Dr. Andrew Ross' letter of Dec. 22, "Intelligent design can't meet scientific criteria," says that intelligent design does not conform to the scientific method, particularly concerning testable predictions and the modification of hypotheses according to evidence.
First, there is no iron-clad scientific method. Scientific enterprise is more untidy than Ross apparently thinks, as many philosophers of science, such as Thomas Kuhn, have noted. Second, intelligent design does predict that certain organisms will display certain empirically detectable signs of design, such as irreducible complexity, where all the component parts must be present at once in order for the organism to have the necessary function.
Moreover, intelligent design predicts that biological features deemed vestigial will be found to have function. Consider "junk DNA." Darwinism predicts that DNA will contain large areas of useless material left over from previous organisms. Intelligent design predicts that if DNA is designed there would be very little or no "junk." Scientists have now found that there is no "junk" in DNA.
Furthermore, intelligent design theorists such as biochemist Michael Behe, are attuned to the evidence and are quite willing to revise their hypotheses on that basis.
- Douglas Groothuis Professor of philosophy, Denver Seminary Littleton
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