False Statement # 18



Like countless theists before them, fanciers of Intelligent Design regularly argue that the very fact that the Universe exists proves the existence of God. The argument runs more or less like this: everything that exists has a cause;space and time exist; space and time must, therefore, have been caused by something that stands outside of space and time; and the only thing that transcends space and time, and yet retains the power to create, is God. (Page 72)

Proponents of Intelligent Design are not necessarily theists. As Stephen Meyer, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute recently stated:

Contrary to media reports, ID is not a religious-based idea, but an evidence-based scientific theory about life’s origins.

... ID holds that there are tell-tale features of living systems and the universe that are best explained by a designing intelligence. The theory does not challenge the idea of evolution defined as change over time, or even common ancestry, but it disputes Darwin’s idea that the cause of biological change is wholly blind and undirected.

...ID is not based on religion, but on scientific discoveries and our experience of cause and effect, the basis of all scientific reasoning about the past. Unlike creationism, ID is an inference from biological data.

...ID may provide support for theistic belief. But that is not grounds for dismissing it. Those who do confuse the evidence for the theory with its possible implications. Many astrophysicists initially rejected the Big Bang theory because it seemed to point to the need for a transcendent cause of matter, space and time. But science eventually accepted it because the evidence strongly supported it.

(Source: Meyer, Stephen C. “Intelligent Design is not Creationism”, The Daily Telegraph (London) February 9, 2006)

Intelligent Design states an intelligent entity worked in the design of the universe. It specifically does not assign the identity of that entity to God.

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