Intelligent Design

Partially in response to the defeat of scientific creationism in the courts and partially in response to the popularity of Richard Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker, which affronted them, many creationists took to heart the argument for design posed by the nineteenth-century natural philosopher William Paley, who eloquently made the case that complex devices such as a pocket watch could not have arisen by chance but rather must have had a “designer.” Similarly, he argued that complex living structures could not have arisen by chance but must have had a designer. Three writers, in particular, championed the idea that living processes must be designed by a higher being using different logical approaches. These included lawyer Philip Johnson, biochemist Michael Behe, and mathematician William Dembski, with the financial support of conservative think tank Discovery Institute. Johnson argued against natural selection because he felt it would undermine traditional Christian values. Behe took Paley’s initial argument and translated it into biochemical examples whose complex integration must have been coordinated by a designer, because these processes exhibited “irreducible complexity.” Dembski argued that the probability of complex living things could not have arisen by chance and that a statistically argued “specified complexity” makes evolution by natural selection a statistical impossibility. Attempts to teach intelligent design in schools were taken to the courts by parents and educators, and, as with scientific creationism, were thwarted in court.