American readers have become accustomed to seeing public debates about Darwinism and evolutionary theory couched in terms of a rivalry between scientists and creationists. According to this rather simplistic scheme, the scientists claim that science disproves the existence of God, while the creationists fight back by citing the authority of the Bible.

Recently, a “third way” of approaching this debate has emerged: a new theory that goes by the name “Intelligent Design.” Intelligent Design theorists argue that the real debate should be understood as a conflict between scientists and other scientists—not science and religious belief. Further, they argue that science, far from disproving the existence of God, actually demonstrates that God, the Grand Designer, does indeed exist.

The Intelligent Design movement uses new tools to make an old argument. In his fifth proof of God’s existence, St. Thomas Aquinas observed that we see, in nature, things which have no intelligence (for example, bees) acting in complex ways—ways which suggest some intelligent design. There must be, then, some intelligent source outside these natural things by which they are directed in such complex behavior to their proper ends. That source, St. Thomas argues, is God.

But “we now have a vast array of new empirical data on which to base a modern argument from design that we did not have as recently as 50 years ago,” says Dr. Dean Kenyon. He continues:

This development is due largely to the stunning progress in molecular biology after World War II. The remarkable fact is that we are now aware of the existence within our own bodies of a vast submicroscopic realm of mind boggling specified and irreducible complexity. . . . So if the historical argument to design has always been accessible or convincing to the common man without scientific or philosophical training because it was based on ordinary experience and common sense, we now have an extension of ordinary experience developed by 20th century molecular biologists, many of them who are even nonbelievers, which provides a new route to the same conclusion—that is, that living organisms were designed by an intelligent agent.

(Those interested in learning more about the Intelligent Design movement may visit the web site for the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture at www.discovery.org/crsc. Several important books on Intelligent Design have appeared recently. Readers might want to begin with Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, and William Dembski’s Intelligent Design and Mere Creation.)

Just what is Intelligent Design, and how did the Intelligent Design movement come about?

David DeWolf: Intelligent Design is a theory that nature points beyond itself to some source of order or design. It is a return to the implication of design which was assumed for most of recorded history. In fact, it was only as a result of Darwin’s theory that scientists thought they might be able to explain the appearance of design by something other than actual design.

How is Intelligent Design theory different from creationism?

DeWolf: To respond to the popular notion of what each term means, Intelligent Design is an inference from scientific evidence about the fact of design, without attempting to identify the designer or speculate as to why the designer followed one path rather than another.

“Creationism” is often associated with a movement called “scientific creationism” or “creation science,” which was suggested in the 1960s and 1970s as a means of offering a biblically-based theory in public school classrooms. It suffered from the appearance that it had started with a biblical account and then began searching for evidence that would support it. In that respect its methodology differs from that of the Intelligent Design movement, which starts with the scientific evidence of design in nature and looks for the best explanation of it

Creationism did precede the modern Intelligent Design movement, then?

Kenyon: Yes. Scientific creationism, which in its modern phase began in the early 1960s, is actually one of the intellectual antecedents of the Intelligent Design movement.

We usually associate creationism with Protestant fundamentalism. How do Catholics fit in?

Kenyon: Catholics have sometimes been reluctant to examine the new arguments of the Intelligent Design movement because they do not wish to associate themselves with what they regard as Christian fundamentalist thinking. But the historical reality is that certain segments of Christian fundamentalism have in fact been the guardians of important strands of the empirical case against neo-Darwinism and in favor of creation by an intelligent agent. I can remember in the 1950s when Catholics —with exceptions, of course—generally were reluctant to accept the claims of neo-Darwinism, especially those related to the origin of humans. But just 20 years later, by the mid-1970s, the situation became radically different, with many Catholics, both priests and laity—including the faculties at Catholic universities—embracing some form of theistic evolution.

Theistic evolution is not compatible with Intelligent Design? Why?

Kenyon: Theistic evolution was a view popularized by Teilhard de Chardin, and it is not at all compatible with Intelligent Design theory. Theistic evolutionists like de Chardin accept all of the empirical claims of the materialist evolutionists, including those concerning the mechanisms of evolutionary change, and then assert that the entire naturalistic process was somehow guided by God. But I see no meaningful distinction, then, between naturalistic (that is, materialistic) and theistic evolution.

Is there a contradiction, then, in the effort to “baptize” materialist evolution by tacking on to Darwinism, or neo-Darwinism, the notion that evolution was somehow guided by God?

Kenyon: That’s right. At the core of neo-Darwinism is the philosophical claim that the processes of evolution are unguided and the outcomes are unplanned. Species are the result of fortuitous, unplanned genetic variations in individuals, of chance events in small populations, and of natural selection. Neither human beings, nor any other species of organism, were either foreseen or intended. Such a view, in my judgment, is totally incompatible with a truly theistic world view.

Let’s get back to the Intelligent Design movement itself. Dr. Kenyon, you are a biophysicist. What are some of the essential scientific insights of this movement?

Kenyon: Well, the modern Intelligent Design movement grew out of recent developments in empirical science, and it’s especially grounded in the data of molecular biology. For example, in regard to the origin of life, unaided matter and energy do not have the capacity to reach the living state from simpler hypothetical precursor states as neo-Darwinism claims. Instead, our increasingly detailed empirical knowledge of the chemistry of carbon compounds shows that the chemical trends within any presumed “prebiotic soup” would have been away from the living state, not toward it.

According to the standard materialist account of evolution, billions and billions of years ago there was on earth a kind of chemical “soup” and from this lifeless soup somehow living things arose. What discoveries in particular led you to reject this account?

Kenyon: The standard account has many flaws—not the least of which is the fact that there is no geochemical evidence for the existence of a prebiotic soup!

But how do you account for those experiments which supposedly showed that we can create the building blocks of life, amino acids, out of just such a chemical soup?

Kenyon: Stanley Miller’s famous experiment, first performed in the early 1950s, presumably simulated the earth’s primitive atmosphere. Using a mixture of methane, ammonia, molecular hydrogen, and water vapor, and supplying energy with an electric discharge, he produced small amounts of a few amino acids and other substances which occur in living cells. But less well known is the fact that the dominant trend of the chemistry occurring in these experiments is toward non-biological material—that is, amber gunk which coats the inside of the apparatus. Moreover, such experiments routinely leave molecular oxygen out of the apparatus even though geological evidence suggests that oxygen may well have been present in the earth’s early atmosphere.

Why do they leave oxygen out of such experiments?

Kenyon: If molecular oxygen is present, then it destroys, by oxidation, any biochemicals that form. Of course, we should add that if both hydrogen and oxygen are together in a mixture of gasses supplied with electric sparks, the apparatus might explode!

So the Miller-type experiment does not, in this regard, match the actual chemical environment of the early earth?

Kenyon: Correct. In this instance, the oxygen is left out of the experiments because of a requirement of chemical evolution theory, not because we have evidence that it was absent from the primitive atmosphere.

And there are many more difficulties. For example, the energy used to initiate the chemical reactions in these simulation experiments—electric sparks, ultraviolet and other types of radiation, heat—would actually have destroyed the more complex products they presume were created. The energy sources, rather than being creative, would have interacted with the presumed prebiotic carbon compounds in such a way that the destruction of chemicals would have predominated over their synthesis.

Finally, we have no plausible naturalistic account of the prebiotic origin of genetic information—that is, of the origin of specific biologically meaningful linear sequences of nucleotides in DNA and RNA. These are just some of the reasons why I think the empirical case against a chemical evolutionary origin of life is overwhelming.

What other developments helped to give birth to the Intelligent Design movement?

Kenyon: The explosive growth of our knowledge of the amazingly complex molecular genetic systems operating within living cells, especially the enormous density of submicroscopic information stored in DNA and RNA, has led many scientists to conclude that living cells were designed by a superintelligent Agent outside of nature.

What do you mean by the “density of submicroscopic information”?

Kenyon: The number of bits of information stored in a cubic millimeter of tightly packed DNA exceeds, by many orders of magnitude, the information storage capacity of the same volume in any computer’s memory. DNA’s information density is 1.9 x 1018 bits per cubic millimeter—by far the highest density of information storage known to humans. The information stored in a single microscopic human cell is more than the total amount of information contained in a 30-volume set of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

From this you conclude that DNA must have been designed by a superintelligent agent outside of nature?

Kenyon: Yes. This stunning conclusion is partly due to the strong analogy between the molecular genetic system and human language. In both cases, linear sequences of symbols carry encoded messages.

So DNA comes in intelligently designed “sentences” and when scientists peer into the submicroscopic world of DNA, they find not mere random arrangements, but well-written “instruction books.”

Kenyon: Yes: masterpieces of immense intricacy and subtlety.

And you argue that these biological “sentences” in DNA could not have arisen merely by material means, as evolutionists suggest?

Kenyon: No. Just as the chemistry and physics of ink and paper do not determine the order of symbols in a printed text, but that order must be impressed on the ink from the “outside,” so also the order of the bases, or subunits, in DNA [adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine, or A, T, G, and C as commonly represented] is not determined by the known chemical tendencies of these individual subunits, but instead appears to have been impressed from the “outside” on the subunits to create just those sequences that make biological sense.

For these and other reasons, we are, in my opinion, on the verge of a major intellectual revolution.

Could this revolution be something on the order of the Copernican revolution of 500 years ago?

Kenyon: Yes, on that order.

You are a Catholic. Granted that Intelligent Design theory restricts itself to the natural realm, certainly the insights that you have gained from your research must still affect your understanding of the faith.

Kenyon: My work on the empirical case for the intelligent design of the molecular genetic system has had a salutary effect on certain aspects of my understanding of the faith, especially on questions related to the origin of the cosmos and of living organisms.

I’m taking it that it has not always been this way—that you were not always so skeptical about the claims of evolutionary theory. You were the co-author of a best-selling, advanced textbook on chemical evolution in the 1970s.

Kenyon: Yes, that’s right. Ever since my days at the University of Chicago, during which I attended the Darwin Centennial celebration in 1959 and heard many of the luminaries of neo-Darwinism, including Darwin’s grandson and Julian Huxley, I was convinced that the Darwinists and the chemical evolutionists like Oparin, Urey, Miller, and Fox had essentially the correct account of the origin and development of life. I did postdoctoral research in Melvin Calvin’s lab at University of California at Berkeley, and collaborated there with Gary Steinman in writing Biochemical Predestination. It wasn’t until after I taught the evolution course at San Francisco State University for ten years that I began seriously to doubt the evolutionary account.

I had growing doubts about the transition series of fossils and about the chemical evolution experiments—such as Miller’s—and became increasingly uncomfortable making the standard evolutionary claims to students because these claims could not be supported in the scientific literature.

More recently you have published Of Pandas and People, which is based in Intelligent Design theory. How has it been received?

Kenyon: Of Pandas and People presents a positive case for Intelligent Design perspectives and offers many criticisms of evolutionary thought. It was designed as a supplementary biology textbook for high school and junior college students, and I have used it in my “Origin of Life” class at San Francisco State University. Thousands of copies have been sold in small lots and to individuals, but major adoptions by school districts have often been thwarted by the threat of lawsuits. This is unfortunate since many people have found the book to be a refreshingly balanced scientific treatment of a controversial topic in our culture and also a valuable aid in the development of critical thinking.

I think we are now entering into David DeWolf’s area of expertise now. Dr. DeWolf, what is your role at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Renewal of Science and Culture?

DeWolf: The Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture is focused on helping scientists who do research that is open to the Intelligent Design hypothesis, and on making that research available to the public. My part in the scheme is to identify the legal barriers that have been raised and to dispel the impression that the presentation of Intelligent Design theory—when taught alongside other theories of origins—would violate any legal standards.

How successful have you been so far?

DeWolf: We’ve been very successful in promoting some high quality science. Books are now appearing and scholarly articles are getting published that establish the power of Intelligent Design as an alternative to Darwinism. Legally speaking, we haven’t had big successes in the courts yet, but eventually we’ll be successful there. Part of the problem is that the Intelligent Design movement is comparatively young.

So it is still being confused with “creationism”?

DeWolf: That’s right.

Another difficulty is that there is a lot of institutional resistance from people who have adopted Darwinism as something close to a religion or a worldview.

What are the legal obstacles faced by the Intelligent Design movement in seeking a public hearing, especially in public schools?

DeWolf: Many who champion a Darwin-only presentation maintain that science is strictly materialistic and can’t allow consideration of evidence that nature points beyond itself. Since there are court cases that discourage the teaching of creation science in public school classrooms, the current tactic used against our point of view is to claim that Intelligent Design is just warmed-over creation science and should be treated the same.

You are now involved in a case along those lines, aren’t you? In West Virginia, a school wanted to adopt Dr. Kenyon’s book Of Pandas and People as a supplementary textbook, but the American Civil Liberties Union stepped in and had the book banned on the grounds that it was a religion book.

DeWolf: Yes, I’ve followed the case and have sent a letter to the attorney for the school board, recommending a more open approach to the issue.

Good luck! Dr. DeWolf, you too are Catholic. How has your involvement with the Intelligent Design movement affected your faith?

DeWolf: The Roman centurion whose servant was ill simply accepted Jesus’ authority without understanding much about theology. Jesus responded “not even in Israel have I found such faith.” Intelligent Design is a sophisticated way of establishing that our faith is well placed—that the claims of the Church are borne out by what we see in a microscope or deduce from radiospectography. The Holy Father put the problem very well in Fides et Ratio: that these two ways of experiencing the world are different, but complementary. Scientific knowledge will never be a substitute for faith, any more than sophisticated theology can be a substitute for the humility of the Roman centurion. But to be able to establish the harmony between the two is a great gift, and it’s one of the things that makes the Intelligent Design effort so gratifying.

Intelligent Design arguments, then, aid faith, but are not a substitute for faith.

DeWolf: Yes, that’s right. All of us are vulnerable to lingering doubts that “maybe this is only wishful thinking.” Modern materialistic philosophy, which still has tremendous influence in academic circles, has treated religion as a kind of wishful thinking.

Providing evidence that Intelligent Design is actually better science than science based in a materialistic view of the world is similar to Jesus showing doubting Thomas the wounds in his hands and side. Thomas already had good reason to believe that Jesus would fulfill the promises he made while he was with the disciples. But Thomas wanted more evidence. He didn’t want to take the risk that his fellow disciples were engaged in wishful thinking. You don’t need Intelligent Design to prove the existence of God. But if you are troubled by the contrary “evidence” offered by materialism, it may help reassure you that you aren’t just believing in a fairy tale.

So you see Intelligent Design as a way for reason to clear away the obstacles to faith?

DeWolf: I’d accept that—with this caveat: it can help clear away certain intellectual obstacles to faith. But the other kind may prove to be more intractable!

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