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posted 23. September 2003 10:37
The Intelligent Design Theory and the Rehabilitation of Analogical Knowledge
by Jakob Wolf
ABSTRACT—The purpose of this essay is to argue that the Intelligent Design theory is not a theory in natural science, but it is still a valid form of reasoning and essential to the proper understanding of nature. Intelligent Design theory is natural science as far as it scrutinizes the scope of the Darwinian mechanism. But in its core Intelligent Design theory is not a theory in natural science, because the assertion that only an intelligent cause can explain the evolution of central biological systems is based on analogical knowledge. It is based on the analogy of a biological system and a man-made machine. The fact that Intelligent Design theory is based on an analogical mode of cognition disqualifies the theory as a theory in natural science, because theories in natural science are based on a causal mode of cognition, but it does not disqualify it as such. There are good arguments supporting the theory. Especially Kant and the phaenomenological philosophy underpin Intelligent Design theory by showing that analogical reasoning is no mere option. The fact that an irreducibly complex system resembles a man-made machine is no subjective arbitrary observation but a non-optional shared cognition. Intelligent Design theory should not replace Darwinism as a theory in natural science; it should replace Darwinism as a naturalistic ideology. Darwinism becomes a naturalistic ideology when it becomes a belief that the Darwinistic mechanism some day will be able to explain biological systems, which Intelligent Design theory has described as being irreducibly complex. The assertion that these biological systems can only be explained by an intelligent cause is better founded, than the Darwinian ideology. The central motive of Intelligent Design theory is to criticise the Darwinian naturalistic ideology. But the effectiveness of this challenge does not depend on the formulation of Intelligent Design theory as a theory in natural science.
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