Is Intelligent Design Scientific?

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Do you believe the Bible, or do you believe “science”?  More importantly, is there any rational or logical reason you must choose between the two?

If one were to listen to the media hype, the Hollywood explanations, prime time TV, or many liberal college professors, one might assume there are just two choices in cosmology.  A person can either can believe “science” or one can have “faith” in the Bible story.  But is this even remotely true? Is it even sensible to place science and faith in different camps? Or is this entire scenario a false dichotomy?

Many of my previous posts have already discussed the evolutionary side of this issue very thoroughly, and I believe we have more than adequately proven that belief in evolution is neither logical, nor scientific.  Belief in evolution is clearly a faith based choice.  If you read my earlier blogs,  “Astonishing Ice Age facts“, or “The Data in the Strata“, or “A Totally Modern View on Evolution” you will understand that belief in Evolution is not a scientific choice or preference, but rather a philosophical one. There are vastly more scientific facts and principles supporting Creation, than those supporting the Big Bang or Evolution.

Perhaps belief in Evolution stems from a prideful desire to elevate man to the point of understanding all of the Universe and Creation. Perhaps, as noted in the earlier blog “To Teach. To Educate. Or to Tell the Truth?” it is just generational  indoctrination. Or maybe it originates in the illogical belief that avoiding belief in God as our Creator will somehow avoid the consequences of our sins, failures and rebellion. Regardless, as the tagline of this blog has stated from the beginning, “It takes a lot of FAITH to believe in evolution.”

The evidence (outlined in 80 or so blogs over the last year) clearly shows that belief in Evolution is a faith based choice. But what of the other side?  Is belief in Creation merely a “Scientific cop out”?  Do proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) and so-called “creation scientists” abandon scientific processes and base their beliefs totally on religious principles? Not so, according to the following quote from Casey Luskin originally posted at Speaking of ID (Intelligent Design), he writes;

“One can disagree with the conclusions of ID, but one cannot reasonably claim that it is an argument based upon religion, faith, or divine revelation. Nothing critics can say—whether appealing to politically motivated condemnations of ID issued by pro-Darwin scientific authorities, or harping upon the religious beliefs of ID proponents—will change the fact that intelligent design is not a “faith-based” argument. Intelligent design has scientific merit because it is an empirically based argument that uses well-accepted scientific methods of historical sciences in order to detect in nature the types of complexity which we understand, from present-day observations, are derived from intelligent causes.”(1)

Luskin further explains, “The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion. As noted, ID begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can tested and discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures through genetic knockout experiments to determine if they require all of their parts to function. When experimental work uncovers irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.”(2)

Luskin “gets it”.  Most secular atheists don’t.  There is absolutely NO logical reason to separate science vs faith on issues of cosmology, or any issues related to where humanity or the universe originated. However, if one were to objectively discuss which cosmology has more scientific support, I believe firmly that Creation science would win the argument.  Still, the point remains, there is no reason to “choose” one or the other.  Science, unimpeded and freely practiced, is not in opposition to Scripture!

As I wrote in the blog “BIG GOD. small god. Why Cosmology Matters. “Atheists say creation is impossible because it would have required something miraculous, something fantastic, something unbelievable, something outside the bounds of science. Creationists say that the The Big Bang and Evolution are impossible because they would have required something miraculous, something fantastic, something unbelievable, something outside the bounds of science.” And BOTH are correct.

In essence, as written by Stephen C. Meyer, “Proponents of neo-Darwinism contend that the information in life arose via purposeless, blind, and unguided processes. ID proponents contend that the information in life arose via purposeful, intelligently guided processes. Both claims are scientifically testable using scientific methods employed by standard historical sciences. ID thus is based upon the claim that there are “telltale features of living systems and the universe that are best explained by an intelligent cause.”(3)

You have a mind. You have an intellect. (Both of which are, by the way, strong arguments for ID.) You get to choose whether you believe secular stories about a universe that magically appeared from nothing and life that created itself, or to believe in an Almighty Creator God.  But you cannot use as your crutch any statement that you don’t believe in Creation because it is not scientific.  Not if you want to be intellectually honest.



(2) ibid

(3) Stephen C. Meyer, Not by Chance: From Bacterial Propulsion Systems to Human DNA, Evidence of Intelligent Design Is Everywhere, Natl. Post A22 (Dec. 1, 2005).



Psalm 14:1 NIV