Reply #35: Intelligent design theory is an oxymoron

[Ellen Forradalom]

"It's so complex we can't possibly understand it therefore it is the work of a creator" is not the product of the scientific method.

First, it freezes the state of our understanding of nature as of today. I don't think that anyone disputes the enormous challenge that the study of nature poses. But to simply explain it as "the work of a creator" is to reject that study. It is puzzling after several hundreds years of dizzying strides in our understanding of natural phenomena.

Second, to simply point to a creator explains nothing. It simply opens questions--What is the nature of this creator? How did this creator do the job? -- for which there is no proposed method for determining the answer.

The question of a creator, and the questions of the workings of nature, are answerable by separate methods, the first by philosophical and theological reasoning, and the second by empirical study. And both must be accepted as fields where knowledge is never complete.

What I'd like to know is why does anyone have to write the above four paragraphs in this day and age?