Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. This book seeks to spiritually unite by highlighting similarities in the texts. It sheds new light and dispels many preconceived ideas in separating what belongs to Revelation from what is the product of error or human interpretation The Bible, the Qur'an, and Science is an objective study of the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Qur'an.
It sheds new light and dispels many preconceived ideas in separating what belongs to Revelation from what is the product of error or human interpretation Get A Copy. Paperback , 7th Revised Expended Edition , pages. More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Bible, the Qur'an, and Science , please sign up. First published in ?
How so? Yousef Ghanimeh it must be in islamic years since muhammed's migration to yethreb …more it must be in islamic years since muhammed's migration to yethreb less. Does this book is in any othe language like english or hindi? Manal Other than french, the book has been published in persian, serbo-croate, turk, urdu, deutsch, bengali, indonesian and gougrati. You just have to pick …more Other than french, the book has been published in persian, serbo-croate, turk, urdu, deutsch, bengali, indonesian and gougrati.
You just have to pick your favorite : less. See all 7 questions about The Bible, the Qur'an, and Science…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Jun 14, Sarah Lameche rated it really liked it Shelves: favourites. There's so many books out there regarding science in Islam but usually they just don't go into enough depth for me. As a revert to Islam I spent many years researching, questioning, debating different religions.
I was often told the Quran revealed scientific matters that weren't even known then. The first section of the book shows how the Bible has been changed and ad Wow!
The first section of the book shows how the Bible has been changed and added to. How things scientifically are false. I did read this fully but to be honest after studying the bible, most of this I already knew so found it rather boring.
However I loved the comparison between the bible and Quran. Now the next bit regarding the science in the Quran actually blew my mind! Not just Muslims seeing what they want to see. But true! I defy anyone to read this book and not be astounded! Yes its not always an easy read but definitely worth the effort! View all 4 comments. Mar 16, Komal rated it liked it. A Christian pointing out flaws in the bible and defending Islam? What a surprise! I read it 6 years ago when I was 15 and obsessed with Islam and reread it today.
This book examines the bible and the Quran in the scientific context, and bases the book on the claim that the bible has been adulterated and contains scientific fallacies, while the Quran is in its original form and does not seem to contradict Science. The book is categorically divided into a variety of prophecies and scientifi A Christian pointing out flaws in the bible and defending Islam?
The book is categorically divided into a variety of prophecies and scientific facts that are presented as true in these two scriptures. All of it has to be INFERRED from the verses, and thus you always have to wonder how much Bucaille is reading into the scientific facts he is uncovering in the scriptures. I can't say anything about the biblical fallacies. There are countless amongst them. Examples: 1.
Astronomy in the Quran- "God is the one who created the night and the day, the sun and the moon. Each one is traveling in an orbit with its own motion. He claims nobody of that time could have imagined it. However, from a simplistic point of view, the people of that time clearly saw the sun and moon moving across the skies. It could just mean that. Evolution in Quran- "We made from water every living thing. However, once again, water is seen as a source of life due to its importance to the human body.
And every living thing needs water. Formation of the Universe and Multiple Earths Let me give you an example involving excerpts. On page , the book quotes the Quran verses sura 41 as saying " Moreover he turned to heaven when it was smoke and said to it and the earth: come willingly or unwillingly! They said: we come in willing obedience.
Then He ordained them seven heavens in two periods, and He assigned to each heaven its mandate by Revelation. And we adorned the lower heaven with luminaries and provided it a guard.. Then he says that "The Greeks and Romans have also used the number 7 to mean an undefined idea of plurality" there are no sources or explanation cited here and from this, states that the number 7 means "many".
He further goes on to say that this means the Quran is referring to multiple planet Earths, each of which received a revelation. I'd also like to mention that Bucaille talks about his claims as possible conclusions, not as facts. Anyway, to conclude, it's an interesting book, but it can make no definitive claims.
Give it a read. But don't expect shocking divine revelations. If you approach it with an open mind you may sometimes be mildly surprised at what's presented to you. View all 25 comments. Oct 04, Kendell rated it really liked it Shelves: books-i-own , islam.
Great book with a lot of historical and scientific comparisons from the Bible and Qur'an. I recommend that everyone read this book and reflect upon what is proven. View all 3 comments. There will always be at least something to judge in Bible and Torah but there will never be one thing you can judge in quran; no matter what.
Perfectionism exist in only in two thing in this world and it's Qur'an and the Islamic religion. The book basically explains the relation of the following books quran, Torah, and Bible with the modern science and proves that Qur'an matches nowadays science while the other two books do not. Sep 09, Maryam rated it it was amazing. It's astounding to note that the author was the one to discover the body of the Pharoah who pursued Moses during an investigation of the mummy's death that revealed it had drowned in the sea.
He immediately pronounced his findings but was surprised to be told that the Arab world had known of this for sometime, from the Qur'an surah Yusuf in which God proclaims that He will rescue Pharoah's body and preserve it for all to see and become a sign for mankind. Allahu akbar! View 1 comment. May 16, CekMoNSter rated it really liked it Shelves: english , deep-impact , islamic , non-fiction.
This book took me a while to finish.. I was first reading an ebook version on this before finding a hardcopy of it and had never found anything much like this.. A tough work on my small brain.
This was a book t. Christianity and This book took me a while to finish.. Christianity and Islam and I really learned a lot through my read.. I love that the author had repetitively said that he was trying to be as objective as he can, in viewing the Holy scriptures in the light of modern science So,there was no need to be emotional about this.. It was the Gospel that I never know. So, taking a dip inside its origin was a bit enlighting..
They also mirror their belief and theological ideas of which the evangelist were the spokesmen. One thing that hit me was about the how milk was produced.. How embryo develops inside the wombs, about Exodus the splitting of the sea in time of prophet Musa a. Qouting from the book.. It was therefore decided that comparisons would no longer be made.
Thus a serious situation arose which today we are forced to put Biblical experts in exegesis and scientist in opposition to one another. We cannot after all accept a divine revelation capable of stating facts which are totally inaccurate.. I agree with this! Certain commentators acknowledge some of them and do no hesistate in their work to tackle thorny problems. Others pass lightly over their unaccaptable statements and insist on defending the text word by word.
The latter try to convince people by apologetic declarations, heavily reinforced by arguments which are often unexpectedly in the hope that what is logically unacceptable will be forgotten.
Ignorant is the word for me -It was in a totally objective spirit and without any preconceived ideas that I first examined the Quranic Revelation. I knew from translation that the Quran often made allusion to all sorts of natural phenomena, but I onlu had a summary of knowledge. Qouting from the author: The ideas in this study are to be developed from a purely scientific point of view. Its a pity that I had some problem in understanding certain statements from this book due to its highly difficult English language usage for me I wish that I can read this in Malay translation..
But oh well, at least I finished! It has been proven to be an accurate reference for all of us, about everything that we need for life till the end of time.. Hopefully there are others that find this one as an eye-opening too Just a pity that the author touches a tiny bit about Hadith and science.. Wish that he explain further about that..
Nov 02, Mark rated it did not like it Shelves: theology. Very disappointed with this book. The book was recommended to me by a friend who comes from a muslim background who has been interested in understanding christianity and the bible. Rather than an even-handed examination of these two religious scriptures, I found a book filled with bias and misinformation. The author clearly wrote the book to demonstrate how the quran is superior to the bible. I often found the analysis at best, superficial, and at worse using fallacious logic.
FI found that the Very disappointed with this book. FI found that the analysis of the Bible was rooted in the high criticism tradition of the late 19th century which was built on assumptions which have been demonstrated to be faulty in the last years, but seem to hang on in some academic circles.
View 2 comments. Feb 26, Nur Huda rated it did not like it. Regarding the specific amount of science in the Bible and the Quran, this is not what I was expecting from a book claiming to be about science. I grew tired of reading it. The book very blatantly argues that the Qu'ran is much more scientifically valid than the Bible. I often Regarding the specific amount of science in the Bible and the Quran, this is not what I was expecting from a book claiming to be about science.
The analysis of the Bible was rooted in the high criticism under detailed historical scrutiny. The part dealing with the Qu'ran is however very disappointing! The author simply does NOT treat it with the same rigour as he did with the bible, which makes this book extremely biased.
The author clearly wrote the book just to demonstrate how the Quran is superior to the Bible. Here, muslims are seeing what they want to see. I would like to read criticism of the Quran, not necessarily as compared to the Bible and the Old Testament.
Jan 23, Awais Tahir rated it really liked it Recommends it for: All Christian brothers and sisters. When Truth is hurled against falsehood falsehood perishes for falsehood is by its nature bound to perish [ Surah Israa ] I request every Christian brother to read this book. Mar 17, Eliza rated it really liked it.
Dec 13, Chadiaoumaou rated it liked it. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. It seems that the book to clear his name of scientific comparison..
The first part contains the Torah and scientific contradictions and some of the contradictions is not acceptable, as well as followed by the second part, the Bible talks about Oll contradictions and things can not be reconciled with modern science, the thing that makes it really distorted and not sincere download my God. Morris Koran has studied scientifically without prec It seems that the book to clear his name of scientific comparison..
Morris Koran has studied scientifically without preconceived ideas of what, in spite of the campaign is an attempt to tarnish the image of the Holy Quran in a very great time, but the desire to search for the truth by himself, and this work Galilee.
I also believe that the combination of the mercy of God Maurice King Faisal, often encouraged him to look at the Koran, depending on the positive image that was imprinted in his mind King Faisal talk about the Koran and science in particular. In the third section talks about the verses and the approval of the miracle of modern science what it says, and the book is a scientific center, talks about the creation of the heavens and the earth, water, gas and astronomy in practice.
I have found some difficulty. The book works as a weapon, especially for those who have a lot of relationships and friction with non-Muslims have the wrong ideas, and this sponsor the book will give strong arguments are based on a scientific basis, - which of course is what drives the Western mind more than any other country - and.
I often wonder, in spite of the material and the age of science, which passes by the West, but find strange and adult book and other scientists gather around the Gospel texts which Aaqublha logic At the same time accuses the Koran charges blindly. It's actually Atamy the horizon, but their hearts in the breasts.. The book was nominated for the Friends of the non-Muslims who have some form of understanding with the Koran or you do not have..
Aagheroh increasingly satisfied even if you lack confidence. Personally, I feel that the book Masal scientifically and professionally, but I'm not a favorite book p least for the moment. Despite the important role played by Morris through this book to explain the mysterious things about the Koran when the Western community.
Translation of the book wrong. I did not feel they were good translator at all. Feb 17, Nafees Omar rated it it was amazing Shelves: non-fiction , science , research , islam.
The explanations and proofs clearly show how "The Holy Quran" had been way ahead of the time it descended on earth. And why shouldn't had it been? The creation of the earth, the universe, the humankind, and animals, the reasons behind them and so on which were written are scientifically proven only years ago whereas the Quran explained them years ago.
The facts and proofs are amazing. The modern knowledge Tremendous!! The modern knowledge has been evidently indebted to "The Holy Quran" for so many years. Mar 07, Retaj rated it did not like it. Very unconvincing book. I couldn't believe the author's way of proving the Quran agrees with science. Picking verses from here and there and give very shallow and unconvincing comments , truly as if someone was behind him to write this book. Saying that the 7 skies mentioned in the Quran means numerous numbers of skies is just a lie.
Wants to make it compatible with science. Such a hypocrite author. The Christian belief that the Father and son are equal is in direct contrast to the clear words from Jesus. Whatsoever you ask of the Father in my name. If Jesus was God, he would have sought worship for himself. How did Jesus pray to God? Who was Jesus praying to when he fell on his face? Was Jesus crying in tears to himself pleading to be saved from death? No man, sane or insane, prays to himself!
Can there be a clearer proof that Jesus was not God? This is a Way that is straight. Disciples did not believe Jesus was God. The Acts of the Apostles in the Bible details the activity of the disciples over a period of thirty years after Jesus was raised to heaven. Throughout this period, they never referred to Jesus as God. Sovereign Lord, they said, you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them. If Christ was God, the Bible would simply say that Jesus did the miracles himself without making reference to God.
The fact that it was God supplying the power for the miracles shows that God is greater than Jesus. Also, Jesus was limited in performing miracles. At one time when Jesus tried to heal a blind man, the man was not healed after the first attempt, and Jesus had to try a second time Mark Once a woman was healed of her incurable bleeding.
The woman came up behind him and touched his cloak, and she was immediately healed. The power of miracles was not within Jesus. The Bible says that at times of weakness angels strengthened Jesus. God, however, does not need to be strengthened.
Humans need to be strengthened; God does not because God is All-Powerful. Are some members of the coequal Trinity subservient, and less than equal, to other members? Jesus admits to subordinating his own distinct will, yet according to the Trinitarian doctrine they should all have the same will. Should one of the triune partners have to forgo his own will in favor of the will of another member of the Trinity?
Should not they all have the exact same will? Trust in God; trust also in me. Jesus grew in wisdom, but God is All Wise. Since Jesus did not know, he was not all-knowing, and therefore, he cannot be the God whose knowledge is All-Encompassing. Bible says that Jesus died, but God cannot die. The Bible teaches that Jesus died.
God cannot die. Romans and other verses say that God is immortal. Therefore, Jesus could not be God. Since Jesus was taught and commanded by God, Jesus cannot be God himself.
The teacher and the student, the commander and the commanded are not one. Therefore, Jesus was not God. Bible says that God cannot be seen. Bible says twice that Jesus was accused of being God. But he denied it: According to the Bible, on only two instances the Jews opposed Jesus on the basis that he pretended to be God or equal with God.
Had Jesus, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, claimed to be God, he is likely to have been opposed on this basis more frequently. Because in these two instances, when charged, in the one case, with making himself God, and in the other, with making himself equal with God, he denied the charges.
Such a claim of deity for himself would not have been consistent with his entire lifestyle as we can reconstruct. The first three decades of the existence of the church were within the synagogue.
That would have been beyond belief if they the followers had boldly proclaimed the deity of Jesus. What did it mean? We first need to know the language of his people, the language of the Jews to whom he was speaking.
For Jesus to be called son of God, does not make him a true son of God, otherwise Adam, Jacob, Ephraim and many more should also be considered as being sons of God, as such they should be worshipped too according to such method. In addition to nausea, symptoms include headaches and trouble locating your own limbs. Just like college, really. In weightlessness, fluids shift upward, causing nasal congestion and a puffy face; bones lose calcium, forming kidney stones; and muscles atrophy, slowing the bowels and shrinking the heart.
At the start of the workday on the space shuttle, mission control in Houston broadcasts wake-up music, usually selected with a particular astronaut in mind. On the all-work, no-play International Space Station, crews wake to an alarm clock. This actually happened in , when a space suit failed during a NASA experiment and the tester was exposed to a near vacuum for 15 seconds.
Lack of oxygen in the blood is what would kill you, but it would take about two minutes. Sprinkled grains would float away, tickling noses and clogging vents. A mock-up of the shuttle toilet, complete with built-in camera, is used to train them how to position themselves. Eighteen people have died on space missions, but never in space-always on the way up or the way down. Life is known to exist only on Earth, but in NASA found what they thought might be fossils of microscopic living things in a rock from Mars.
The astronomer Fred Hoyle said they came from space. Oxygen is circulated around the helmet in space suits in order to prevent the visor from misting. The gloves included in the space suit have silicon rubber fingertips which allow the astronaut some sense of touch. Ever wondered how the pull of gravity is calculated between heavenly bodies? Just multiply their masses together, and then divide the total by the square of the distance between them.
Glowing nebulae are named so because they give off a dim, red light, as the hydrogen gas in them is heated by radiation from the nearby stars. The Drake Equation was proposed by astronomer Frank Drake to work out how many civilizations there could be in our galaxy — and the figure is in millions. SETI is the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence — the program that analyzes radio signals from space for signs of intelligent life.
The Milky Way galaxy is whirling rapidly, spinning our sun and all its other stars at around million km per hour. The Sun travels around the galaxy once every million years — a journey of , light years.
There may be a huge black hole in the very middle of the most of the galaxies. The Universe is probably about 15 billion years old, but the estimations vary.
One problem with working out the age of the Universe is that there are stars in our galaxy which are thought to be 14 to 18 billion years old — older than the estimated age of the Universe. So, either the stars must be younger, or the Universe older. The Universe was once thought to be everything that could ever exist, but recent theories about inflation e. Big Bang suggest our universe may be just one of countless bubbles of space time. If you fell into a black hole, you would stretch like spaghetti.
Matter spiraling into a black hole is torn apart and glows so brightly that it creates the brightest objects in the Universe — quasars. The swirling gases around a black hole turn it into an electrical generator, making it spout jets of electricity billions of kilometers out into space. The opposite of black holes are estimated to be white holes which spray out matter and light like fountains. A day in Mercury lasts approximately as long as 59 days on earth.
Nicolaus Copernicus was the astronomer who first suggested that the Sun was the centre, and that the Earth went round the sun. The ideas of Copernicus came not from looking at the night sky, but from studying ancient astronomy. As the earth turns, the stars come back to the same place in the night sky every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.
This is a sidereal day star day. From the moon, astronauts brought back kg of Moon rock. The stars in each constellation are named after a Greek alphabet. The brightest star in each constellation is called the Alpha Star, the next brightest Beta, and so on. The distance to the planets is measured by bouncing radar signals off them and timing how long the signals take to get there and back. Spacecrafts have double hulls outer coverings which protect them against other space objects that crash into them.
Manned Spacecrafts have life support systems that provide oxygen to breathe, usually mixed with nitrogen as in ordinary air. Spacecrafts toilets have to get rid of waste in low gravity conditions, Astronauts have to sit on a device which sucks away the waste.
Solid waste is dried and dumped in space, but the water is saved. A vast plume of gas millions of kilometers across is blown out behind by the solar wind. The tail is what you see, shining as the sunlight catches it.
The Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet smashed into Jupiter in July , with the biggest crash ever witnessed. Giant stars have burned all their hydrogen, and so burn helium, fusing helium atoms to make carbon. The constellation of Cygnus, the Swan, contains the very biggest star in the known universe — a hyper giant which is almost a million times as big as the sun. The first rockets were made 1, years ago in China. Robert Goddard launched the very first liquid-fuel rocket in Over artificial satellites are now launched into space every year, a few of which are space telescopes.
Most satellites fly in low orbits, km from the earth. Hipparchus was the first astronomer to try to work out how far away the Sun is. The red color of Mars is due to oxidized rusted iron in its soil. It covers the same area as Ireland and is three times higher than our Mount Everest. Planets have magnetic field around them because of the liquid iron in their cores. As the planets rotate, so the iron swirls, generating electric currents that create the magnetic field.
Jupiter has no surface for a spacecraft to land on because it is made mostly from helium gas and hydrogen. Voyager 2 has flown over 6 billion km and is heading out of the solar system after passing close to Neptune in This is called slingshot. This led to the idea of Big Bang. The first astronomers thought the regular pulses from far space might be signals from aliens, and pulsars were jokingly called LGMs short for Little Green Men.
Pulsars probably result from a supernova explosion — that is why most are found in the flat disc of the Milky Way, where supernovae occur. Saturn is not solid, but is made almost entirely of gas — mostly liquid hydrogen and helium. The first space station was the Soviet Salyut 1 launched in April ; its low orbit meant it stayed up only five months. Since the star Deneb is light years away, we see it as it was when the emperor Septimus Severius was ruling the Rome AD With powerful telescopes, astronomers can see galaxies 2 billion light years away.
This means we see them as they were when the only life forms in Earth were bacteria. The slowest rotating planet is Venus, which takes The fastest spinning objects in the Universe are neutron stars — these can rotate times in just 1 second.
In summer in Uranus, the sun does not set for 20 years. In winter, darkness lasts for 20 years. In autumn, the sun rises and sets every 9 hours. It seems to have been blasted apart, and then put together again. Halley predicted that a comet he had discovered would return in , 16 years after his death, and it really did. Ceres is the biggest asteroid in the Solar System — km across, and 0.
The sun is about 5 billion years old and half a way through its life — as a medium sized star it will probably live for around 10 billion years. Voyager 2 will beam back data until as it travels beyond the edges of the Solar System.
The Pioneer 10 and 11 probes carry metal plaques with messages for aliens telling them about us. In other words, time and speed depends upon where you measure them. When things are falling, their acceleration cancels out gravity, which is why astronauts in orbits are weightless.
The first space telescope was the Copernicus, sent out in Astronauts learn Scuba diving which helps them to deal with space walks. Weightlessness makes astronauts grow several centimeters during a long mission. The first living creature in space was the dog Laika on — board Sputnik 2 in A grain of sand this hot would kill someone km away. Stars twinkle because we see them through the wafting of the atmosphere.
The sun weighs 2, trillion trillion tones — about , times as much as the Earth — even though it is made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, the lightest gases in the Universe. The sun gets hot because it is so big that the pressure in its core is so tremendous — enough to force the nuclei of hydrogen atoms to fuse to make helium atoms. This nuclear reaction is like a gigantic atom bomb and it releases huge amounts of heat.
The Hiroshima bombs released 84 trillion joules of energy. A supernova releases , trillion trillion times as such. The most distant galaxies quasars have red shifts so big that they must be moving away from us at speeds approaching the speed of light. When light waves from distant galaxies are stretched out his way, they look redder. This is called red shift.
The moon is the only other world that humans have set foot on. Because the moon has no atmosphere or wind, the footprints planted in its dusty surface in by the Apollo astronauts are still there today, perfectly preserved. They are, in fact, lava flows from ancient volcanoes. Quasars are the most distant known objects in the Universe. Even the nearest is billions of light years away. The brightest quasar is 3C , 2 billion light years away.
The brightest stars in the night sky are not actually stars, but the planets Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Mercury. There may be 20 trillion galaxies in the Universe. Galaxies are often found in a group or clusters. One cluster may have 30 or so galaxies in it. The Solar System has nine planets including Pluto, but Pluto may be an escaped moon or an asteroid not a planet. The Milky Way belongs to a cluster of 30 galaxies called the Local Group, which is 7 million light years across.
The Virgo Cluster is 50 million light years away and is made up of galaxies. This is called escape velocity. A tablespoon of neutron star would weigh about ten billion tones. The earth actually takes To compensate for the missing 0. After the big bang, there was antimatter, the mirror image of matter.
Antimatter and matter destroyed each other when they met, thus they annihilated. Matter just won, but the Universe was left almost empty. The afterglow of the Big Bang can still be detected as microwave background radiation coming from all over space. Dishes in the space telescopes have to be made accurate two billionths of a millimeter. You can see another galaxy with the naked eye: the Andromeda Galaxy, 2. Dried up riverbeds show that Mars probably once had water in its surface.
There is sometimes ice at the poles and maybe water underground. For a satellite to fly off into the space, its momentum should be greater than the pull of gravity of the earth. The future of the Universe may depend on how much dark matter there is.
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Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. January 2, Munawar Misbah. Walter L. Harvard , Psy. Adel M. Elsaie, Ph. Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature.
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately million years ago.
Is intelligent design the same as creationism? Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it.
Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural.
Honest critics of intelligent design acknowledge the difference between intelligent design and creationism. According to Dr. Is intelligent design a scientific theory? The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion.
Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information CSI. Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI.
Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function.
When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed. Dembski Intelligent design begins with a seemingly innocuous question: Can objects, even if nothing is known about how they arose, exhibit features that reliably signal the action of an intelligent cause? What if humans went extinct and aliens, visiting the earth, discovered Mount Rushmore in substantially the same condition as it is now? In that case, what about this rock formation would provide convincing circumstantial evidence that it was due to a designing intelligence and not merely to wind and erosion?
Designed objects like Mount Rushmore exhibit characteristic features or patterns that point to an intelligence. Such features or patterns constitute signs of intelligence. Proponents of intelligent design, known as design theorists, purport to study such signs formally, rigorously, and scientifically. Intelligent design may therefore be defined as the science that studies signs of intelligence.
Because a sign is not the thing signified, intelligent design does not presume to identify the purposes of a designer. Nevertheless, the purposes of a designer lie outside the scope of intelligent design. As a scientific research program, intelligent design investigates the effects of intelligence and not intelligence as such. Intelligent design is controversial because it purports to find signs of intelligence in nature, and specifically in biological systems.
Intelligent design therefore directly challenges Darwinism and other naturalistic approaches to the origin and evolution of life. The idea that an intrinsic intelligence or teleology inheres in and is expressed through nature has a long history and is embraced by many religious traditions.
What has kept design outside the scientific mainstream since the rise of Darwinism has been the lack of precise methods for distinguishing intelligently caused objects from unintelligently caused ones.
For design to be a fruitful scientific concept, scientists have to be sure that they can reliably determine whether something is designed. Johannes Kepler, for instance, thought the craters on the moon were intelligently designed by moon dwellers. We now know that the craters were formed by purely material factors like meteor impacts. This fear of falsely attributing something to design, only to have it overturned later, has hindered design from entering the scientific mainstream.
But design theorists argue that they now have formulated precise methods for discriminating designed from undesigned objects. To say intelligent causes are empirically detectable is to say there exist well-defined methods that, based on observable features of the world, can reliably distinguish intelligent causes from undirected natural causes.
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