Intelligent Design, Alternative Medicine and Pseudoscience

This blogger has been in a heated discussion on a Christian apologetics blog concerning Intelligent Design (ID) and evolution. After much frustration, I had to agree to disagree with its author.

Upon reflection, I felt a need to gather a few thoughts for a brief posting.

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There are some commonalities among ID and Alternative Medicine (AM), for example:

Both ID and AM embody the concept of Pseudoscience.

• Pseudoscience is a methodology, belief, or practice that is claimed to be scientific, or that is made to appear to be scientific, but which does not adhere to an appropriate scientific methodology, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, or otherwise lacks scientific status. (Oxford English Dictionary; Hansson, Sven Ove (1996)

ID presents an unverifiable "Intelligent Designer" and AM talks about an unverifiable "energy field" to fill supposed "gaps" in knowledge.

Both ID and AM complain about an organized science conspiracy against them.

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Proponents of ID generally are willing to accept "microevolution" (evolution within species) but not "macroevolution" (evolution between species). However, biologists do not see a relevant difference between microevolution and macroevolution. Both happen in the same way and for the same reasons, so there is no real reason to differentiate between them. There is no magic line between microevolution and macroevolution as far as science is concerned. Macroevolution is merely the result of alot of microevolution over a long period of time. Another problem with differentiating these terms is that the definition of what constitutes a species is not consistently defined.

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Proponents of ID generally attempt to contrast historical origins science with experimental empirical science. This is wrong because historical origins science is based on observations so it is empirical. Of note, this statement is from the American Scientific Affiliation, which is an organization of scientists - and engineers, and scholars in fields related to science, such as philosophy of science, history of science, and science education -- who are Christians.