No, that is not science.

For a long time, I've been unclear as to the precise tenets of "intelligent design," (ID) and so I did a Google search. I skipped the first result (the Wikipedia entry for the term) and followed the second link, which brought me to intelligentdesign.org, a production of the Discovery Institute. The front page gives a one-sentence blurb:

The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

Note that the first part of the sentence, taken alone, is quite vague and seems compatible with a position like deism. The contentious part is what follows: a rejection of natural selection.

Clicking on the "read more" link after the blurb brought me to a short FAQ. The third question asks, "Is intelligent design a scientific theory?". The site answers in the affirmative, and then goes on to be make some sever errors. Let us begin:

The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion.

So far, so good. What is the hypothesis?

Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI.

No, not the television series. CSI stands for "complex and specified information." How do we assess CSI?

One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function.

Apparently they can recognize high levels of CSI. What next?

When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.

The ID "researchers" are terrible scientists. In real science, a researcher develops a hypothesis (something they think is true) and then tries to find evidence to support it. ID researchers don't bother with evidence, they just assume their hypothesis is true. Actually, they seem to be terrible logicians as well, because they assume the converse of their hypothesis is true.

Applying this kind of science to fruit, we get an allegory about an ID researcher. He starts with the hypothesis, "If an object is an apple, it tastes good." He does no testing of this hypothesis but assumes it to be true, and so fails to take into account that apples are sometimes rotten and not at all tasty. Then he eats a banana. It tastes good. He concludes that he has just eaten an apple. All the real scientists laugh at him. The Discovery Institute gives him a grant.

On the slippery slopes

NOTE: The following is not an argument in favor of same-sex marriage. It is merely a criticism of one particular argument used to oppose same-sex marriage.


There exists an argument against the state allowing same-sex marriages; this argument is known as the "slippery slope" argument. It goes something like this: once you start expanding the definition of marriage from being a union of a man and a woman to allowing two men or two women to get married, what's to stop it from expanding even further to allow a man to marry a goat, or a table?

This argument can be found, for example, in a brochure, The Slippery Slope of Same-Sex 'Marriage', by Timothy J. Dailey:

But once marriage is no longer confined to a man and a woman, it is impossible to exclude virtually any relationship between two or more partners of either sex--even non-human "partners."

Mr. Dailey describes the possibility of a man marrying a horse. This is supposed to be an argument against same-sex marriage. However, this way of thinking is complete nonsense. Why?

To be able to think about this issue properly, we have to consider what is at stake. A marriage is a legal designation that involve issues such as inheritance, hospital visitation, tax benefits, insurance, and immigration. But horses can't own property. Horses don't pay taxes. Horses don't have citizenship. To talk about a man marrying a goat is a category error -- a horse doesn't have the legal standing necessary for it to make sense to talk about it being married. There may be problems with the idea of same-sex marriage, but this is not one of them. To argue that same-sex marriage will lead to man-horse marriage is fallacious scare-mongering which does nothing to further intelligent debate on the subject.