Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Articles

Intelligent Design: a Catechism

How did life on Earth come about? Recently the buzzword among those dissatisfied with Darwinism has been ‘Intelligent Design’. But isn’t this just another name for Creationism? Not so, argues Todd Moody.

What is Intelligent Design?

It’s the theory that there is empirical evidence for the claim that some things in nature are the result of intelligent agency, rather than unguided natural causes. In fact, Intelligent Design (henceforth ID) comprises a group of theories of this sort, that are logically independent of each other. For example, what might be called cosmological ID is the theory that there is evidence of design at the level of the fundamental physical constants of the universe. This is sometimes referred to as the ‘cosmic anthropic principle.’ There is also biological ID, the theory that living things show evidence of having been designed.

…