In chapter fourteen, Evidence for Intelligent Design, Groothuis, explains that advocates of Darwinism believes it is invincible because there is no replacement for it.
Origin Science and Operation Science
The Intelligent Design is an alternative to Darwinism.
Five Objections to Intelligent Design
First, opponents of ID often use a “heads I win; tails you lose” strategy that has two prongs. First ID is not science just a masked religion. Second, there is scientific evidence against ID. Both cannot be true.
Second, opponents define ID out of existence by appealing to a purely naturalistic understanding of science. The common definition of science today is: Science pursues materialistic explanations for natural phenomena through empirical observation and rational theorizing.
This explanation rules out any non-natural explanations. It is claimed that ID is a “science stopper.” This is simply contrary to historical fact. Sir Isaac Newton, for example, was a theist who explained his laws of physics according to design.
Michael Behe and Molecular Machines
Behe’s essential argument is that certain molecular machines could not have been brought about through undirected, gradualist Darwinian mechanisms, because their component parts are required to function at once and in conjunction with one another. Behe calls this “irreducible complexity.” His prime example, the flagellum which has forty different types of proteins that are necessary to function. These could not have evolved gradually over millions of years. They had to come into be all at once which shows design.
DNA: A Language Indicating Design
Richard Dawkins admits that the machine code of the genes (in DNA) is uncannily computer-like. Apart from differences in jargon the pages of a molecular biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer engineering journal. Atheist Bill Gates remarks that “DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.” Neither Dawkins nor Gates infer that a computer could be explained on the basis of chance and natural laws. Yet they all claim that genetic information, in all its specified complexity, does not require an intelligent cause to explain it.
Abiogenesis
Abiogenesis is the assumption that life can come from nonlife. But not just life from nonlife but information (DNA) from noninformation. Noted scientist Fred Hoyle gave a memorable analogy for the likelihood of the naturalistic account of the origin of life: it is about as likely as the assemblage of a 747 by a tornado whirling through a junkyard.
An Old Objection: Design Flaws
Stephen Jay Gould argues because of obvious flaws in creation, this rules out a Designer. For example, Gould points out that the Panda’s extra thumb can be considered a designing flaw. The Panda’s thumb is not as dysfunctional as he claims. Hideki Endo and colleagues have argued that the hand of the giant panda has a much more refined grasping mechanism than has been suggested in previous morphological models.
ID and the Nature of the Designer
ID is not exclusively a Christian apologetic for Christianity. As long as the belief believes in a personal Designer, ID is an apologetic. This would include deism, theism, and Christianity.