The first claim is uncontroversial: we can often recognize the effects of design in nature. For example, unintelligent physical forces like plate tectonics and erosion seem quite sufficient to account for the origin of the Rocky Mountains. Yet they are not enough to explain Mount Rushmore.
Of course, we know who is responsible for Mount Rushmore, but even someone who had never heard of the monument could recognize it as designed. Which leads to the second claim of the intelligent design argument: the physical marks of design are visible in aspects of biology. This is uncontroversial, too.
What a curious use of the word "uncontroversial," and what a deliberate abuse of the word "design." If one uses the word "design" merely to imply an "arrangement," something that could come into being without intelligence, then the first two claims
might be "uncontroversial." We can see and recognize that things are arranged in nature. Snowflakes and crystals are clearly symmetrically arranged, planets tend to be smooth and spherical (and their ring systems display obvious patterns), some volcanoes produce symmetrical cones, and wind can blow sand into pleasant wave-shaped patterns. These are hardly haphazard or confused structures.
But if one uses the word "design" to mean "a planned scheme," then the first two claims are far from "uncontroversial."
A typical dictionary or thesaurus lists both meanings for "design": an arrangement or pattern without the connotation of a designer, and a planned scheme or composition deliberately created by a designer. People can agree with Behe using the former definition, but Behe doesn't explain that he is really using the latter.
The next claim in the argument for design is that we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that doesn't involve intelligence. Here is where thoughtful people part company. Darwinists assert that their theory can explain the appearance of design in life as the result of random mutation and natural selection acting over immense stretches of time. Some scientists, however, think the Darwinists' confidence is unjustified. They note that although natural selection can explain some aspects of biology, there are no research studies indicating that Darwinian processes can make molecular machines of the complexity we find in the cell.
This is disingenuousness, pure and simple. Eugenie Scott spoke about this at length at TAM2. Behe wrongly and dishonestly equates evolution with Darwinism. The fact that scientists disagree with Darwin does not, by itself, mean that they endorse Behe's thesis. The business about "no research studies" is either wrong, or my university Biology professor was lying to me.
The fourth claim in the design argument is also controversial: in the absence of any convincing non-design explanation, we are justified in thinking that real intelligent design was involved in life. To evaluate this claim, it's important to keep in mind that it is the profound appearance of design in life that everyone is laboring to explain, not the appearance of natural selection or the appearance of self-organization.
The strong appearance of design allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious.
The illogic of this "simple argument" is stunning. First, it assumes what it is trying to prove, saying that we should take for granted that there has been intelligent design, unless there is "convincing" or "compelling" evidence to the contrary. Second, it is fundamentally unscientific. It assumes that we should throw up our hands and conclude that there is no natural explanation, rather than learn whether such an explanation may exist. In other words, it is a waste of time to try to find any "convincing" or "compelling" evidence. Third, it sets up a false dichotomy, namely, that if Darwin was wrong in any respect, then intelligent design must be right. Fourth, the whole argument is based upon ignorance. Intelligent design is not based upon affirmative evidence of design or the existence of any designer, but upon a lack of evidence that there was no intelligent design. When someone argues that he is right because of the
lack of evidence supporting his position, it is a pretty safe bet that he is dead wrong.
Behe says that intelligent design is a "rival theory" to "Darwinism" (which he dishonestly suggests is the same as evolution). What nonsense. Intelligent design is not a "theory" in the same sense as evolution. Intelligent design is not subject to test, and makes no predictions. (Based upon principles of evolution, scientists--including Darwin himself--have made predictions and have subjected the principles to test.) Moreover, the "rivalry" is only in the religious and political arenas not in the scientific arena. In science, the "rivalry" is non-existent. Peer reviewed scientific journals do not recognize any such rivalry, and the vast majority of practicing scientists do not recognize any such rivalry.
