文档介绍：PCID , November 2004
© Jonathan Wells and ISCID 2004
Using Intelligent Design Theory to Guide Scientific Research
by
Jonathan Wells, .
Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute
May 10, 2004
Intelligent Design theory (ID) can contribute to science on at least two
levels. On one level, ID is concerned with inferring from the evidence whether a
given feature of the world is designed. This is the level on which William
Dembski's explanatory filter and Michael Behe's concept of irreducible
complexity operate. It is also the level that has received the most attention in
recent years, largely because the existence of even one intelligently designed
feature in living things (at least prior to human beings) would overturn the
Darwinian theory of evolution that currently dominates Western biology.
On another level, ID could function as a "metatheory," providing a
conceptual framework for scientific research. By suggesting testable hypotheses
about features of the world that have been systematically neglected by older
metatheories (such as Darwin's), and by leading to the discovery of new features,
ID could indirectly demonstrate its scientific fruitfulness.
In November 2002, Bill Dembski, Paul Nelson and I visited the Detroit
headquarters of Ideation, Inc. Ideation is a thriving business based on TRIZ, an
acronym for the Russian words meaning "Theory of Inventive Problem Solving."
Based on a survey of essful patents, TRIZ provides guidelines for finding
solutions to specific engineering or manufacturing problems. When Ideation's
president took us out to lunch, he told us that before ID could be taken seriously
it would have to solve some real problems.
TOPS
I was inspired by this to sketch out something I called a Theory of
Organismal Problem-Solving (TOPS). Strictly speaking, I suppose the biological
equivalent of TRIZ would survey essful experiments for guidelines to solve
research