Ever since Darwin published his “On the Origin of Species” in 1859, creationists have been struggling to find new ways to justify their stance on the creation of the universe. One of the most recently formed branches of creationism is called Intelligent Design. The proponents of Intelligent Design claim to believe in evolutionary theory, but think that evolution is simply a process set in motion by some intelligent force. They do not believe that an undirected force, such as natural selection, could have led to the complex lifeforms we see today. Unfortunately, though this theory seems to prima facie use scientific principles to disprove evolution using natural selection, like the argument from improbability or irreducible complexity, it is simply a series of old arguments for the existence of God smeared with a semblance of science. In this paper I will attempt to lay barren the logical and scientific fallacies that lie at the heart of Intelligent Design proving it to be a pseudoscience and in doing that, reaffirm the scientific validity of natural selection as the primary explanation for evolution.

The two main arguments used in support of Intelligent Design are the arguments from improbability and irreducible complexity. Scientists and philosophers have always been staggered at the sheer multitude of living organisms on Earth. When creationists see this diversity and complexity of life on our planet instead of marvelling at the millions of years it took for an organism to reach the stage it is in, they see the marvellous work of the designer who made all this come to pass. It is of course, not entirely illogical to assume there is a creator. ‘The Watchmaker argument’ is a famous example which is used to justify the existence of a creator. William Paley says in his Natural Theology - or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature, “In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for anything 1 knew, the watch might have always been there.” This famous paragraph introduces the idea of a watchmaker, who has the foresight and a clear idea of what each cog and connection has to do. He suggests that something with the complexity of a watch or indeed, biological organisms (most of whom are much more complicated than a watch) function as they do because they have been designed to do just that and therefore just like the watch, must have a creator.
Though Paley wrote this in 1802 informed with the best biological scholarship of his day, he was very wrong. All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way. Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.
The forces of physics are compared to a blind watchmaker because they do not know what changes they are making to an organism. They are simply responsible for small genetic variations which, if useful, increase the chances of procreation for the organism and if not increase the likelihood of an early death. Natural selection is really very simple and elegant, it only seems improbable if you compare a species with its ancestor of tens of thousands of years, whereas if you compare a species with its next evolutionary stage there is hardly any difference. All we see is that the colour of the organism is slightly different, or that the wings are slightly longer or the tail slightly longer. Many small changes over the years come together and help an organism cross the barrier between species.

Many scientists have tried to assign ‘Intelligent Design’ scientific validity even though there is no evidence to support the same. The problem is that the ‘Intelligent Design’ theory falls apart at the very first test of scientific validity we assign to it, falsifiability. Karl Popper said that for any scientific theory to be accepted there has to be a way to conceive of an observation or argument to negate it. The only clear way to prove Intelligent Design false is by conclusively proving that there is no designer, which is impossible because you can’t prove the existence of an imaginary thing. The burden of proof rests with those who claim that something exists, not with those who maintain the natural order of things. Also, there has also been no new research in this theory, merely more conjecture. The fact that the theory rests on the same arguments which were produced at its inception points to its lack of scientific validity. Since Intelligent Design is also considered to be the last refuge of scientifically minded creationists there is also a lot of personalisation of this theory. Proponents of this theory don’t usually take kindly to the fact that most of their arguments have been refuted countless times and still insist on rigidly sticking to it because they ‘know’ they are right. Most of them are just trying to keep their own personal beliefs relevant and find that the role of their deity has shrunk to such an extent that all it is responsible for is the design of things. This phenomenon is famously known as ‘The God of Gaps’ where the province of God has shrunk over the years to preside over only that which humanity does not fully understand as of yet.

It is very easy to be drawn into the pull of Intelligent Design, especially if you aren’t too clear about what the evolutionary process entails. People often point to the sheer complexity of certain organs like the eye, which are incredibly complex and (seemingly) well designed. The chances of small ‘random’ changes resulting in as fine a biological marvel as an eye are astronomical. Though actually, the evolutionary process of the eye is very simple and fascinating, we know that in the beginning organisms started with just a flat layer of photosensitive cells on their body, all these did was tell the difference between day and night, which might seem insignificant but enormously boosted the survival rate of organisms that had these primitive ‘eyes’. Eventually, these flat layers of light-sensitive cells began to develop a slight curve around the edges, a very small mutation which can happen by chance, but even a small bowl like indentation would have immense benefits for the creature, it would be able to sense the direction from which light was coming from depending on which part of the bowl like cell formation it hit. As the indentation on the bowl like cell structure got larger and larger, with each step being a remarkable improvement over the last, it got to the stage where there was only a small opening in the middle of the round spherical cell casing for the light to go through, and that was the earliest biological example of a pinhole camera. Which is the most basic camera to be used without a lens. Now the organism has reached a stage where its eyes are like ours but without the lens. Now in the biological process it would be a small step to a layer of transparent cells forming over the opening of the eye, to form a basic lens like substance, which would give the organism a way to focus on its prey. All these stages are not just theorised but can actually be seen in nature. Flatworms have the flat photosensitive cell layer that allows them to see light and dark, primitive sea dwellers like the chambered nautilus have a pinhole camera like eye and we have the eye with the lens. Eagles and Octopuses have more evolved eyes, which proves that as much as we would like to believe otherwise, we are not at the top of the evolutionary ladder.

This was in response to what is called the argument of ‘Irreducible Complexity’ which is used by many out of ignorance of evolutionary processes. This argument is among the two main points used to back up Intelligent Design and demonstratively, does not withstand any scientific inquiry. It assumes that just because there is something complex, there must exist something more complex that created it. This argument has no end because using the same logic we would conclude that even the creator has a more complex creator and so on. Therefore it is a circular argument. Specified Complexity is also an argument for Intelligent Design where the proponents argue along the same lines. In William Dembski's terminology, a specified pattern is one that admits short descriptions, whereas a complex pattern is one that is unlikely to occur by chance. Dembski argues that it is impossible for specified complexity to exist in patterns displayed by configurations formed by unguided processes. This argument is again shown to be false because it is not mathematically provable and it is a circular argument.

Even without all the logical and scientific fallacies that plague Intelligent Design, there is the simple fact that the universe does not need a creator or designer to validate its existence. Such a creator wouldn’t be a warm, prayer listening, wish-granting old man, because it would be responsible for the vast injustices and pains that exist in our world. And not just the pain humans brought upon themselves, the creator would be responsible for cancer in babies, disabilities and natural disasters. For every beautiful sunset over the valley and brightly coloured butterfly, the creator (in his or her supposed vast wisdom) has designed parasites whose sole purpose in life is to burrow into the eyes of new born lambs for food, causing the animal a horribly painful and slow death. A creator of such a world would not be worth prostrating to and certainly not be worth people wasting their time wanting to prove its existence.

Therefore, I would conclude by saying that though there is much we don’t know about evolution, we must stop trying to fill the gaps in our knowledge by attributing things to an entity who poses more problems than it solves. There is much we do not know about the natural world, but resorting to pseudo-sciences to make us feel better about how much we understand is being untrue to ourselves. Intelligent Design is a complicated explanation for a simple thing, it raises more questions than it answers and thus is not compatible with Occam’s razor. Ultimately, it rests on the shoulders of those who cling to the old hope that we have a purpose in life and that our entire existence isn’t just a highly unlikely outcome of a game of chance that the blind forces of physics play.

Works Cited
Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker. United States: Norton & Company, Inc, 1986.
—. The God Delusion. Great Britain: Bantam Press, 2006.
Paley, William. Natural Theology - or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature. London: R. Faulder, 1802.