How does intelligent design work and explain and how is it useful?

The reason I ask is this is that if somone actualy wanted to teach intelligent design in a science class I honestly don't knwo how they could come up with more than 15 minutes worth of class room material to discuss it. I persoanlly think its not a real scientific theory, but just out of curiosty, I waned to know people's ideas.

How does intelligent design work and explain and how is it useful?
Intelligent Design is actually based on an inference principle derived from information theory. But since hardly anyone reads that stuff, and it strongly implies that answers based on methodological naturalism are inadequate, most scientists scream "RELIGION" and run away when it comes up.





It's useful because it has suggested some interesting research programs, and it also provides a link between scientific testing and evaluation of the metaphysical claims of various philosophical approaches to science. Again, since hardly anyone actually reads that stuff either, most people scream "RELIGION" and run away when the subject comes up.





As for teaching it in a science class... right now it needs to be discussed in colloquia between science and philosophy departments. As a theory, it's far from ready for anyone below the undergraduate level.
Reply:Agreed. This was a point I made as well. If something has scientific validity, then make that case at the univ. research level ... not in a Biology 101 undergraduate class, and definitely not in front of high-schoolers or 6th-graders ... unless your goal is *specifically* to leave them confused. Report It

Reply:It's an excellent couple of questions answered simply: It doesn't, it isn't.





It's a simple "God of the Gaps" logical fallacy, not a theory with any predictive power.
Reply:You might try reading the book Unintelligent


Design by Mark Perakh. In the first place two of


Behe's examples of supposed intelligent design.


which he equates with "irreducible complexity"


have already proved not to be irreducibly complex.


These two are the blood-clotting cascade and the


bacterial flagellum. In both of these cases simpler


systems that work have been found. In the second


place, if irreducible complexity actually exists, it


is an example of poor design. Well designed


systems are provided with backups and failsafes


so that the whole system doesn't break down if


a single part goes bad.
Reply:It's not at all useful. It's not science and it has no evidence to support it. It also is not a theory, it is at best an unsupported hypothesis.





Some people think that they can poke holes in evolutionary theory (though the gaps are already know by science), and by so doing, the default answer will be "God did it". Nope, it evolutionary theory is ever overturned, it will be replaced by another scientific theory that explains the evidence better. ID doesn't explain the evidence. It is contrary to the evidence.
Reply:The "theory" of intelligent design (and you can replace "intelligent design" in this sentence with any religion you wish) says "most people, including but not explicit to, our world leaders, aren't smart enough to understand complicated things such as scientific theories and reasonable ideas, so let's make up some stupid, unreasonable, easy-to-believe yet impossible and unscientific religious "theory", and sell it as if it's true. That way we can control the minds of people and make them all think alike, without a single bit of ingenuity or reason.





Sorry for the anger, but if people wish to believe such unbelievably stupid theories, they cannot, must not, and should be band from, acting as if they were real or scientific. And if schools start to teach this thing, then we'll be on the straight way to the 18th century!
Reply:Intelligent Design asks a lot of very good questions. Questions about the origins of complexity, order, emergence, etc.





However,





1) Science actually has answers for many of these questions, or at least avenues being explored for how to go about answering them. Things like chaos theory, thermodynamics, complexity theory, and emergence.





2) A set of questions does not make a theory. You actually have to have answers that have some explanatory power. (Simply offloading the questions to some mysterious 'intelligent designer' with unknown properties and motives, has no explanatory power).





3) It not only doesn't explain anything, but it also makes no predictions, no falsifiable claims. Therefore it cannot be a science.





It's for these reasons that ID has no place in a grade school or high school science program. At the time when a kid barely knows the difference between a beak and a beaker, is not the time to be 'teaching the controversy' (even if there was one within the sc. community ... which there isn't) ... that require knowledge of thermodymics and chaos theory. You debate these issues at the university research level, not in front of 6th-graders.
Reply:Intelligent Design isn't a theory. It's a speculation or conjecture. If you look at an organism, you will notice that there are a lot of biochemical systems that appear to be so complex that it's difficult to imagine how they could have evolved. Intelligent Design (speculation) goes on to state that the best possible explanation for these "systems of irreducible complexity" is that they were designed and built to be that way by an external intelligent entity or entities.





The Behe book is that many pages because it gives a good explanation of what a system of irreducible complexity is, then gives some (alleged) examples of systems of irreducible complexity within biological organisms.





Behe further goes on to explain why some of the evolution defenders are boneheads. (He does a good job of it too -- the people defending evolution have made some boneheaded statements and used inapt examples).





Behe is wrong, of course. But his book is a good read -- it'll make you think, and thinking isn't necessarily a bad thing.





You've mentioned bringing this up in a science class. It's appropriate only in an advanced class setting -- AP Biology in high school, or a college class. Anything less than that -- don't bother wasting classroom time on this unless a student brings it up.
Reply:Intelligent design simply says that the life takes so many forms, that it is impossible to explain without a god or creator of some kind.





It is simply religion "disguised" as science, to try to get religion into the curriculum of high school students. Pretty disgusting that people would sink so low to promote their religions.





They are primarily trying to offer an alternative to evolution, and this is the best that they could come up with. Don't fall for it. It is garbage. Just disguised religion.
Reply:It is an unworkable compromise, nothing but pseudoscience don't have anything to do with it. By coincidence I am reading "The Blind Watchmaker" By Prof Richard Dawkins. It is an excellent book by one of Britain's most eminent zoologists. It blows the 'intelligent design' theory out of the water using common sense reasoning. ID says for example that the human eye could not just have "appeared" it must have been created by god. What Prof. Dawkins does is explain that the eye did not "just appear" he shows how it, and everything else can and does indeed evolve from simpler structures . All it needs is time, eons of time. But of course the idea that the Earth is indeed millions of years old is anathema to the bible punchers, so they try to "get round " it another way .


About Dr. Behe and his 300 page book.. Eric von Daniken wrote book after book saying god was an astronaut and that aliens built the pyramids and stonehenge etc. Nobody takes them seriously now!