Defining Intelligent Design
From ResearchID.org

Intelligent design is a scientific hypothesis that purports to explain a very large range of scientific data. Intelligent design has a general definition, and then subsidiary definitions for use within specific disciplines.

Overview of Intelligent Design

Intelligent design (also known as ID") proposes that specific physical phenomena in nature were designed by intelligence. This is inferred by detecting the types of physical effects known to be produced by intelligent agents when they act. The goal is to understand intelligence working in the context of the physical world, and infer intelligent activity by observation and analysis of data.

Intelligent design seeks to find natural objects that contain the same final conditions, or physical histories, as objects that science knows were intelligently designed, based upon our observation of intelligent agency in the natural world.

Simply stated, ID asks, "Can we scientifically detect if something was designed by intelligence?"

Proponents of ID are compelled by physical evidence, seen through the application of induction, inference, statistical probability, that detecting design is a scientific possibility, and this ability is essential for a proper contextual study of the universe.

Additionally, intelligent design has been applied in the form of working scientific hypothetical research programs by which novel data, hypotheses, experiments, and practical applications are derived by hypothetically viewing phenomena in the universe as designed, whether the researcher holds that the objects of study are actually designed or not.

Theoretically exploring design

Introduction

Intelligent design is a unique conjoining of scientific, mathematical, and investigative disciplines. Mathematics is utilized principally for probabilistic calculations of events. Knowledge from physics and chemistry enables observational accounts to correspond with empirical data. Special sciences such as archeology and forensics provide foundations for design criteria, while psychology and neuroscience lend premises for understanding intelligence. The observational method of investigation employed by intelligent design is derived from time-tested scientific methodology:

Causality

Intelligent design employs the principal of causality, or cause and effect, to study specific phenomena. The effects observed are design, with intelligence inferred as the cause.

Induction

Intelligent design operates by an inductive procedure of inquiry wherein science explores new areas of knowledge by moving from facts and data that are well-established, and extrapolating from those areas of knowledge into the obscure knowledge that is being pursued. More specifically, ID makes retrodictive inferences about the past from present evidence.
The purpose of using inductive reasoning by intelligent design is to formulate general principles based on specific observations of recurring patterns in samples. So, samples used in an inductive proposition must share one or a subset of designated properties. The induction holds if 1)the examples share the designated properties, and 2)the dissimilarities do not make a relevant difference to the property(ies) one wishes to explain.

So, how does ID utilize inductive reasoning when it proposes that the characteristic of design, or a purposeful arrangement of parts, is found in phenomena? Design can be found in phenomena we factually know were intelligently designed, and design can also be found in phenomena where the cause is not known, e.g. specific microbiological components, certain aspects of the universe, and the universe as a whole.
When considering the biological and microbiological realm, ID proposes that specific features of living cells and features of man-made machines share the characteristic of design, or a purposeful arrangement of parts.

The likenesses between man-made information structures and bio-informational structures are so strong, that they are by definition the same type of phenomena. Additionally, the likenesses between man-made mechanical structures and bio-molecular machines are so strong, indeed, the likenesses are so close; by definition they are the same type of phenomena.
When considering the universe, ID proposes that specific cosmological features have the characteristic of purposeful arrangement of parts, since the multitude of natural forces, universal constants, and fundamental characteristics are supremely fit for the purpose of allowing life to exist.

Uniformity

ID is an application of the principle of uniformity to observed phenomena which have the characteristic of design.
The basis used in this observation is the verifiable fact that intelligent agents use building techniques that:
infuse large amounts of information into data structures at one time develop complex communication systems make production capabilities based on informatic code
channel energy through nonrandom pathways involve very complicated development processes bring about results that are of infinitesimally small probability utilize high quantity and quality of coordinated parts more here...

These are capabilities we see intelligent agents employing, and these capabilities are exactly what we see in living systems.

Uniform sensory experience

Another aspect of uniformity utilized by empirical science is the uniform experience of the senses.[1] ID employs uniform sensory experience by noting that that certain effects, especially functional information, have only one repeatedly and uniformly observed cause; intelligence.

Statistical probability

Intelligent design premises are based on a statistical warranted inference, called the Design Inference. This probabilistic inference is being developed by a mathematician and philosopher named William Dembski, who has named the main premise of the inference Specified Complexity. Specified Complexity probabilistically sifts through possible causal explanations, eliminating non-teleological causes that do not work towards an intended goal, leaving the researcher to a statistically warranted inference to design.

Causal adequacy

ID proposes that specific natural phenomena that give the appearance of design may have a fundamentally intelligent cause. By inductive logic, intelligence is proposed as the cause for the characteristic of design in specific phenomena.
There is no observational or verifiable scientific evidence for an ateleological origin of designed phenomena. The insistence that designed objects in nature have an ateleological origin rests on metaphysical arguments, not scientific ones. In addition to this complete lack of evidence, it is extremely improbable that chance and necessity gave rise to these designed phenomena.
However, there is reliable and verifiable evidence demonstrating that intelligence can form these structures, making intelligent design a viable explanatory option.

Interpretation

In interpretation, it is a purely a posteriori and inductive argument based on the repeated application of the cause and effect between the well-established effects of intelligent causes and specific attributes of phenomena in nature.
[edit]Design Heuristics
Design-theoretic premises lead logically and immediately to hypothetical scientific research programs through which novel data, testable hypotheses, experiments, and practical applications are derived by hypothetically viewing certain phenomena in the universe as designed, whether the researcher holds that the objects of study are actually designed or not.
^ Hume, David, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

Key Definitions

intelligence - a characteristic of a phenomenon in which it is capable of undertaking the conceptualization and actualization of a plan and/or forward-thinking
design - a purposeful arrangement of parts, typically understood as the actualized products of intelligence
[edit]Physical Effects of Intelligence
ID researchers claim that certain processes and patterns have the potential of being unique to intelligent causation. Where the causal history of a phenomenon is known, there are certain characteristics and patterns that, while not necessarily present in all things designed, are never present in things that are known to be the result of natural regularity. The principle patterns currently under consideration are highly specific, informational, or functional. Some physicists assert that the respective values of the natural forces (like gravity and the strong and weak nuclear forces), constants (like the coefficient of friction), and characteristics (like space-time) bespeak a universe so supremely fit for life that design is a reasonable inference. From biology, functional information in DNA or functional patterns in proteins indicate the presence of design. Other considerations include systems that are proposed to be highly improbable through non-teleological causes, like blood-clotting cascades.

Design Detection

Overview

In Detecting Design in the Natural Sciences, William A. Dembski explains how an intelligent agent acts when designing:

"How a designer gets from thought to thing is, at least in broad strokes, straightforward: (1) A designer conceives a purpose. (2) To accomplish that purpose, the designer forms a plan. (3) To execute the plan, the designer specifies building materials and assembly instructions. (4) Finally, the designer or some surrogate applies the assembly instructions to the building materials. What emerges is a designed object..."
Grappling with these four steps, and developing means to detect them, is part of the task of ID.

In current methods of detecting design, steps two and three are particularly significant, because they involve the conceptualization of a choice, or directed contingency. Directed contingency often involves the development or construction of a pattern, a purposeful arrangement of parts, which can be empirically investigated.

Mathematical Techniques

Overview

Mainly through the utilization of probability, the effects of intelligence, chance, and natural forces are sifted in order to determine if intelligence has played a causal role in the history of a phenomenon. Currently, certain types of complex and specified information are the principle subjects of this study.

Complex Specified Information

Specifications are patterns delineating events of small probability whose occurrence cannot reasonably attributed to chance, giving warrant to the idea that the event is attributable to intelligence. Complexity is the statistically calculated likelihood of an event.

Complex Specified Information, also known as Specified Complexity, is an attribute of events that are very unlikely (i.e. high Shannon information), very complex (i.e. high Kolmogorov complexity), and are specified (i.e. there is a description of them that is in some sense independently given).

It is claimed that if complexity and specification occur in tandem, the event is nearly impossible, so profoundly unlikely that it is not considered in the realm of reason to expect it to happen by the random effects of chance, the regularity of natural processes, or their cooperation.

It is accepted by design theorists that there exist biological structures with high CSI, so such a proposal, if accurate, would be problematic for certain anti-design assumptions of current evolutionary biology and other sciences.

See the Specified Complexity page for more detail.

Irreducible Complexity

Irreducible Complexity is a special case of Specified Complexity. A structure is considered to be Irreducibly Complex when all its component parts are required for the system to function. For example, a car will generally not be Irreducibly Complex - removing the chassis doesn't stop the car from moving - but a precision-engineered motor will usually be nearly Irreducibly Complex.

It is readily apparent that Irreducibly Complex structures cannot "directly" evolve, i.e. there is no way to build an IC structure to perform a given task out of a simpler system that also performs that task. The stronger claim has been made that IC structures cannot evolve by any means, direct or otherwise, without intelligence playing a causal role. If true, this claim would be problematic for certain anti-design assumptions of current evolutionary biology, as there are some biological structures that would appear to be Irreducibly Complex.

See the Irreducible Complexity page for more detail.

Applying Design Detection

Overview

Cosmological Design

Certain features of the universe, including the observation that life is possible within it, are best explained by intelligent causation operating in conjunction with undirected processes, blind natural forces and laws, and random chance. Over thirty parameters of the universe have been identified that must be within very narrow ranges for any kind of conceivable life, not just life as we know it, to exist at any time in the history of the cosmos. Although some scientists see these features as merely "coincidental" values, intelligent design researchers propose that the universal constants of physics and the natural laws point, rather, to intelligence as playing a fundamental causal role in these aspects of the physical world.

Biological Design

Intelligent design investigates whether certain subsets of biological phenomena have resulted from the empirically recognizable effects of intelligence. ID proposes that current and plausible scientific methods can empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in biological entities, acknowledged by virtually all biologists, is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process, such as natural selection acting on random variations.

Limitations of design detection

Currently, methods of design detection have inherent limits. These limits seem theoretically insurmountable, without further knowledge of the causal history of the object or event under study.

1) ID-detection methods are able to detect almost everything in the universe that is designed, but exceptions do exist.

Anything designed to mimic natural regularity cannot be detected as designed, without particular knowledge of its causal history. Yet, this concern is belayed by reality, since intelligent agents rarely set out to imitate nature in an undetectable way. (That is to say, intelligence tends to act in accord with its unique nature.) Additionally, such imitations of nature will not concern ID-detection and many of its applications within the ID-paradigm.
2) ID-detection can identify that something is not designed with high reliability, but not with absolute reliability.

This follows from the fact that intelligence rarely imitates nature, but natural regularity cannot imitate many of the unique abilities of intelligence. Nevertheless, science does not deal in absolutes; it only deals in provisional acceptance pending subsequent data. As a scientific undertaking, detection can only claim that based on reasonable and knowledgeable inferences, intelligence is the most likely cause.

Subsidiary views of Intelligent Design

Specified Complexity --- Proposed design criteria by William Dembski
Explanatory Filter --- Proposed design criteria by William Dembski
Irreducible Complexity --- Proposed design criteria by Michael Behe
Privileged Planet --- Proposed design inference by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards
TOPS --- Theory of Organismal Problem-Solving: proposed design-theoretic research heuristic by Jonathan Wells
BiPS --- Biological Problem-Solving: proposed design-theoretic research heuristic by ResearchID.org

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