Is Intelligent Design "Theory" Scientific?

According to the website for the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center ('IDEA'):

"Intelligent design is a scientific theory which has its roots in information theory and observations about intelligent action." http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/832

In many respects, admittedly, it looks like science.

1) It uses diagrams, scientific terms, and empirical observations.

(For example, Michael Behe is famous for having argued that the bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex. He supports this claim with information about the amount of proteins in its molecular structure) His book, Darwin's Black Box (1996) is a major intelligent design (ID) text.

2) It doesn't use religious terms, Bible references, or refer directly to the supernatural.

3) It uses mathematics, equations, algebra and lots of talk about probabilities. (For example William Dembski tries to use the No Free Lunch theorem: (wiki link here) 2002)

However, ID theory was ruled to be unscientific in the US federal courts in the Kitzmiller v Dover trial (2005). Judge Jones found that ID theory was nothing more than creationism in disguise, and the 'research' done by ID supporters lacked any support from peer-reviewed scientific journals. [link to legal reference]

In that trial, the cell biologist Ken Miller was a key witness. He showed firstly that many of Behe's claims are simply false (scientists can show how certain complex biochemical structures develop), and secondly that, unlike evolutionary biology, the arguments from ID creationists never propose an alternative hypothesis that is testable. Evolutionary biology has gradually told us more and more about the complex processes of cells and organisms, and is continuing to shed more light on how they work. Each time the ID theorists say that X is irreducibly complex, it merely provides yet another challenge for scientists to eventually explain.

[See Ken Miller's site]

Let us look back to the claims of the IDEA organisation. At the bottom of the webpage (link as above) they have written:

"In all of this, there have been no mentions of God, religion, or adherence to any religious text but rather we use observations about how intelligent design works in the present to look at aspects of the natural world to see if they are designed. Intelligent design theory is based solely upon applying observations about intelligent action and principles of information theory to the construction of biological systems, and nothing more. There is nothing mystical, supernatural, religious, or non-scientific about intelligent design theory. in its current form, intelligent design theory can also say nothing about the designer other than that the designer was intelligent. Whether you agree with the methodology of intelligent design theory or not, you have to agree with one thing: it has a scientific basis". [Needless to say, despite this protestation, the majority of scientists and philosophers are agreed that ID theory is not on a level with 'proper science'].

There is nothing wrong with challenging evolution. Challenging accepted theories is an important part of improving and developing new scientific understanding. However, ID theory fails to provide any testable hypotheses for scientists to investigate. It simply amounts to an expression of disbelief at the processes of nature, and suggests no other process of nature to explore.

ID theorists avoid mentioning what the intelligent designer is, but this is not actually a good strategy if they want to be scientific. (Note: By not saying it is God, they are apparently keeping their options open, but in reality almost all ID theorists are religious believers who take their holy text to be inerrant). This vagueness about the intelligent designer poses a problem: it places the intelligent designer beyond investigation.

A parallel example might be if someone (let's call her Jen) tried to find aspects of some theory in Particle Physics that are not fully explained or understood yet (such as the standard model). Now, it may well be that physicists may have to change their understanding of fundamental particles, (the Higgs Boson continues to be elusive, despite recent optimism, I believe...), however, if Jen then said that these anomalies were evidence that there is some other explanation involving a divine being, but refused to say what this other explanation is and how it might be tested, then Jen has not proposed a scientific hypothesis. She has merely pointed out difficult aspects of the currently accepted theory. Like a typical ID theorist, she might then argue that her explanation (an untestable being makes the particles behave the way they do at different times) should be taught alongside particle physics.

A website (venganza.org) was set up to protest against ID theory being taught in Kansas schools, by a man called Bobby Henderson. He made a parody religion called 'pastafarianism', and argued that his theory was the same as ID theory, but the intelligent designer was made of spaghetti and meatballs. His point was that if ID theory is a rival to evolution, then so is FSM. In fact, I would argue, the FSM would actually be more scientifically testable than traditional religions, as their concept of 'God' (the FSM) is more defined in terms of observational predictions of what their divine being looks like.

Daniel Dennett has written lots about this issue, and is recommended further reading. I have found the following article - [link here] - particularly enlightening, and will finish by including a few direct quotes from it, with comments:

"Saying, as intelligent design proponents do, "You haven't explained everything yet," is not a competing hypothesis. Evolutionary biology certainly hasn't explained everything that perplexes biologists. But intelligent design hasn't yet tried to explain anything".

In the quote above, Dennett is agreeing with Bobby Henderson in saying that ID is not a rival theory, as it proposes no alternative explanation. However, he argues the issue of creationism is more serious than the FSM website with its somewhat cheeky humour suggests:

"The focus on intelligent design has, paradoxically, obscured something else: genuine scientific controversies about evolution that abound. In just about every field there are challenges to one established theory or another. The legitimate way to stir up such a storm is to come up with an alternative theory that makes a prediction that is crisply denied by the reigning theory — but that turns out to be true, or that explains something that has been baffling defenders of the status quo, or that unifies two distant theories at the cost of some element of the currently accepted view.

To date, the proponents of intelligent design have not produced anything like that. No experiments with results that challenge any mainstream biological understanding. No observations from the fossil record or genomics or biogeography or comparative anatomy that undermine standard evolutionary thinking."

Here, Dennett is arguing that ID is not just unscientific, it is actually harmful to the progress of science, because it distracts from genuine research into controversies about how evolution works.