Intelligent Design is Not anti-evolution

As the title of this post says, intelligent design is not anti-evolution.

Also intelligent design does not say the an irreducibly complex system could not evolve.

Irreducible complexity is an argument against blind watchmaker-type processes. If the IC system were designed (design being a mechanism) to evolve, as ID front loading would have it, then the "evolving" part is still there but the blind watchmaker is replaced with design, ie planning.

Intelligent design does not say that CSI cannot evolve. Again it is all about the mechanism. If CSI were designed to evolve, as ID front loading would have it, then the "evolving" part is still there but the blind watchmaker is replaced with design, ie planning.


As Dr Behe put it:

Intelligent design is a good explanation for a number of biochemical systems, but I should insert a word of caution. Intelligent design theory has to be seen in context: it does not try to explain everything. We live in a complex world where lots of different things can happen. When deciding how various rocks came to be shaped the way they are a geologist might consider a whole range of factors: rain, wind, the movement of glaciers, the activity of moss and lichens, volcanic action, nuclear explosions, asteroid impact, or the hand of a sculptor. The shape of one rock might have been determined primarily by one mechanism, the shape of another rock by another mechanism.

Similarly, evolutionary biologists have recognized that a number of factors might have affected the development of life: common descent, natural selection, migration, population size, founder effects (effects that may be due to the limited number of organisms that begin a new species), genetic drift (spread of "neutral," nonselective mutations), gene flow (the incorporation of genes into a population from a separate population), linkage (occurrence of two genes on the same chromosome), and much more. The fact that some biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent does not mean that any of the other factors are not operative, common, or important.

With CSI it all about origins. IOW once it is shown that CSI can originate via mindless/ blindwatchmaker-type processes, ID is neatly falsified.

That is because until that point in time every experience and observation says CSI only comes from an intelligent source, that is a source which can create counterflow. Therefore with that experience and observational data in hand we would predict that every time we observed CSI and didn't know the cause an intelligent agency will be found responsible.

So by finding CSI arising without agency involvement a central tenet of ID is removed and ID falls.