upshot was the following. Not only would God not reach down and miraculously save his people, making his power obvious to the Babylonians or any other worldly power, but he also called for the people to live by faith. They were to trust their Creator, without proof, and even under the duress of a secular empire.
Intelligent Design investigators have an a priori untestable hypothesis: a Creator exists, made the Universe, and continually interacts with it. They want to find evidence to support the hypothesis, but run into immediate difficulty. Their hypothesis is not testable because the evidence they present is inconclusive. They cannot rule out that the current state of things may have evolved naturally.
An atheistic scientist is in the same boat. No evidence can conclusively rule out the possibility of an intelligent Creator. Possibly, such a Creator set the Universe running with pre-ordained Laws of Nature and let it evolve without the need for tinkering.
The scriptural references to living by faith suggest that the Creator may intentionally not want his existence to be provable.
scientific refutation
Intelligent Design may be an intriguing pastime, but it cannot be considered a science. Its motivation is religious, in the same way that atheistic scientists have a non-scientific motivation.
The history of science shows that centuries ago, a foundational principle was recognized. To figure out the Laws of Nature, investigators must confine themselves to natural explanations. This does not rule out a supernatural realm. The advice seems obvious: if you want to figure out how Nature works when it has not been interfered with by a miracle, then investigate possible natural explanations.
If scientists knew that a particular event was a miraculous intervention, they would not scoff or try to explain it away; they would simply ignore it. They want to know how things work when Nature is left on its own.
While Intelligent Design may not be a complete waste of time, its claim to scientific validity misleads many Christians. Allowing religious beliefs a significant role in scientific hypothesis construction likely reduces quality. It encourages atheistic scientists to scoff, gloat, and claim that science negates belief.
The situation then fosters a culture war. Non-believers champion science, and Christians band together to oppose it. Christians feel threatened, huddle together, and find a tribal response: distrust all scientists and science-based organizations. Sadly, this tactic is primarily a reaction to the non-scientific claims of atheists. It isn’t the fault of science!
No doubt, scientific imperialism also impedes Christian acceptance. Believers would be better off recognizing the hubris behind excessive trust in science. Rather than reject everything scientific, they should offer concurrent and alternative ways to make sense of our existence. These would not negate scientific efforts but rather add insight from different perspectives. The natural laws do point to a wondrous Creator. Others do not need to accept that, yet those who do can celebrate what science reveals about the character of the Creator.
conclusion
Christians might want to consider that tribal thinking is not the least bit godly. A sign of this tribalism is when people in the congregation assume that everyone agrees on a laundry list of doctrines. Most of these are not vital tenets of faith in Jesus, but arise from church culture. If someone does not hold the sanctioned view, the majority does not feel challenged to reconsider their own thinking. Typically, the renegade loses respect, is shamed, or banished.
Christian groups that advocate Intelligent Design, with the idea that “all true Christians” must support it, have become harmfully insular, which is no way to spread the gospel. The better way is to be fully open to discussing any ideas. Helping people mature in their faith can only happen when each person’s palette of beliefs is celebrated, accepted, and discussed openly. Alternatively, tribalism makes people secretive. If they hold an unsanctioned belief, they keep it to themselves. Lack of openness leads to lack of growth for both the individual and the congregation.
The various sub-disciplines of science, as they are pursued across the globe, are respectable activities sanctioned by God. The Creator made an amazing Universe and gave people the intelligence to figure out how it all works. The effort is ongoing and likely never-ending. As the history of science shows, wrong ideas may flourish. That’s part of the fun.
Religious people may also have wrong ideas. Also part of the fun of living is to compare and contrast our hypotheses, whether spiritual or scientific. The creativity with which all humans are blessed can enable us to pose hypotheses, discuss them, and evaluate them.
We humans also like to categorize. We group things by common characteristics. The complexity with which life confronts us sometimes defies obvious groupings. We can disagree about whether an item belongs on a particular list. Just saying “no!” to Intelligent Design is an example. I contend that it doesn’t belong in the category of scientific endeavors.
postscript
Many examples could be provided as non-scientific explorations of human life. Great literature offers glimpses that require us to decide for ourselves, unlike a how-to book.
I appreciate how Frederick Bueckner pointed us to valuable literature in his essay, “To Be a Saint.” He talks about Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory and Albert Camus’ The Plague. Bueckner’s essay is in a collection called The Magnificent Defeat, which I recommend. Although he died in 2022, his website remains active and has a good article about this saint subject.
Greene was Catholic and wrestled with spiritual matters, which is my definition of a saint. I’m not Catholic, so, for one thing, I do not require bending over backwards to find evidence that a person performed a miracle to call them a saint. The Bible does not try to hide that even the best people are sinful. Greene does not pretend that Catholicism is untainted. He could see the state of things even before the sexual scandal involving priests came to light, along with the church’s poor handling of it over many years.
The web article from 2023 talks about the “To Be a Saint” essay. The first sentence is, “What does it mean to be a human being?” There you go. What do you think? Does science have all the answers?
Copernicus, Newton and Galileo all ran afoul of, “The Church,” by essentially proposing that God created a Cause and affect Natural World, open to investigating and understanding by his human creation. When Genesis says He created Man in, “His own image,” I don’t think He meant two eyes, ten toes, etc. It was he gave man the ability to examine, test and discover processes by which His physical world operates.
Classic Darwin evolution is pretty much debunked, especially once you pass the gross anatomy similarities. DNA, biochemistry, etc. demonstrate a complexity refuting the concept of happenstance. Darwin himself said the eyeball itself defied any rational explanation in terms of his hypothesis.
I tend to lean into intelligent design, primarily because God said he did it, although not mentioning any of the particulars. I find it almost as difficult to wrap my thinking around both the idea of an intelligence and power so vast it could create all this and the concept that we are all the result of coalescing gases and matter coming together in a, “Big Bang.”
Regardless, these are fascinating red herrings that I don’t want to distract from the person of Jesus Christ.
I love Camus by the way…
Thanks for your comments, Ken! I think Intelligent Design contributes to us versus them tribalism that is an unnecessary distraction from the person of Jesus Christ. I agree that Jesus should be the main focus of us Christians. Scientific endeavors cannot prove God’s existence one way or the other.