Word Games

Since the late nineteenth century most biologists have rejected the idea that living organisms display evidence of intelligent design. While many acknowledge the appearance of design in biological systems, they insist that Darwinism, or neo-Darwinism, explains how this appearance arose naturalistically — that is, without invoking a directing intelligence or agency. Following Darwin, modern neo-Darwinists generally accept that natural selection acting on random variation can explain the appearance of design in living organisms. As evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala has explained, “The functional design of organism and their features would … seem to argue for the existence of a designer. It was Darwin’s greatest accomplishment [however] to show that the directive organization of living beings can be explained as the result of a natural process, natural selection, without any need to resort to a Creator or other external agent.

Meyer, S.C. (2001), “Word Games: DNA, Design and Intelligence,” in Signs of Intelligence, William A. Dembski and James Kushiner, edts. (Brazos Press: Grand Rapids, MI.) pp102-111.