Is intelligent design a valid scientific "philosophy"?

Is intelligent design a valid scientific “philosophy”?

Short answer : No!

Well, yes, Horatio. We may consider it to be inferior to our scientific philosophy (which, since science is what people called natural philosophy before William Whewell, sounds like half a tautology), but then they consider ours to be inferior to theirs. All of the really great discoveries: writing, art, fire, metallurgy and the rest, were, after all, made by magicians.

If only we had a race of immensely superior aliens to adjudicate between the two philosophies....

No, it isn't a valid philosophy unless you are going to count naysaying everything as a valid philosophy.

ID does not progress the knowledge or understanding of anyone in Biology. It stymies it and pretends that there is nothing to look at and that you shouldn't look any more.

It ends every inquiry and pretends it's answered by saying "you must never look again".

It is not a valid philosophy.

All of the really great discoveries: writing, art, fire, metallurgy and the rest, were, after all, made by magicians

We don't know who discovered writing in any of the several instances in which it was discovered around the world, though the Chinese example is a good case for some sort of magical link. Fire was certainly in use before anything we would today consider magic as it predates by a very long time any evidence of symbolic or linguistic activities (though proto-linguistic minds may have been at work). Even so, we don't know who tamed fire, and I'd guess it happened more than once as well.

Metallurgy in Africa which may have been independently invented is connected with all sorts of ritual stuff, much more so than Europe. I don't know much about the Indus or Asia. There are certainly magical looking connections with copper in the New World. But again, we don't know if that was the case when these things started.

I'll give you art.

Modern physics, now THAT was invented by magicians, as was much of our math. Pythagoras and Newton could have formed a club.

Well, art was an attempt to control the universe. It wasn't very effective, though you probably have the placebo effect to give it some bonus over nothing.

And it probably helped get the girls even in those days.

Women just love to dance.

How can ID be considered as a scientific philosophy? Well it fails a number of pretty good tests. 1) It is not falsifiable 2) It cannot predict anything 3) Everything it explains is explained more easily by evolutionary theory

Physicist would have you believe that if you smash an unlimited number of atoms together in an unlimited number of places for an unlimited amount of time you could create anything. I can buy that for something simple like a finger nail, but not for the complex array of cells and organs that are inside our body, all working together for our benefit and evolution.

There has to be some intelligence that is driving this process with some predetermined intent. I believe that intelligence is us. There is much more to us then we are consciously aware of. When we are conscious we are in a state of mind with limited awareness. A good example of this is if you spill a drink you are consciously aware of all the actions you are taking to clean it up. But if there is something wrong inside your body, your body goes into action and you are only aware of the pain or discomfort. When you sleep at night you are aware of time passing by but little else. You might wake up in the middle of something that your brain will associate memories to, but that’s about it. I doubt if resting the body is the main function of sleep. In fact it might be more real then consciousness itself, it could be just energy turning into light creating a whole lot of pretty pictures based on each person’s own sense of realty, perspective and awareness.

By; Raymond G Blais
Author of the book: “One Man’s Poetic Impression of Life