Intelligent Design Article - History & Philosophical Defense

Intelligent design is an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins that challenges strictly materialistic views of evolution. According to Darwinian biologists such as Oxford's Richard Dawkins (1986: 1), livings systems “give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” But, for modern
Darwinists, that appearance of design is entirely illusory. Why? According to neo-Darwinism, wholly undirected processes such as natural selection and random mutations are fully capable of producing the intricate designed-like structures in living systems. In their view, natural selection can mimic the powers of a designing intelligence without itself being directed by an intelligence of any kind.

In contrast, the theory of intelligent design holds that there are tell-tale features of living systems and the universe – for example, the information-bearing properties of 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. The theory does not challenge the idea of “evolution” defined as either change over time or common ancestry, but it does dispute Darwin's idea that the cause of biological change is wholly blind and undirected. Either life arose as the result of purely undirected material processes
or a guiding intelligence played a role. Design theorists affirm the latter option and argue that living organisms look designed because they really were designed.

Stephen Meyers presents an informative history and defense for the theory of intelligent design here. One noteworthy portion is where he refutes those who question whether the theory of intelligent design is "scientific".