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What is wrong with intelligent design?

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Abstract

While a great deal of abuse has been directed at intelligent design theory (ID), its starting point is a fact about biological organisms that cries out for explanation, namely “specified complexity” (SC). Advocates of ID deploy three kind of argument from specified complexity to the existence of a designer: an eliminative argument, an inductive argument, and an inference to the best explanation. Only the first of these merits the abuse directed at it; the other two arguments are worthy of respect. If they fail, it is only because we have a better explanation of SC, namely Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Gregory W. Dawes

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  1. Gregory W. Dawes
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Correspondence to Gregory W. Dawes.

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Dawes, G.W. What is wrong with intelligent design?. Int J Philos Relig 61, 69–81 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-007-9112-2

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