Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

4 authors

5/5

"I loved it"

I quite liked this book. It follows a similar format to Five Views on Inerrancy, another book in the Zonderman Academics “Counterpoint” series. I’ve garnered a particular interest in creation, piqued by a recent viewing of Ken Ham and Bill Nye’s 2014 “Creationism vs. Scientist” debate (Nye won). This book is not particularly hopeful, but it was incredibly informative and a relatively short read.

There is a very broad consensus among professionals… that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and Earth is 4.5 billion years old… [and] that life on Earth has evolved from common ancestors… the overwhelming majority of scientists accept that science has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the earth is very old and that life (including humans) has evolved from common ancestors.

— J.B. Stump

The four positions outlined in the book are as follows:

  1. Evolutionary Creationists (EC) accept the entire scientific consensus.
  2. Old-Earth Creationists accept the scientific consensus on the age of the Earth and universe, but not evolution.
  3. Young-Earth Creationists (YEC) do not accept any of the scientific consensus.
  4. Intelligent Design (ID) broadly believes there is a “designer” of creation. Beliefs vary about the age of the earth/universe and evolution.

Each contributor was asked these questions:

  1. What is your position on origins— understood broadly to include the physical universe, life, and human beings in particular?
  2. What do you take to be the most persuasive arguments in defense of your position? What are the biggest challenges of your view?
  3. How do you demarcate, correlate, and use evidence about origins from current science and from divine revelation?
  4. What hinges on having the correct view of origins?

You can read below about what each author believes, but what about myself?

This book is by no means an exhaustive discussion of creation, the Bible, and science. Such a book would not be possible to write; people have spent their entire lives trying to answer these questions, and as new scientific discoveries are made, old theories die and new ones rise. That being said, I find myself primarily in agreement with the view of evolutionary creationists. Haarsma’s quote sums it up quite nicely:

If good hermeneutics allows multiple possible interpretations, science can inform our choice.

— Deborah B. Haarsma

I don’t see the Bible as a history textbook (though it would be convenient if it were). It was written for an ancient audience, and only academic study can reveal some of its deeper purposes and meanings. Those who read the Bible with surface-level modern expectations (cough, cough YECs) walk away with innumerable misguided ideas.

I generally believe in evolution, but only because it’s the only thing I know— I won’t claim to be able to defend it. I concede that the anti-evolutionary scientists in this book make some reasonable critiques of evolution, but I generally trust in the scientific majority to reach the closest to truth. Like Haarsma, I see God’s hand even in naturalistic processes like evolution, genetic mutations, and the age of the earth and universe. My metaphorical reading of Genesis 1 (and much of the OT) allows me a level of comfortable flexibility that most Christians can’t share. I concede that perhaps it’s exactly the attractiveness of this idea that compels me to believe it.

As I discuss below, I firmly believe Ken Ham and many “creation scientists” have unfortunately pushed many away from the faith. I am thankful for organizations like BioLogos, that exist to counter the anti-science narrative many Christians push so forcefully.

Finally, I’d like to reiterate something that the book’s editor, J.B. Stump, mentions in the book’s conclusion: Christians are not approaching any sense of unity on these issues, and quite frankly, it’s disappointing. I appreciated Haarsma’s calls to unity among the church on these decidedly second-rate issues of creation, evolution, and intelligent design. Even the most fervent YECs admit that nothing in this book is salvific.

Ken Ham: Young Earth Creationist

Ken Ham is a well-known name among Christians and homeschooling parents, and for his popular debate with Bill Nye in 2014. Ken Ham is the founder and president of Answers in Genesis (AiG), one of the major leaders of YEC science and theology. AiG runs the Creation Museum (including the Ark Encounter) tourist attractions in Kentucky, which presents the American public with AiG’s beliefs about creation and evolution.

I hold a personal distaste for Ken Ham; I believe his debate with Bill Nye, and his publicity, have propagated his pseudo-science much further than it ever deserved, and is the reason many Americans see Christianity and mainstream science as adversarial to one another. Indeed, I would go so far as to claim his work his pushed many away from approaching the Christian faith. As I’ll explain below, I found his essay (and his science) to be poorly supported and weakly argued.

But before I even discuss his essay, I’d like to point out something that J.B. Stump, the book’s editor, discusses in the book’s conclusion. He apparently had trouble getting the authors to stick to word count limits, and…

The most obvious discrepancy that remains is in the initial essays, where Ham’s is noticeably longer than the others. He was unwilling to cut anything further,believing it only fair that he should be given more space than the others since he was the only one defensing the young age of the earth and “the authority of Scripture vs. the authority of the scientific majority.”

— J.B. Stump

I think that gives you an idea of what kind of person Ken Ham is.

But I digress. Here is the basic premise of YEC:

The clear teaching and the most natural reading of Genesis 1-11, indeed the whole Bible is that (1) God created the universe in six literal, approximately twenty-four-hour days about six thousand years ago; (2) He cursed the originally “very good” creation after and in response to Adam’s rebellion; (3) He destroyed the world with a year-long, global, catastrophic flood at the time of Noah; and (4) He judged mankind at the Tower of Babel, supernaturally dividing the people into different languages and thereby into different people groups… Genesis 1-11 is history— not poetry, parable, prophetic vision, or mythology.

…

The scientific evidence confirming the literal truth of Genesis 1-11 is overwhelming and increasing with time as a result of the research of both evolutionists and creationists.

— Ken Ham

I am not a YEC, and there was little in Ham’s essay with which I agreed, beyond his basic Christian commitment to biblical authority. I especially take issue with Ham’s argument that YEC is the “historical Christian orthodoxy”:

The Bible clearly teaches young-earth creation and that was the almost-universal belief of the church until the beginning of the nineteenth century. It is historic Christian orthodoxy and all old-earth creationist and theistic evolutionist views are relatively recent novelties.

— Ken Ham

Ken Ham admits two major challenges to his views, and I generally agree they are the strongest arguments against his position (though there are many more):

In the response essays, the other authors bring up other problems for YEC:

If Ham’s essay does anything well, it’s his treatment of the “literal” biblical interpretation of the flood. Many Christians have attempted to “have it both ways” by proposing that Noah’s flood did occur, but on a local scale. But I tend to agree with Ham that if you read Genesis literalistically, the flood must be global, not local/regional:

I do not read Genesis literalistically. But, if you want to claim you’re reading Genesis literalistically, a legitimate global flood is something you have to accept.

In another part of his essay, Ham adopts a victim mentality for the American Christian, claiming “The Bible and Christianity have largely been thrown out of the government-run schools and universities. Christians are facing persecution (loss of jobs, destruction of businesses, etc.) for not submitting to the LGBTQ revolution.” He later spends a great deal of his essay purporting that the entire idea of evolution was rooted in anti-biblical philosophies from its inception:

The development of the idea of millions of years of earth history was not, as the scientific majority wants us to believe, the result of the unbiased, objective pursuit of truth and interpretation of the empirical evidence. Anti-biblical worldview assumptions were massively influential… Science has been controlled by an anti-biblical philosophical/religious worldview for almost two hundred years.

— Ken Ham

There were two instances in Ham’s essay where he attempts to appeal to Scripture to back up his claims, and each of them fall flat. Here’s the first:

Jesus Himself affirmed the historicity of the flood as a warning of the judgement to come (Matthew 24:37-39).

— Ken Ham

Let’s look at the passage:

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

— Matthew 24:37-39

I disagree with Ham’s interpretation that “Jesus Himself affirmed the historicity of the flood” in this Matthew passage. Jesus commonly taught using parables, even when he did not directly label it as such (e.g. the good Samaritan). Beyond parables, he commonly uses exaggeration or otherwise metaphorical approaches. Just 4 verses later in Matthew 24:42, Jesus says, “Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Are the disciples to stop sleeping? By no means! I find Ham’s statement of Jesus’s supposed “affirmation” a ridiculous appeal to authority that falls flat upon investigation. This is the type of literature and logic I have come to expect from him and AiG.

Another example is his discussion of Paul and Romans 1:20, which he claims makes it “clear” that Paul was a young-earth creationist. This verse does not even approach any sort of statement like that, and it’s these arguments that seriously degrade any sort of professionalism in Ken Ham.

Paul also made it clear that he was a young-earth creationist. In Romans 1:20 he says that God’s existence and at least some of His attributes have been clearly understood by people “since the creation of the world” so that they are without excuse for not honoring Him as God.

— Ken Ham

The most distasteful portion of Ham’s essay is when he deals with fellow Christians who disagree with YEC theology. For Ham, YEC is the only valid interpretation of Genesis, because it’s God’s “eyewitness testimony” of the past; when you see Genesis like this, it’s easy to understand Ham’s harsh tone towards his opponents:

…regardless of any sincere intentions to the contrary, they are undermining the authority of the Word of God. And in reality, the issue of the age of the earth for Christians comes down to one of authority. Who is the ultimate authority, God or man, or what is the final authority, God’s Word or man’s word?

— Ken Ham

But, this is a false equivalence. To say that YEC, Ham’s personal belief, is equivalent to “God’s Word” is fallacious and shows his theological arrogance and immaturity. I’m not alone in my assessment; Hugh Ross’s response states: “he (inadvertently) equates his particular interpretation of Genesis with “God’s Word.” While the text is inerrant, no mere reader of the text can be.” And Deborah B. Haarsma: “It equates the young-earth interpretation of Scripture with Scripture itself.”

Hugh Ross: Old Earth (Progressive) Creationism

Hugh Ross has a PhD in astronomy and has performed research on quasars and galaxies. He is the founder of Reasons to Believe (reasons.org) and has been its president for almost 40 years. He represents the “Old earth” perspective, also known as progressive creationism— not “progressive” as in “reform”, as I initially thought, but “progressive” as in, creation progressively becomes more complex over time. Generally speaking, old earth creationism applies some form of selectively “literal” interpretation of Genesis 1. For example, Ross argues that the order of creation in Genesis 1 matches science, but the word “day” means a larger span of time than a literal 24 hour period.

The day-age view considers the creation days as six sequential, non-overlapping, long time periods… The day-age position acknowledges that Bible authors sometimes use figurative language to convey God’s message and meaning…

— Hugh Ross

Compared to Ken Ham and YEC, the Old earth creationism (OEC) makes a greater attempt to align with mainstream science, but in my opinion, still falls short. I suppose this criticism is equally true of Ken Ham’s views, but I frequently saw Ross falling victim to confirmation bias in science, and selectively interpreting the scientific consensus to boost his own Biblically-inspired version of creation.

For example, Ross argues that in support of a historical Adam and Eve, saying about genetics that “the population size estimates… have consistently declined over the past four decades… it seems reasonable to anticipate a continuation of this trend line down to two.” When Haarsma, in her response, states that “the data and methods today are more precise and clearly show a population around ten thousand invidividuals. It it not ‘reasonable to expect that future studies will reduce this population to only two.’” Ross response with this:

Genetics is a complex science… To cite genetics as the basis for overturning centuries of biblical interpretation seems premature at best, if not unwarranted.

— Hugh Ross

In my opinion, this type of response is particularly revealing of Ross’s attitude towards science: when it supports a Biblical model, he accepts it; when it doesn’t, he rejects it. This sort of intellectual cherry-picking may win points among fundamentalist Christians seeking a resolution to their cognitive dissonance with mainstream science, but to me, it signals a weak worldview.

But, in all fairness, Ross later states that he would consider his day-age creationism to be of “moderate concordism” meaning that “the Bible anticipates and depicts some of science’s major findings… but not all” (e.g. the Bible supports the Big Bang, but not particle physics). He’s also willing to admit that “Old-earth creationists refrain from claiming to hold the only valid understanding of Genesis.”

Ross posits that theoretically, science and theology should be a perfect match; however, because “science” is never a complete overlap with reality, and because “theology” is never a complete overlap with Scripture, we are left with apparent contradictions (that will eventually resolve?).

The scientific enterprise is no more equivalent to nature than biblical theology to Scripture.

— Hugh Ross

Interestingly, he argues that “biblical evidence for a creation history much longer than ten thousand years supports, and I believe should compel, the old-earth interpretation.” Here’s his Biblical evidence (at least, the best parts):

  1. Ross interprets Genesis 2 as a “deep dive” into the 6th day of creation (as most biblical literalists do). He suggests it would be difficult to cram all the events described in Genesis 2 (God grows a garden, Adam names all the animals, Eve is created, etc.) into a single 24 hour period. (Ken Ham, in his response, argues that it would be possible, given God’s quick power and seeing how fast Adam named Eve.)
  2. The 1-6th days are explicitly said to end, but not the 7th, suggesting it’s still ongoing.
  3. Psalm 90:4 suggests God’s timing is different than ours.
  4. The word for day, yom, is ambiguous and doesn’t necessarily mean 24-hour periods (e.g., Hosea 6:2).
  5. Though many (including Ken Ham) claim Exodus 20:10-11 proves literal 24-hour days, the term Sabbath can also refer to a year.
  6. The Hebrew words for “evening” and “morning” are somewhat flexible and could be more ambiguously referring to a transition period between time periods.

Ross’s biggest disagreements with consensus science are:

  1. Ross believes in “microevolution”, but not “macroevolution”. This terminology is common among YECs as well, and generally states that evolution is only a viable explanation for smaller differences among species, rather than explaining all of life’s genetic differences.
  2. Ross rejects evolution from a “last universal common ancestor” (LUCA); in other words, God created multiple “kinds” of beings that didn’t evolve to become one another. For example, Ross believes that older humanoids (e.g. Neanderthals) are not ancestors of humans, but rather a lesser animal God created before humans.

His scientific evidence for his views:

  1. Science and the Bible agree that “vegetation (on land) proliferated prior to animal life in the oceans” (Haarsma’s response disagrees, claiming instead that seeds/fruit-bearing plants appeared after sea creatures)
  2. Science and the Bible agree that “advanced land mammals most critical for launching human civilization appeared after birds and sea mammals”. (Haarsma’s response disagrees, claiming instead that birds appeared after land animals)
  3. Science and the Bible agree that once humans were made, the rate of new “life forms” (species) dropped to practically zero.

Ross says his two biggest scientific challenges to his view are “(1) imperfect or functionless designs in nature; and (2) limits, rates, and degrees of biological evolution.” He posits that “As scientists deepen and widen their investigation, many of these [presumed “bad designs”] have been shown optimal.”

If nothing else, it’s clear that Ross allows science to inform his interpretation of biblical events, even if he insists they are historical:

Evolutionary creationists… reject a literal reading of the flood story because, as they see it, such an interpretation contradicts established science.

— Hugh Ross

But to be clear, Ross does believe in a local flood, suggesting that all the “global” terms used in the flood story make more sense when you consider that mankind was relatively concentrated compared to today’s world. He suggests it occurred during an ice age, explaining the long time it took for the waters to recede (because they had to melt). Of course, he also references the global cross-cultural flood myth as evidence for its truth.

Deborah B. Haarsma: Evolutionary Creationism

Deborah B. Haarsma has a PhD in physics from MIT and became president of BioLogos in 2013. BioLogos is a foundation and website that attempts to show “the harmony between evolutionary science and biblical Christianity” (Stump). Her view is that of evolutionary creationism (EC). Among the four authors, I found Haarsma to be the most intellectually honest and academically informed. Though each of the authors have no shortage of scientific education (besides perhaps Ken Ham), Haarsma’s views most closely match those of mainstream science, and I find myself primarily aligned with her views.

As an example of Haarsma’s humility, here was her response to the other authors’ attacks on her scientific evidence:

For any of these scientific disagreements, the lay reader it put in the challenging place of judging between two expert authors who each assert that the other is wrong. It may come down to which voices a reader trusts; I encourage lay people to read more to help them decide.

— Deborah B. Haarsma

Wow. What a breath of fresh air. There’s no name calling, or accusations of heresy, or boastful statements of arrogance; merely a call to “read more.”

She begins her essay by describing the negative effect that creation scientists have had on peoples’ faith: “Of young people leaving the church today, 29 percent say ‘churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in,’ and 25 percent say that ‘Christianity is anti-science.’” I firmly believe Ken Ham and YEC Christians deserve sizable blame for this. Haarsma seems to indirectly state something similar in her critique of Ken Ham’s essay (AiG is Ken Ham’s organization) when she states that “AiG and BioLogos each have very serious concerns about the other’s approach to discipleship and evangelism.”

It’s no wonder that the BioLogos foundation has brought doubtful Christians from the brink of apostasy:

…they had seen science as a barrier to faith… It wasn’t until they learned about EC that the barrier was removed so that they could make a commitment to Christ, and EC then helped them grow rapidly in their faith. We also see a lot of people coming back to Christ who had left their faith because they saw Christians promoting false scientific claims.

— Deborah B. Haarsma

Haarsma takes a much more liberal perspective of biblical interpretations— this quote perfectly sums up my feelings about Christianity vs. science:

If good hermeneutics allows multiple possible interpretations, science can inform our choice.

— Deborah B. Haarsma

For Haarsma, and for myself, the Bible is not a history textbook, despite the fact that many people desperately attempt to make it so.

Regarding Scripture, we do not see the Bible as making scientific predictions, since the inspired human author and original audience lived in a pre-scientific era and simply didn’t think in those terms… we do not see the purpose of Scripture extending to modern scientific discoveries.

…

…the intent of Genesis 1 was not to address the “how” and “when” questions we ask in modern science; those were not a major concern in a pre-scientific era. Instead, the biblical text focuses on the “who” and “why” of creation.

— Deborah B. Haarsma

As is the view of evolutionary creationism, Haarsma accepts evolution (“macroevolution” if you prefer that). Though it may not seem like it, this puts her in good company; she pulls quotes to support that B.B. Warfield, C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, and Tim Keller all agree with Haarsma that evolution is a viable explanation for human life without contradicting the Bible. She refers to creation as the second “book” of revelation (the first being the Bible):

God’s two revelations cannot conflict, since he speaks truly in both… Conflicts appear only when our interpretation of one or both books is in error. Such conflicts rightly prompt us to reconsider our views: Are there other faithful ways to interpret the biblical text? Are there other valid ways to understand the scientific evidence?

— Deborah B. Haarsma

The Firmament

I appreciated Haarsma’s explicit statement that the Bible cannot be fully understood without doing some “homework”. It reminds me of something I recently read in Michael Bird’s book Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew About The Bible:

…a full and deep understanding of each passage is more complex than opening the latest English translation… While the primary messages of God’s Word are clear to any reader with a good translation, we’ll need to do our homework to understand something as complex as the Bible’s relationship to modern science.

— Deborah B. Haarsma

Part of this homework reveals that Genesis, and the Bible is general, was written for us, but not to us. When we read Genesis 1, Haarsma argues, we’re reading a text primarily by and for the Israelite people, who had a vastly different understanding of our world; they saw the world as a “firmament” as drawn below:

The firmament

The KJV translation Genesis 1:6-8 even uses the word “firmament” to describe what God created, separating “the waters above” from “the waters below”. (Ken Ham and Hugh Ross, in their responses to Haarsma, disagree that the author of Genesis would have shared this pagan view of the world, but I believe they are in the minority of scholars to suggest this). Of course, this vision of the world was shared by their Egyptian and Babylonian peers in the ancient Near East, but it’s important to note how Israel’s version of history is different:

In Genesis, there is only one God, the sovereign Creator of all. The sky, sea, and land are all merely things created by him. Even the powerful Egyptian god Ra is referred to as only one of the lights in the sky. Humans are created not as lowly slaves, but in the image of God and as a very good part of God’s creation.

— Deborah B. Haarsma

So, why would God portray creation in such an “incorrect” way? I find Haarsma’s answer quite convincing: God “accommodated his message” to the Israelite’s level of understanding, rather than handing them a scientific and historical textbook they wouldn’t understand:

God could have chosen to explain to the Israelites that their physical picture was mistaken, that the sky is actually a gaseous atmosphere covering a spherical earth. Instead, God chose a better approach: He accommodated his message to their understanding in order to make the intended message very clear.

— Deborah B. Haarsma

History Baked-In

Many YECs claim that God “created history” and gave the earth an old and weathered appearance, reminding me of those pre-ripped jeans you can buy at American Eagle. Of course, Haarsma admits it’s impossible to deny such a claim, but regardless, we should expect God to speak truthfully in nature:

First, how do we know that God didn’t simply create everything six thousand years ago but made it appear billions of years old? The short answer is, we don’t… Yet there is a profound spiritual difference… God’s activity in the natural world speaks to us just as truly as his words in Scripture, and we must take it seriously.

— Deborah B. Haarsma

An Old Earth

Haarsma lists the following scientific evidence for an old earth:

  1. Annual layers in glaciers, ice, and sedimentary rock
  2. Radiometric dating
  3. We can see light from galaxies millions of light-years away
  4. The expansion rate of the universe shows us how long ago things were packed together: ~14 billion years ago

Evolution

Haarsma believes in macroevolution and the “tree of life”. She discusses the tree of life and gradualism, using whale evolution as an example. Hugh Ross, in his response essay, criticizes this evidence, instead claiming that the fossil evidence for gradualism in whale evolution is very limited and falls short of certainty. Haarsma also believes the fossil record shows evidence of Homo sapiens evolving from earlier hominids, but admits the “exact line of descent” is still unclear.

At one point, Haarsma makes an important point that 49% of white evangelicals think evolution is still up for debate among scientists, but 99% of biologists agree that humans evolved. There is some debate about specific features or details of the theory, but there is no doubt in the scientific community that evolution occurred. She says something similar about human migrations:

The exact timeline of human migration is still being investigated, but it is clearly inconsistent with the first modern humans living only in the Middle East six thousand year ago.

— Deborah B. Haarsma

As a new piece of evidence for me, she cites chromosomal evidence for our descent from chimps: we have 23 pairs of chromosomes, while chimps have 24, suggesting that at some point in the past, two pairs of our chromosomes fused. We have evidence of this, as one specific pair of our chromosomes have telomeres in the middle, showing evidence of a past fusion. My research into this confirmed that this is indeed the prevailing scientific opinion— there are even remains of a vestigial, second centromere in our special pair of chromosomes (typically there is only one). We can also see a high similarity between this specific pair of chromosomes and two specific pairs of chromosomes in chimps. For me, this is good evidence of evolution. Of course, YECs deny this evidence.

Adam and Eve

First, the scientific evidence does not rule out the historicity of Adam and Eve; it only rules them out as sole progenitors.

— Deborah B. Haarsma

There are multiple possible interpretations of Genesis that align with science:

These theories of Adam and Eve affect specific Christian doctrines, but doesn’t deconstruct any of them. For example:

  1. The image of God (Genesis 1:26): if there is no historical Adam/Eve, and we instead “evolved”, how do we have the image of God?
    • There are multiple feasible interpretations of “image of God” that don’t require a miraculous human creation.
    • Could be intelligence, rationality, etc.
    • Could be about “spiritual capacity” and relationship with God
    • Could be about our “commission to represent God’s kingdom on earth”
  2. Original sin: if there is no historical Adam/Eve, how can Romans 5:12 “Just as sin entered the world through one man…” be true?
    • Even Romans 5:12 is not entirely literal even on its face, because both Adam and Eve sinned simultaneously.
    • A historical Adam/Eve are still not necessary.
    • All humans are still sinful and need Jesus’s atoning work.
  3. Death before the fall (Genesis 2-3, Romans 5:12): if death is the punishment for sin, how did death occur before a historical Adam/Eve?
    • “Death” could be referring to human death, which would not have occurred until after a historical or symbolic Adam/Eve.
    • “Death” could be referring to a spiritual death. For example, in Genesis 2:17, God says they will die if they eat the fruit, yet they experienced a spiritual death. (Though, as Ham points out, God does somewhat curse them with a physical death, saying “to dust you shall return” in Genesis 3:19)

Stephen Meyer: Intelligent Design

Stephen Meyer has a PhD in history and the philosophy of science, and helped found the Discovery Institute, where he is still the program director. The institute primarily exists to prop up the view of intelligent design (ID). His contribution to this book feels a little out of place, but only a little. He specifically mentions in his response to both Ken Ham and Hugh Ross that ID is “age-neutral” and essentially takes no official position on the age of the Earth, evolution, etc., stating that “the formal theory of intelligent design is clearly distinct from creationism in both method and content” (Meyer). In fact, it even “is not based upon the Bible”— the Discovery Institute welcomes those from other religions who share their belief in ID, which is:

The theory of intelligent design attempts to explain the observed complexity and information-rich structures found in living system and other features of life and the universe… [it] does not offer an interpretation of the book of Genesis, nor does it posit a theory about the length of the biblical days of creation or the age of the earth… [ID] proponents may have a variety of positions on such issues (or none at all).

…the theory of intelligent design holds that there are telltale features of living systems and the universe—for example the digital code in DNA, the miniature circuits and machines in cells, and the fine tuning of the laws and constants of physics— that are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected material process.

— Stephen Meyer

He spends a good bit of time trying to dissuade the audience that despite what the press says about intelligent design, it’s not pseudoscience (if you have to say that, it’s a red flag, if you ask me). His primary scientific argument about DNA, proteins, and the unlikelihood of evolution.

Those in favor of evolution claim that given enough time, even small, random genetic mutations can have large effects on life, and lead to different species that bear almost no resemblance to one another. Meyer argues that this is extremely unlikely, giving the example of generating a random protein:

…even a relatively short protein of, say, 150 amino acids, represents one sequence among an astronomically large number of other possible amino acid combinations (approximately 10^195). Intuitively, this suggests that the probability of finding even a single functional sequence… may be prohibitively small because of the sheer number of possible sequences… experiments revealed that for every one DNA sequence that generates a short functional protein of just 150 amino acids in length, there are 10^77 non-functional combinations…But during the entire 3.85 billion year history of life on Earth, only 10^40 individual organisms have ever lived… Yet 10^40 represents only a small fraction of 10^77…

It follows that it is overwhelmingly more likely (than not) that a random mutational search would have failed to produce even one new functional (information-rich) DNA sequence and protein in the entire history of life on earth… the neo-Darwinian mechanism does not provide an adequate explanation for the origin of the genetic information necessary to produce the major innovations in biological form that have arisen during the history of life on Earth.

— Stephen Meyer

Hugh Ross critiques this example, claiming that “recent research… shows protein space is far more densely populated by functional proteins than what Meyer acknowledges.” Haarsma makes a similar critique, and points out that “a bacterial enzyme that degrades nylon… arose within forty years of nylon being introduced to the environment and was the result of a mutation that produced a brand-new protein over three hundred amino acids long.” Meyer disputes these claims.

Meyer also discusses the origin of the first life. Because DNA is so tightly integrated into all life, he quotes research Bernd-Olaf Kuppers: “The problem of the origin-of-life is clearly basically equivalent to the problem of the origin of biological information.” He essentially purports that the origin of biological information has 3 possible naturalistic explanations, none of which have stood up to scientific rigor: chance, self-organizational laws, or some combination of the two.

The two most challenging criticisms of ID include:

  1. It’s an argument from ignorance. In other words, ID is a “placeholder for ignorance” when science can’t explain something (e.g. where the first cell came from). Meyer defends his view, explaining that ID is more than just a rebuttal of atheistic claims (though it is also that); it’s a claim in and of itself that life shows signs of intelligence. This sort of active claim is not one of ignorance or a lacking scientific explanation— it stands alone.
    • Haarsma makes a strong point in her response essay, pointing out that although ID does make active claims, they’re still potential victims of the “god of the gaps” fallacy— “If scientists discover a natural explanation for the phenomenon attributed to design, then the ID argument fails.” I largely agree.
  2. It’s not “scientific” because it extends past naturalism. This is a fair criticism; if naturalism is the only option you’re willing to accept, then ID is not a feasible explanation. Of course, Meyer still suggests its the most likely, regardless of its categorization.