The Intelligent Design Debate and the Temptation of Scientism A Theological and Philosophical Analysis

The controversy over Intelligent Design (ID) has now continued for over two decades, with no signs of ending. For its defenders, ID is revolutionary new science, and its opposition is merely ideological. For its critics, ID is both bad science and bad theology. But the polemical nature of the debate makes it difficult to understand the nature of the arguments on all sides. A balanced and deep analysis of a controversial debate, this volume argues that beliefs about the purposiveness or non-purposiveness of nature should not be based merely on science. Rather, the philosophical and theological nature of such questions should be openly acknowledged. Review 'During the past few years, I have read many bad and (one way or the other) biased books on ID. The Intelligent Design Debate and the Temptation of Scientism is definitely not one of them. In fact, it might well be the best ID book I have ever got my hands on. It is impossible not to be impressed by the way Kojonen handles such a controversial and complex phenomenon. Throughout the book, Kojonen stresses the importance of a balanced, objec-tive analysis of ID – and this exactly what he himself succeeds in delivering. In the back cover endorsements, Jeffrey Koperski calls Kojonen’s book simply "the best place for students and scholars to start if they are trying to understand the arguments surrounding ID". I could not agree more.' Juuso Loikkanen, University of Easter Finland, European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (ESSSAT) About the Author Dr. Erkki Vesa Rope Kojonen is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Theology. He is also the editor of the Finnish Science and Theology magazine Areiopagi.fi, and has participated widely in discussions on science and theology both in his home country and internationally. His research interests also include the general discussion between faith and reason, philosophy of science as well as theology more generally. He was born in 1982, is married and lives in Espoo, Finland with his wife and three children. Cover 1 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Acknowledgements 8 1 Introduction 10 The purpose of this book 10 The temptation of scientism 13 The structure of the argument 16 2 Mapping the landscape of the debate 19 Intelligent Design’s story 19 ID and varieties of creationism 26 ID’s struggle against naturalism 33 The possibility of natural theology 36 3 The cosmological debate 42 Fine-tuning for the existence of complex life 43 Fine-tuning for discoverability 46 Design arguments and critiques 49 Level-shifting and the need for explanations 53 4 The biological debate 57 Biological ‘machinery’ and ‘information’ 58 Understanding evolutionary biology 64 Irreducible complexity? 69 How to explain the unexplained? 76 5 Intelligent Design as science or pseudoscience 82 Methodological naturalism and ID’s critique 83 Defending methodological naturalism 87 On the difficulties of defining science 91 6 The designer of the gaps? 97 ID’s understanding of the designer 98 Natural theology and ID as idolatry 102 The God of the gaps critique 106 Theologies of the gaps 111 7 The intuitive possibility of design 116 The importance of thought experiments 117 Examples of thought experiments 119 Critical responses to thought experiments 124 Design as an intuitive belief 128 Perception of design or design argument? 132 8 The logic of design arguments 136 Traditional formulations of the design argument 136 The inference to the best explanation 142 Different strategies for defending the argument 147 The inference to the only explanation 149 9 Design, natural evil and bad design 158 Understanding the problem 159 Explaining evil within id? 165 A patchwork quilt of responses 171 10 Intelligent Design and theistic evolutionism 178 Design and evolution in competition 178 The compatibility of evolution and design? 184 Theistic evolutionism and the evidence 191 Afterword: towards better discussion of Intelligent Design 199 Bibliography 204 Index 232 Erkki Vesa Rope Kojonen. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.