The intelligent design debate and the temptation of scientism / Erkki Vesa Rope Kojonen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kojonen, Erkki V. R., author.

Series:

Routledge science and religion series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Intelligent design (Teleology).

Evolution (Biology)--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Evolution (Biology).

Scientism.

Physical Description:

viii, 225 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2016.

Summary:

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. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction 1

The purpose of this book 1

The temptation of scientism 4

The structure of the argument 7

2 Mapping the landscape of the debate 10

Intelligent Design's story 10

ID and varieties of creationism 17

ID's struggle against naturalism 24

The possibility of natural theology 27

3 The cosmological debate 33

Fine-tuning for the existence of complex life 34

Fine-tuning for discoverability 37

Design arguments and critiques 40

Level-shifting and the need for explanations 44

4 The biological debate 48

Biological 'machinery' and 'information' 49

Understanding evolutionary biology 55

Irreducible complexity? 60

How to explain the unexplained? 67

5 Intelligent Design as science or pseudoscience 73

Methodological naturalism and ID's critique 74

Defending methodological naturalism 78

On the difficulties of defining science 82

6 The designer of the gaps? 88

ID's understanding of the designer 89

Natural theology and ID as idolatry 93

The God of the gaps critique 97

Theologies of the gaps 102

7 The intuitive possibility of design 107

The importance of thought experiments 108

Examples of thought experiments 110

Critical responses to thought experiments 115

Design as an intuitive belief 119

Perception of design or design argument? 123

8 The logic of design arguments 127

Traditional formulations of the design argument 127

The inference to the best explanation 133

Different strategies for defending the argument 138

The inference to the only explanation 140

9 Design, natural evil and bad design 149

Understanding the problem 150

Explaining evil within ID? 156

A patchwork quilt of responses 162

10 Intelligent Design and theistic evolutionism 169

Design and evolution in competition 169

The compatibility of evolution and design? 175

Theistic evolutionism and the evidence 182.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781472472502

1472472500

OCLC:

919001487