- Some scientists claim that ID is not a scientific idea. They say that ID is not science because it is not testable. Yet, scientists often put the claims of ID to the test with observable evidence. The claims of ID scholars are often under fire in science journals and meetings of scientists. Most often, the work of Michael Behe is challenged by other scientists. Typically, the critics of ID attack a wrong understanding of ID, or the critics fail to provide evidence showing that ID is wrong. For an idea that is said to be "unscientific," ID is the target of many failed attempts to show it wrong. By being tested by evidence, ID is shown to be a valid scientific concept. (more)

- The reasoning of Charles Darwin helps to make ID a valid science idea in three different ways.

• First, Darwin called on examples of intelligence to argue for the power of natural selection. Darwin argued that artificial selection (breeding by intelligent humans) was evidence in favor of natural selection. Perhaps by mistake, Darwin used intelligent causes as evidence for his theory.
• Second, Darwin did not know how variation, or change, happened in living things. Darwin also did not know what caused inheritance, that is, Darwin did not know how these changes were passed on. Darwin could not explain how variation or inheritance worked, and yet his idea of natural selection convinced many scientists. This is because Darwin was arguing from the effect to a cause (visible differences between life forms to natural selection). Darwin was not arguing that the way the changes happen (a mechanism of change in life) leads us to conclude that selection is true. ID scholars also reason in a similar way. Under its current form, ID also has no explanation for how a designer may have caused life’s symbolic codes, functional information, and sophisticated machines. Like Darwin, ID also reasons from the effect to the cause (symbolic codes and high-tech machines to intelligence).
• Third, Darwin used 'vera causa' reasoning. 'Vera causa' means that a scientific idea should call upon "causes now in operation" (Lyell) and "to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances" (Newton). ID uses 'vera causa' reasoning. The one and only known "cause now in operation” of codes and high-tech machines is intelligence. This is a plain fact. Without confirmed evidence of other origins of life’s codes and high-tech machines, intelligence should be considered as an option for explaining life’s codes and machines. Strictly enforced, 'vera causa' would almost totally dismiss the case for blind evolution as the cause of life's codes and sophisticated machines.

Given these three ways that Darwin reasoned, intelligent design should at least be admitted as an option in biology, and perhaps the option preferred by current evidence.

- Often, scientists imagine how some body part could have evolved, then scientists assume the part evolved that way, and any other possibility like intelligent design is out. Evidence is irrelevant. Darwinists have no confirmed evidence that random mutations and natural selection can incrementally build life’s molecular machines and coded information. Very weak evidence is combined with a Darwinian fairytale, and poof! Darwinism is the answer. This is not good science, and when evidence is absent this storytelling should be treated as guesswork.(more)

- Some biologists claim to know that life is not designed and that evolution is blind. Don’t be fooled. Claims like this are two-edged swords. If they know through science that life is not designed, then this means they have a method or process to tell the difference between something designed and something not designed. What is that method? Odds are that they do not have a method, but are relying on word games or speculation, not evidence.

- Scientists often say that what they are studying in life is "more complex than once thought." Why do they say this so often? Today’s normal view of evolution sees the growth of all life as unguided in a step-by-step gradual process. In this view, life began by blind processes. Since life began it has grown and become more complex by other blind processes, so they say. This 'blind simple-to-complex' view controls biology right now. Against this view, life shows immense sophistication from its very beginning. The prime case in point is the information system of life, which was present from the earliest known life to today. This 'blind simple-to-complex' view of life is harming science and is slowing research progress. Scientific ideas inspired by design deserve a great deal more attention.(more and more)

- In New Zealand, there is a lizard called tuatara that has been around for about 225 million years. Because of its old age, it is often called a "living dinosaur." Tuatara is also the fastest known evolving vertebrate animal. 225 million years of rapid change in the genes has done pretty much nothing. A species that has been around that long has seen a lot of change in its environment, yet natural selection seems to have done, well, nothing much. Despite an amazing amount of genetic change, and many ages for natural selection to act on this lizard, physical change is absent. Of course, evolution is much more complex than once thought.

- In a living cell, the DNA has copy errors that can cause changes in the organism or its offspring. If the change is helpful and can be passed on, the descendants of the changed organism tend to reproduce better. Done many times over within a population, this process creates an evolutionary search. A “blind search” is a search process that generates changes at random. When life’s evolutionary processes perform better than blind search, it is because evolution used information supplied by a fitness function. A fitness function is a process which finds possible solutions based on the target or the choices in order to find a better solution. A fitness function is absent from a blind search. The fitness functions used by living organisms are formed by some process, and a fitness function resulting from a blind search is a direct contradiction. Because fitness functions are part of the evolutionary process, Darwinian evolution is teleological, or goal-oriented. This flies in the face of most people’s view of evolution, including contradicting some Nobel Laureates, and is more evidence that points to life being the result of intelligent design.

- A main part of intelligent design research focuses on detecting design in biology. Design detection in biology means creating methods that help decide if some part of an organism was designed by intelligence. These methods are becoming more and more crucial to science. This need will increase, and the need cannot be avoided. Genetic engineering, the intelligent designing of living things, is becoming stronger and stronger. We cannot avoid the fact that people who want to do harm to others will use genetic engineering as a weapon. Weapons developed through gene engineering are coming, and are probably already here. Developing design detection methods in biology are needed to tell the difference between a natural feature of life and a designed weapon within an organism. As investigation of biological threats advances, ID’s task of design detection in biology will be crucial to keep every nation safe.

- Studying the limits of Darwinism allows us to combat diseases caused by bacteria or viruses. By using drug combinations beyond the reach of mutation and selection, we can create antibiotics that diseases cannot beat. In his book The Edge of Evolution biochemist Dr. Michael Behe writes about the limits of blind Darwinian evolution to cause changes in a cell. This shows how ID is helping our ability to combat disease, and could help us stop bioterror attacks.

- In every place we look, from the design of the entire universe and the laws that govern it-to the molecular machines in the tiniest living things-to the human mind, the appearance of design is there. Some people who are skeptical of ID say that the appearance is an illusion. But, the thing about an illusion is that it breaks down when you look closer. The closer we look, and the more details we learn about the universe and living things, the case for design becomes stronger and stronger. It's no illusion.