Talk:Intelligent design

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Intelligent design article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Add new text under old text.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Start a new topic

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives (index): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90: 6 months

Intelligent design is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on October 12, 2007.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 2, 2005	Peer review	Reviewed
January 21, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
October 16, 2006	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
January 9, 2007	Peer review	Reviewed
February 23, 2007	Featured article candidate	Promoted
July 24, 2007	Featured article review	Kept
December 14, 2008	Featured article review	Kept
Current status: Featured article

Discussions on this page have often led to previous arguments being restated. Please read recent comments, look in the archives, and review the FAQ before commenting.

The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. This article relates to pseudoscience and fringe science.

Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator.

Arbitration ruling on the treatment of pseudoscience

In December 2006, the Arbitration Committee ruled on guidelines for the presentation of topics as pseudoscience in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. The final decision included the following:

Neutral point of view as applied to science: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, a fundamental policy, requires fair representation of significant alternatives to scientific orthodoxy. Significant alternatives, in this case, refers to legitimate scientific disagreement, as opposed to pseudoscience.
Serious encyclopedias: Serious and respected encyclopedias and reference works are generally expected to provide overviews of scientific topics that are in line with respected scientific thought. Wikipedia aspires to be such a respected work.
Obvious pseudoscience: Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more justification.
Generally considered pseudoscience: Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience.
Questionable science: Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized.
Alternative theoretical formulations: Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process.

Alternative views High‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Alternative views, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of significant alternative views in every field, from the sciences to the humanities. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion.Alternative viewsWikipedia:WikiProject Alternative viewsTemplate:WikiProject Alternative viewsAlternative views
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Creationism: Intelligent design Top‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Creationism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Creationism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CreationismWikipedia:WikiProject CreationismTemplate:WikiProject CreationismCreationism
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by Intelligent design task force (assessed as Top-importance).

Christianity Mid‑importance

	Christianity portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Christianity, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Christianity on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChristianityWikipedia:WikiProject ChristianityTemplate:WikiProject ChristianityChristianity
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Conservatism Mid‑importance

	Conservatism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Conservatism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of conservatism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ConservatismWikipedia:WikiProject ConservatismTemplate:WikiProject ConservatismConservatism
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Politics Mid‑importance

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Philosophy: Science / Religion Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy

Mid

This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Associated task forces:
/
	Philosophy of science
	Philosophy of religion

Skepticism Top‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory, conspiracy theories, and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Religion Top‑importance

	Religion portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.ReligionWikipedia:WikiProject ReligionTemplate:WikiProject ReligionReligion
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

view · edit

Frequently asked questions

Many of these questions arise frequently on the talk page concerning Intelligent design (ID).

To view an explanation to the answer, click the [show] link to the right of the question.

Q1: Should ID be equated with creationism?

A1: ID is a form of creationism, and many sources argue that it is identical. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and Phillip E. Johnson, one of the founders of the ID movement, stated that the goal of intelligent design is to cast creationism as a scientific concept.^[1]^[2]

Not everyone agrees with this. For example, philosopher Thomas Nagel argues that intelligent design is very different from creation science (see "Public Education and Intelligent Design", Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 36, no. 2, 2008). However, this perspective is not representative of most reliable sources on the subject.

Although intelligent design proponents do not name the designer, they make it clear that the designer is the Abrahamic god.^[1]^[3]^[4]^[5]

In drafts of the 1989 high-school level textbook Of Pandas and People, almost all derivations of the word "creation", such as "creationism", were replaced with the words "intelligent design".^[6]

Taken together, the Kitzmiller ruling, statements of ID's main proponents, the nature of ID itself, and the history of the movement, make it clear—the Discovery Institute's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding—that ID is a form of creationism, modified to appear more secular than it really is. This is in line with the Discovery Institute's stated strategy in the Wedge Document.

Q2: Should ID be characterized as science?

A2: The majority of scientists state that ID should not be characterized as science. This was the finding of Judge Jones during the Kitzmiller hearing, and is a position supported by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community.^[7] Scientists say that ID cannot be regarded as scientific theory because it is untestable even in principle. A scientific theory predicts the outcome of experiments. If the predicted outcome is not observed, the theory is false. There is no experiment which can be constructed which can disprove intelligent design. Unlike a true scientific theory, it has absolutely no predictive capability. It doesn't run the risk of being disproved by objective experiment.

Q3: Should the article cite any papers about ID?

A3: According to Wikipedia's sourcing policy, Wikipedia:Verifiability, papers that support ID should be used as primary sources to explain the nature of the concept.

The article as it stands does not cite papers that support ID because no such papers have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Behe himself admitted this under cross examination, during the Kitzmiller hearings, and this has been the finding of scientists and critics who have investigated this claim.^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10] In fact, the only article published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that made a case for intelligent design was quickly withdrawn by the publisher for having circumvented the journal's peer-review standards.^[11]^[12]

Broadly speaking, the articles on the Discovery Institute list all fail for any of four reasons:

The journal has no credible editorial and peer-review process, or the process was not followed
The journal is not competent for the subject matter of the article
The article is not genuinely supportive of ID
The article is published in a partisan ID journal such as PCID

If you wish to dispute the claim that ID has no support in peer-reviewed publications, then you will need to produce a reliable source that attests to the publication of at least one paper clearly supportive of ID that underwent rigorous peer-review in a journal on a relevant field.

Q4: Is this article unfairly biased against ID?

A4: There have been arguments over the years about the article's neutrality and concerns that it violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. The NPOV policy does not require all points of view to be represented as equally valid, but it does require us to represent them. The policy requires that we present ID from the point of view of disinterested philosophers, biologists and other scientists, and that we also include the views of ID proponents and opponents. We should not present minority views as though they are majority ones, but we should also make sure the minority views are correctly described and not only criticized, particularly in an article devoted to those views, such as this one.

Q5: Is the Discovery Institute a reliable source?

A5: The Discovery Institute is a reliable primary source about its views on ID, though it should not be used as an independent secondary source.

One of the core missions of the Discovery Institute is to promote intelligent design. The end purpose is to duck court rulings that eliminated religion from the science classroom, by confusing people into conflating science and religion. In light of this, the Discovery Institute cannot be used as a reference for anything but their beliefs, membership and statements. Questionable sources, according to the sourcing policy, WP:V, are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no editorial oversight, and should only be used in articles about themselves. Articles about such sources should not repeat any contentious claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources.

Q6: Are all formulations of intelligent design pseudoscience? Was William Paley doing pseudoscience when he argued that natural features should be attributed to "an intelligent and designing Creator"?

A6: While the use of the phrase intelligent design in teleological arguments dates back to at least the 1700s,^[13] Intelligent Design (ID) as a term of art begins with the 1989 publication of Of Pandas and People.^[14] Intelligent design is classified as pseudoscience because its hypotheses are effectively unfalsifiable. Unlike Thomas Aquinas and Paley, modern ID denies its religious roots and the supernatural nature of its explanations.^[15] For an extended discussion about definitions of pseudoscience, including Intelligent Design, see Pigliucci, Massimo; Boudry, Maarten, eds. (2013), Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem, University of Chicago, ISBN 978-0-226-05179-6.

Notes and references

1 2 Phillip Johnson: "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of Intelligent Design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." Johnson 2004. Christianity.ca. Let's Be Intelligent About Darwin. "This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy." Johnson 1996. World Magazine. Witnesses For The Prosecution. "So the question is: "How to win?" That's when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the "wedge" strategy: "Stick with the most important thing"—the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, "Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?" and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do." Johnson 2000. Touchstone magazine. Berkeley's Radical An Interview with Phillip E. Johnson
↑ "I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call The Wedge, which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science."…"Now the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn't true. It's falsified by all of the evidence and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, well, where might you get the truth?"…"I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves." Johnson 1999. Reclaiming America for Christ Conference. How the Evolution Debate Can Be Won
↑ Dembski: "Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory," Touchstone Magazine. Volume 12, Issue4: July/August, 1999
↑ Wedge Document Discovery Institute, 1999.
"[M]embers of the national ID movement insist that their attacks on evolution aren't religiously motivated, but, rather, scientific in nature." … "Yet the express strategic objectives of the Discovery Institute; the writings, careers, and affiliations of ID's leading proponents; and the movement’s funding sources all betray a clear moral and religious agenda." Inferior Design Chris Mooney. The American Prospect, August 10, 2005.
↑ "ID's rejection of naturalism in any form logically entails its appeal to the only alternative, supernaturalism, as a putatively scientific explanation for natural phenomena. This makes ID a religious belief." Expert Witness Report Barbara Forrest Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, April 2005.
↑ Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., pp. 31 – 33.
1 2 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., 4. Whether ID is Science, p. 87
↑ "Science and Policy: Intelligent Design and Peer Review". American Association for the Advancement of Science. 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-19.
↑ Brauer, Matthew J.; Forrest, Barbara; Gey, Steven G. (2005). "Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationism and the Constitution" (PDF). Washington University Law Quarterly. 83 (1). Retrieved 2007-07-18. ID leaders know the benefits of submitting their work to independent review and have established at least two purportedly "peer-reviewed" journals for ID articles. However, one has languished for want of material and quietly ceased publication, while the other has a more overtly philosophical orientation. Both journals employ a weak standard of "peer review" that amounts to no more than vetting by the editorial board or society fellows.
↑ Isaak, Mark (2006). "Index to Creationist Claims". The TalkOrigins Archive. With some of the claims for peer review, notably Campbell and Meyer (2003) and the e-journal PCID, the reviewers are themselves ardent supporters of intelligent design. The purpose of peer review is to expose errors, weaknesses, and significant omissions in fact and argument. That purpose is not served if the reviewers are uncritical
↑ "Statement from the Council of the Biological Society of Washington". Biological Society of Washington. Retrieved 2007-07-19.
↑ See also Sternberg peer review controversy.
↑ Wilkins, John (9 November 2013), "The origin of "intelligent design" in the 18th and 19th centuries", Evolving Thoughts (blog)
↑ Matzke, Nick (2006), "Design on Trial: How NCSE Helped Win the Kitzmiller Case", Reports of the National Center for Science Education, 26 (1–2): 37–44
↑ "Report of John F. Haught, Ph. D" (PDF). Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (NCSE). 2005-04-01. Retrieved 29 August 2013.

This article has been mentioned by some of its subject's developers:

Dembski, William A. (16 November 2022). "William Dembski: Gauging the Success of Intelligent Design". Discovery Science. Retrieved 26 January 2025 – via YouTube. Let me give you the Wikipedia first paragraph on intelligence design: 'Intelligent design is a pseudoscientific argument'.

Archives

Philosophy sources

This page has archives. Topics inactive for 180 days are automatically archived 1 or more at a time by if there are more than 4.

First sentence is stupid.

Latest comment: 6 months ago16 comments8 people in discussion

ID is not Science nor is it Pseudoscience, It's Philosophy. Anyone with a brain can figure that out. It draws upon knowledge from the natural sciences to make its arguments, but so do naturalists/materialists. Why are scientific organizations weighing in on what is ultimately a philosophical question. The wording and assumptions that this article makes misrepresents ID, and simply creates a strawman to tear down. ~2025-38987-85 (talk) 15:46, 7 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is it stupid because "presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins"." never happened, or because it did happen but it's stupid that it did? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:52, 7 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

You are confusing ID with the teleological argument made by some philosophers. ID is pseudoscience because it "draws upon knowledge from the natural sciences to make its arguments." Science is concerned with developing theories that have predictive value rather than determining the nature of reality.

I agree that you cannot use science to disprove the teleological argument, and some materialists themselves may be guilty of pseudoscience if they try to do this. TFD (talk) 17:13, 7 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Intelligent Design is considered a pseudoscience because its proponents simultaneously insist, without evidence, that it is both science and superior to science, thus the proponents of Intelligent Design lobbying to have schools in America teach faith-based curricula themed around "~~GOD~~ DESIGNER DID IT." And having said that, please provide WP:SOURCEs to show that "ID is not Science nor is it Pseudoscience, It's Philosophy." Mr Fink (talk) 16:41, 7 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

User:Apokryltaros - I think the concept itself and descriptive principles are the topic, not whether some individuals might make internally inconsistent arguments. But out of curiosity, can you clarify what cites to individuals you were looking at, or were conveying the impression of others or yourself there ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:31, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

All of the Flimflam Artists For Jesus at the Discovery Institute, among others. Mr Fink (talk) 22:58, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

User:Apokryltaros - uh-huh, so no proponent items nor outside commentator then. Thanks for the reply. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:08, 5 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Spare me your thanks. I don not appreciate your dragging me back into someone else's dead thread just to put words into my goddamned mouth just to score points and flout WP:NOTAFORUM just to engage in Nonsensical Navel Gazing For Jesus. So, can you just spit out what the hell you're trying to get at and stop bothering me with your snide sniping, please? Mr Fink (talk) 15:43, 5 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

I had curiosity of exactly what was said that you were describing is all. Thank you for the reply meant thank you for the reply. No more, no less. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:25, 6 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

ID is probably the most pseudoscientific pseudoscience out there. Anyone with a brain can figure that out. Calling it a 'philosophy' in this context is... Well... Ironic. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:44, 7 December 2025 (UTC)Reply

Keep as is - Just to record some more thinking on this - I agree Science is not right nor the pejorative Pseudoscience, but from seeing Philosophy as the entire field of the study of knowledge rather than the making of a hypothesis itself that doesn't seem a fit either. I think smaller descriptives like 'rejected hypothesis' (because it was rejected) or 'creationist proposal' (because it proposes creation and I've seen it binned as a branch of Creationism) or 'criticisms of Darwinian completeness' might fit, but.... While I dislike starting with a vague pejorative 'pseudoscience', which seemed a WP fad about a dozen years ago, I long ago decided the article was irretrievably biased so starting out with a bit of judgmental rant serves as a fair warning in a two wrongs make an almost-right kind of way. So I'll say keep as is and just try to keep clear at a lower level, e.g. that Irreducible complexity is whether something is irreducible and Specified complexity is about something is too complex. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:21, 4 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Current version:

Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins".

Proposal:

ID is a theory about life's origins which supporters claim is scientific; many creationists use it to argue for the existence of God. Opponents have labeled ID as pseudoscience because it fails to provide testable hypotheses.

I'm not saying we should replace the first sentence immediately; I'm thinking of the principle of Wikipedia:LEADFOLLOWSBODY - put new material in the body first. --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:30, 5 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

ID must be described as pseudoscience in wiki voice to be neutral per the principle of calling a spade a spade. Attributing that to 'opponents' presents a false balance. Because it factually is a pseudoscience in that it is religion masquerading as science. As I pointed out above, it is perhaps the ur-example of a pseudoscience.

P.S. Altering the entire article to present a false balance between opponents and supporters is a gross violation of WP:NPOV. The supporters distort the principles of science and even their own data to support their conclusions, whereas the opponents use valid science and logic to debunk it. For us to not make that clear would be to undermine the very principle of an encyclopedia. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:50, 5 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Okay, I'll have to study the body of the article to find where it shows that ID is religion masquerading as science and that its supporters use distortions to support it. I had previously thought that there are ways that ID could be tested. Excuse me if I'm being too hasty. Uncle Ed (talk) 19:04, 5 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

The history section clearly lays out the origins of ID, covering its roots in creationism. In addition, the famous cdesign proponentsists error demonstrates how misleading attempts by ID proponents to distance themselves from creationism are.

ID is creationism, and creationism is religion.

I would also point out that on your userpage, you wrote "if you find yourself pushing a particular view into an article rather than attempt to create a coherent picture of the topic as a whole, you've missed the point of NPOV" and would invite you to reflect on that in light of your comments here and your recent edits in the article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:43, 5 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Strongly oppose changing the lede. The current version is more accurate than the word salad that is proposed. I must note the following Wikipedia P&Gs:

False Balance

Fringe Theories

Wikipedia is not a battleground Bill Heller (talk) 09:26, 18 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Media

Latest comment: 6 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

"This article has been mentioned by a media organization: [..] William Dembski [..]"

Since when is the Center for Science and Culture a media organization? It's a think tank. What it does is lobbyism, not journalism. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:23, 26 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

If they produce books, articles, videos, IMO it's not unreasonable to see them as press/media org, "journalism" isn't necessarily the qualifier. See also the Template documentation text at Template:Press. It's not a mark of approval, it's saying "this coverage exists." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:11, 26 January 2026 (UTC)Reply

Nowhere in the lead [except two paragraphs] does it actually say what proponents are arguing

Latest comment: 2 months ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I know ID isn't science, but I think we should be clear about what ID supporters are arguing. Compare the current sentence: Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins".

The leading proponents of ID are associated with the Discovery Institute, a Christian, politically conservative think tank based in the United States. ID is a form of creationism that lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses, and is therefore not science.

with the leading sentence from the first revision of the article: A theory of evolution asserting that the appearance of new species in the fossil record are authentic. According to Intelligent Design, God created each new species right around the time they first appeared in the fossil record.

or that of Britannica's entry: intelligent design (ID), argument intended to demonstrate that living organisms were created in more or less their present forms by an “intelligent designer.”

We don't state what they are asserting. We just say they call it "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins", which is extremely vague. A modified and more explicit version of the fourth paragraph might work to actually state what the argument is. It's like if the first sentence of Holocaust denial was Holocaust denial is an antisemitic argument relating to the Holocaust. For instance, one idea is Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument arguing that instead of evolving, organisms were created in their current form by an "intelligent designer", assumed to be God. As another note, I was surprised to see that this is a featured article. It has a lot of uncited statements, and relies heavily on primary sources. Should this article go to WP:FAR? 🐔 Chicdat ^{Bawk to me!} 14:58, 21 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

This recent edit deleted 'Proponents claim 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."' That's long been the central ID statement, which of course is deliberately vague. Needs review of sources
Paragraphs four and five provide some detail: "ID presents two main arguments against evolutionary explanations: irreducible complexity and specified complexity, asserting that certain biological and informational features of living things are too complex to be the result of natural selection. .... ID seeks to challenge the methodological naturalism inherent in modern science.[2][15] As a positive argument against evolution, ID proposes an analogy between natural systems and human artifacts, a version of the theological argument from design for the existence of God.[1][n 2] ID proponents then conclude by analogy that the complex features, as defined by ID, are evidence of design." Please propose, with sources, exactly what you want added. . . dave souza, talk 04:58, 13 May 2026 (UTC) edited: second sentence was recently removed. To do: review sources for that statement. . . dave souza, talk 05:32, 13 May 2026 (UTC)Reply

[wedge2-1] 1 2 Phillip Johnson: "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of Intelligent Design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools." Johnson 2004. Christianity.ca. Let's Be Intelligent About Darwin. "This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy." Johnson 1996. World Magazine. Witnesses For The Prosecution. "So the question is: "How to win?" That's when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the "wedge" strategy: "Stick with the most important thing"—the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, "Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?" and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do." Johnson 2000. Touchstone magazine. Berkeley's Radical An Interview with Phillip E. Johnson

[PJC-2] "I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call The Wedge, which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science."…"Now the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn't true. It's falsified by all of the evidence and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, well, where might you get the truth?"…"I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves." Johnson 1999. Reclaiming America for Christ Conference. How the Evolution Debate Can Be Won

[dembski_logos-3] Dembski: "Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory," Touchstone Magazine. Volume 12, Issue4: July/August, 1999

[wedge1-4] Wedge Document Discovery Institute, 1999.
"[M]embers of the national ID movement insist that their attacks on evolution aren't religiously motivated, but, rather, scientific in nature." … "Yet the express strategic objectives of the Discovery Institute; the writings, careers, and affiliations of ID's leading proponents; and the movement’s funding sources all betray a clear moral and religious agenda." Inferior Design Chris Mooney. The American Prospect, August 10, 2005.

[5] "ID's rejection of naturalism in any form logically entails its appeal to the only alternative, supernaturalism, as a putatively scientific explanation for natural phenomena. This makes ID a religious belief." Expert Witness Report Barbara Forrest Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, April 2005.

[kitz31-6] Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., pp. 31 – 33.

[kitzruling_pg87-7] 1 2 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, 04 cv 2688 (December 20, 2005)., 4. Whether ID is Science, p. 87

[aaas_pr-8] "Science and Policy: Intelligent Design and Peer Review". American Association for the Advancement of Science. 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-19.

[9] Brauer, Matthew J.; Forrest, Barbara; Gey, Steven G. (2005). "Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationism and the Constitution" (PDF). Washington University Law Quarterly. 83 (1). Retrieved 2007-07-18. ID leaders know the benefits of submitting their work to independent review and have established at least two purportedly "peer-reviewed" journals for ID articles. However, one has languished for want of material and quietly ceased publication, while the other has a more overtly philosophical orientation. Both journals employ a weak standard of "peer review" that amounts to no more than vetting by the editorial board or society fellows.

[10] Isaak, Mark (2006). "Index to Creationist Claims". The TalkOrigins Archive. With some of the claims for peer review, notably Campbell and Meyer (2003) and the e-journal PCID, the reviewers are themselves ardent supporters of intelligent design. The purpose of peer review is to expose errors, weaknesses, and significant omissions in fact and argument. That purpose is not served if the reviewers are uncritical

[11] "Statement from the Council of the Biological Society of Washington". Biological Society of Washington. Retrieved 2007-07-19.

[12] See also Sternberg peer review controversy.

[Wilkins-13] Wilkins, John (9 November 2013), "The origin of "intelligent design" in the 18th and 19th centuries", Evolving Thoughts (blog)

[14] Matzke, Nick (2006), "Design on Trial: How NCSE Helped Win the Kitzmiller Case", Reports of the National Center for Science Education, 26 (1–2): 37–44

[15] "Report of John F. Haught, Ph. D" (PDF). Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (NCSE). 2005-04-01. Retrieved 29 August 2013.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

This page was redesigned at the edge.

A page that knows where it met you.

Talk:Intelligent design

First sentence is stupid.

Media

Nowhere in the lead [except two paragraphs] does it actually say what proponents are arguing