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Articles

Design, Yes. Intelligent, No.

Were we designed by an intelligent creator? In our last issue Todd Moody described Intelligent Design theory as a scientific alternative to Darwinian evolution. Here, Massimo Pigliucci takes a more critical view of ‘ID’.

A new brand of creationism has appeared on the scene in the last few years. The so-called neocreationists generally do not believe in a young Earth or in a rigidly literal interpretation of the Bible. While still mostly propelled by a religious agenda and financed by mainly Christian sources such as the Templeton Foundation and the Discovery Institute, the intellectual challenge posed by neocreationism is sophisticated enough to require detailed consideration.

Among the chief exponents of Intelligent Design (ID) theory, as this new brand of creationism is called, is William Dembski, a mathematical philosopher and author of The Design Inference. In that book he attempts to show that there must be an intelligent designer behind natural phenomena such as evolution and the very origin of the universe (see Pigliucci 2000 for a detailed critique).

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