Richard Townsend writes:
Something I'd really like to get to the bottom of, and I'm hoping that some of the ID community will help here is - what do ID theories actually say? I mean what are the details of who, when, and how? What is the explanation of fossils? Is there a reason why humans are very similar to chimps? What was the unit that was designed - family, genus, species, roughly speaking?
I realise there may be a number of different versions of ID out there.
I'm not looking for evidence for and against these ideas, just a clear statement of them.
As I understand it (from an outsider's POV) ID does not deal with any of these questions. Rather the ID hypothesis is that we can identify in nature design that cannot be attributed to natural processes such as evolution. The only explanation for such design is a designer.
ID does not deny that evolution (and other natural processes) produce design. It does not claim, for example, that each and every snowflake is individually designed, but recognizes the natural properties of water molecules that generate the hexagonal pattern of snowflakes. It recognizes that much "design" in biology can be attributed to the process of evolution.
But IDists claim evolution is insufficient as a cause for all biological design.
So the ID "case" really depends on whether one can really identify design in nature that is beyond the capacity of natural process to produce. That is what lies behind Dembski's "design filter" and the notion of "specified complexity".
To date, the ID project of identifying design that must be attributed to a designer rather than to natural process has been a signal failure.
Furthermore, ID is not only a scientific failure. From the perspective of many Christians, it also promotes a very questionable theology. Why would an all-knowing, all-powerful deity be incapable of making a world that cannot do what it is intended to do without additional tinkering?
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