irreducible complexity

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Asking for assistance, optimism and survivor desperation to contact the world conceptual idea with a message in a glass bottle with a cork washing away on sandy beach with the ocean in the background
Asking for assistance, optimism and survivor desperation to contact the world conceptual idea with a message in a glass bottle with a cork washing away on sandy beach with the ocean in the background

A Slightly Technical Introduction to Intelligent Design

Intelligent design — often called “ID” — is a scientific theory that holds that the emergence of some features of the universe and living things is best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID theorists argue that design can be inferred by studying the informational properties of natural objects to determine if they bear the type of information that in our experience arises from an intelligent cause. Proponents of neo-Darwinian evolution contend that the information in life arose via purposeless, blind, and unguided processes. ID proponents argue that this information arose via purposeful, intelligently guided processes. Both claims are scientifically testable using the standard methods of science. But ID theorists say that when we use the scientific method to explore nature, the evidence points away from unguided material causes, and reveals intelligent design. Read More ›
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Both can fly
Photo by emmanuel.crova on Adobe Stock

An Introduction to Intelligent Design

Click here for a reproducible PDF of this article.PDF En Español Intelligent design — often called “ID” — is a scientific theory that holds that the emergence of some features of the universe and living things is best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID theorists argue that design can be inferred Read More ›

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Light rail tram transportation in motion through stone archway
Archway in Sydney Australia, licensed from Adobe Stock

Responding to Criticisms of Irreducible Complexity of the Bacterial Flagellum from the Australian Broadcasting Network

Time flies. Published in 1996, Michael Behe's book Darwin's Black Box represented a major development in the modern articulation of the scientific argument for intelligent design. Critics continue to make the same arguments, which still fall flat for the identical reasons they did years ago. We've documented this repeatedly. Yet they keep coming at us. Read More ›
Digital Microscope In Laboratory

What Is the Science Behind Intelligent Design?

Intelligent design (ID) is a scientific theory that employs the methods commonly used by other historical sciences to conclude that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. ID theorists argue that design can be inferred by studying the informational properties of natural objects Read More ›

Chemist or scientist in rubber gloves changing a column on high performance liquid chromatography HPLC for separation organic compounds. Analytical chemistry laboratory. Analyzing process.
Chemist or scientist in rubber gloves changing a column on high performance liquid chromatography HPLC for separation organic compounds. Analytical chemistry laboratory. Analyzing process.
Licensed via Adobe Stock

Intelligent Design (ID) Has Scientific Merit Because it Uses the Scientific Method to Make its Claims and Infers Design by Testing its Positive Predictions

“In all irreducibly complex systems in which the cause of the system is known by experience or observation, intelligent design or engineering played a role [in] the origin of the system.”1 Stephen C. Meyer (Ph.D. Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University) & Scott Minnich (Professor of Microbiology, University of Idaho). Intelligent design (ID) has scientific merit because it uses the scientific Read More ›

intelligent-design-101

Intelligent Design 101

Intelligent Design 101 brings together leading scholars and researchers from the fields of science and intelligent design studies, such as Michael Behe and Phillip Johnson. Their detailed and insightful essays form an introduction to intelligent design, from the basics of the theory, to its history and growing place in science and education. Read More ›
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Art Deco ceiling of the National Academy of Sciences by Hildreth Meiere.
Art Deco ceiling of the National Academy of Sciences

The Facts about Intelligent Design

A 1982 poll found that only 9% of Americans believed that humans developed through purely natural evolutionary processes. Two years later, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued its first Science and Creationism booklet, stating that science and religion occupy "separate and mutually exclusive realms." 1Public skepticism of evolution remained high — a 1993 poll found that only 11% of Americans believed that humans developed through purely natural evolutionary processes.

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Big Boom in Deep Space

Mere Creation

This extensive volume contains essays by numerous Discovery Fellows who presented at an early intelligent design conference at Biola University in 1996. As Henry F. Shaefer III explains in the forward, the conference was not a typical “creationist” event, as “virtually none of the conference participants were creationists of the sort one frequently reads about in the popular press” and Read More ›

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instruction manual
instruction manual

How to Explain Irreducible Complexity

We think this breakthrough paper should be used as a model for other such efforts in the future. Here, then, is an easy-to-follow lab manual, drawing on the example of Bridgham et al., for explaining irreducible complexity. Read More ›
chain of amino acids
Chain of amino acid or biomolecules called protein - 3d illustration
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Irreducible Complexity Stands Up To Biologist’s Research Efforts

SEATTLE – After several years of claiming that there is no debate about the theory of intelligent design (ID) researchers have published an article bringing the debate to the pages of the latest issue of Science. Three researchers, Jamie Bridgham, Sean Carroll and Joe Thornton claim to have shown how an irreducibly complex system, such as that described by Discovery senior fellow Read More ›