ID's Arrogance: A Deconstruction

"In developing the argument of the First Cause we have seen that the world is essentially dependent on God, and this dependence implies in the first place that God is the Creator of the world -- the producer of its whole being or substance -- and in the next place, supposing its production, that its continuance in being at every moment is due to His sustaining power."

--The Catholic Encyclopedia

Laying out ID reasoning, I'm not shooting for sophism. There's a fundamental contradiction in their fundamentalist argument. I don't think I'm being unfair in characterizing ID with the following logical proof:

1. PREMISE: The world is complex.

2. PREMISE: This complexity cannot be explained by randomness.

3. Because randomness cannot account for the world's complexity, the world must be guided teleologically, i.e. by design.

4. A design or plan implies a designer.

This argument falls apart as most arguments do with definitions, in this case, with randomness. "In ordinary language, the word random is used to express apparent lack of purpose or cause. This suggests that no matter what the cause of something, its nature is not only unknown but the consequences of its operation are also unknown" (www.wikipedia.com).

Wrapped in the binary opposition of randomness/design is the idea that what appears random is actually random, rather than an instance of some larger pattern that we don't yet understand. IDers assume they know what random is, that they can define it, isolate it, and most of all, that what they think is randomness now will actually appear to be randomness in the future. Science is open to, in fact, searches for, explanations for what is apparently random. Science recognizes what is apparently random may, in fact, be a pattern we just don't understand. IDers want certainty, and they want it now.

In addition to being a methodology, science is an attempt to find order (a design) in the material world. Where the scientist sees randomness, he searches for order. IDers believe that what is apparently random is actually random. Because something appears random at this historical moment, it will be regarded as random a hundred years from now. They lack faith in science's ability to find order, and ironically discount the possibility that what appears to be random is, in fact, design.

IDers with a religious bent extend this arrogance even farther founding their arguments on the assumption that they know God's mind. Who is to say what we perceive as random to us is not order or part of a plan in God's eye? If God is the first cause of things in the material world, then everything is necessarily part of his plan. Randomness then is not truly random, but rather part of God's plan. To assume that we can understand and discount randomness is to assume that humanity cannot only know, but, in fact, does know God's mind. An arrogant assumption in my mind.