With the relative success of Expelled, Intelligent Design is back in the news again. It is therefore perhaps a bit helpful to have a quick overview of some of the differences between Intelligent Design and Creationism.
First, I should note that we must define how we are using the term “Creationism” in this essay. Most atheists define the term as equivalent to Young Earth Creationism, but this is too narrow. On the other extreme, one could say that anyone who believes in any sort of creation would be a Creationist, but this is so broad that you could even fit Darwinists who believe in a naturalistic creation of the universe (via quantum mechanics at the Big Bang, or whatever) into the definition.
Instead of those two extremes, for the purposes of this essay I will define a Creationist as a Christian theist who believes that God created the world and all the various “kinds” of plants and animals in it at some point (YEC or OEC is irrelevant, and this definition allows for variations within kinds to stand). Note that this definition is very arbitrary. It excludes alternate religions, and would not include theistic evolutionists either (as the variations in kinds—which may include differences between such creatures as zebras and horses, wolves and dogs—are not significant enough to establish Darwinian descent of all species from a common ancestor). While some may disagree with this definition, it is useful to demonstrate the distinction between Intelligent Design advocates and Creationists in general, especially in American culture where Christian theism is the dominant alternative to Darwinism. In any case, the focus of this essay is more on Intelligent Design than it is on Creationism, so this definition of Creationism ought to be sufficient to establish the point clearly enough.
Virtually every atheist would like to link Intelligent Design with Creationism since the religious views of Creationists would legally exclude them from public schools. However, even some Creationists (as defined above) link themselves to Intelligent Design. Indeed, often it is only the ID advocates themselves who separate themselves from the Creationist view point. Speaking as a Creationist, this is dangerous for Creationism, and not just because it allows Darwinists to exclude ID without sufficient cause.
Consider this example. Suppose that the universe is 15 billion years old. Furthermore, suppose that Darwinism, as understood by Richard Dawkins, is entirely correct. Further suppose that there exists a star several hundred light years away from us that has a planet rather like Earth on it, where over the course of time, beings equivalent to humans evolved. Suppose this planet was formed ten billion years ago (when the universe was five billion years old), life evolved until these human-like creatures came into existence after another five billion years. By then, these human-like creatures had developed a flotilla and launched out into space to conduct a science experiment on another planet. They traveled for one billion years (nowhere near the speed of light) and found Earth, four billion years ago. Over the course of the next few billion years, this species of human-like creatures seeded life, introduced retroviruses to reprogram DNA, and shaped the flow of evolution until the year 1945 when, seeing an atomic bomb detonate to end World War II, the human-like species decided to get out of Dodge. As a result, by the time the space program ramped up, these guys were no longer watching the planet, having fled back toward their distant star system.
Now suppose that this just-so story is actually true. This would not fit Creationist accounts…but it would fit Intelligent Design accounts. In fact, one need only ask a simple question: if the above did occur, how would we set about to prove it?
This question is actually one that Darwinists never bother to consider, since they assume by default that such a thing could not have occurred. But the above just-so story represents no religious viewpoint, it is completely materialistic, and it assumes all Darwinistic theories. If it actually occurred, how would we be able to verify it? It’s a natural and materialistic occurrence, and if science has anything meaningful to say then it ought to be able to answer the question.
Firstly, we must note that since these intelligent human-like creatures left we cannot go up into space and see them now. They are gone, and for all intents and purposes no longer exist within our realm of observation.
Science does deal with this sort of thing all the time with sentient beings. You may observe a bear on a migration route one year and not on the next year and then again on the third year. That you did not see the bear the second year does not mean the bear did not exist that year. So when dealing with sentient beings, it is quite possible that they do not wish to be seen or happen to be somewhere other than where the observer is.
So how then would we try to determine whether they had been here or not? If we cannot currently observe them, then we look for artifacts. This is how we know that the Roman Empire existed, for instance: historical references and items recovered by archaeology. We excavate ruins and read old books to find evidence that they used to exist, etc.
But we’ve already said that these human-like creatures are scientists working to keep their experiment pristine. They would not want contamination to occur, because that would ruin everything for their experiment.
What is left to examine then? Can we conclude that it would be impossible to verify the existence of these creatures? No, for there is one other thing that we can look at.
These creatures were conducting their experiments on life itself. They were introducing retroviruses to change DNA to shape evolution, to grow a particular species. They seeded life on the planet in the first place. That means that what we look for is this: evidence that what is here cannot have arisen naturally, but instead can only be explained by the actions of an intelligent agent.
Because the intelligent agent was actually involved in the way life happened on Earth, things occurred on Earth that would not have occurred otherwise. If this story is true, then life cannot be the same as it would have been without these intelligent actors involved.
Now here is the key for the Darwinist to consider. If we are to say that science has no way of differentiating between the materialistic and naturalistic theory that I proposed above and Darwinism, how potent is science after all? That is, if science works, it ought to be able to differentiate between a world that is designed and a world that is not designed.
The ID proponent says that science can and does differentiate between what occurs naturally and what occurs due to intelligent agents. Oddly, for all its talk about the power of science, it is Darwinism that believes science to be impotent on this issue. But IDers have no problem saying that science is able to detect design, even when the designer is materialistic.
The designer need not be an omnipotent God. In fact, the designer need only be as intelligent as we currently are. After all, it is certainly within the realm of human intelligence to be able to create a space flotilla with its own self-contained farming system, to use atomic power to move us (at nowhere near the speed of light, mind you), to take enough people to keep the population going, and for us to use Darwinian theories to seed new life on another planet, introducing retroviruses when we wish to make alterations, etc. We could theoretically do these things and construct an intelligently designed world.
Suppose we did just that. That would not be Creationism. It would be Intelligent Design, but not Creationism. And that’s the major difference between ID and Creationism.
Creationism requires that the Intelligent Designer be God, specifically (as I’ve defined Creationism above) the God of the Bible. ID has no such requirement. The designer could just as easily be a human-like organism that evolved on a different planet six billion years ago who then traveled to our planet to seed life. Of course, IDers do not rule out the possibility that the designer is the Christian God; but He is not a requirement for Intelligent Design. Nor does ID have to identify the designer in order to be scientific: it is enough to show that some kind of design must have occurred (just as one can rule out natural causes for the death of the body in the hotel room without knowing who the murderer—the designer of the death—is).
This is why Creationists are libel to misstep with all the success of ID. If we allow ID to do all the heavy work without working out the issues ourselves, then we have not advanced Creationism at all. Even if ID utterly guts Darwinism, that would not prove the designer of our world is God. That ID is currently sympathetic with Creationists in no way implies that this relationship must always remain, and Creationists should be aware of this fact.
There is a difference between Intelligent Design and Creationism. To use the dead body illustration yet again: Darwinists claim that Bob Jones died naturally; Creationists claim that Bob Jones was murdered by Jim Smith; and Intelligent Design advocates merely point out that some unnamed person killed Bob Jones. While there is overlap between the ID and Creationist accounts, it is a mistake (both on the part of the Darwinist and on the Creationist) to assume they are the same.
