Intelligent design (ID) is a set of beliefs that challenges the scientific theory of evolution, while neo-Darwinism is a theory of evolution.
ID is a set of beliefs that some natural phenomena are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than the scientific theory of evolution. ID theorists believe that the complexity of life on Earth is too great to be explained by Darwinian mechanisms and instead propose that an intelligent cause is the best explanation. ID proponents compare natural systems to human artifacts and conclude that the complex features of nature are evidence of design.
Neo-Darwinism is a theory of evolution that states that all living things can be traced back to the same microscopic organisms which changed and mutated in time. Natural selection is the mechanism that explains the survival of the strongest species.
DNA that had been labeled as “junk DNA,” “selfish DNA,“ or selfish genetic elements.“ Richard Dawkins famously erected a widely popular philosophy of evolution based on “The Selfish Gene“ (1976).
Today, we recognize that most of this repetitive DNA comprises transposable elements and other repeats needed for various aspects of genome function, especially developmental regulatory networks controlling cellular differentiation. The repeats help guide the origin of cell lines comprising distinctive tissues, such as bone versus nervous tissue. Both have the same DNA, yet each cell type expresses the genome in distinctive ways controlled by different DNA repeats.
Support for evolution guided by divine intervention has a toehold in the quasi-scientific Intelligent Design (ID) movement by Michael Behe (“Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution,“ 1996) and carried on by members of the Discovery Institute and other creationist think tanks. The basic argument that ID theorists make is that natural selection of random hereditary changes cannot produce genomes capable of expressing all the intricate networked adaptations modern molecular biology has revealed to operate in living organisms. This conundrum is, in Behe’s words, “irreducible complexity.“ Hence, the ID theorists posit a need for divine intervention.
The ID argument has a valid point about the explanatory limits of neo-Darwinism, still widely regarded as the only legitimate scientific explanation of evolution. ID falls by assuming (as do mainstream evolutionists) that genome change occurs from outside the boundaries of life itself. Within the scientific community, there is agreement that the hereditary variation necessary for evolutionary change occurs by natural means. However, a significant difference exists between scientists’ constitutes. natural means
Shapiro is a great biologist who has offered many keen insights into genomic functioning. Clearly not an ID proponent and that is fine. I would disagree with his characterization of ID as a negative argument against evolution in favor of “divine intervention.
The Struggles of Neo-Darwinism
However, he is correct in noting that neo-Darwinism struggles to account for the “intricate networked adaptations modern molecular biology has revealed to operate in living organisms.“ I appreciate his recognition that ID got this one right. Shapiro thinks that natural genetic engineering can account for much of this intricate complexity, and we in the ID movement are interested in seeing how far these mechanisms of pre-programmed evolution can take us.
For my part, I think they might be helpful in fine-tuning pre-existing functions — and may be involved in what Emily Reeves recently wrote about as “continuous environmental tracking.“ However, I am skeptical that Dr. Shapiro’s model can account for much of the basic complexity of life. For the moment, I am content to be grateful to him as a non-ID scientist who recognizes something ID has gotten right.
