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Intelligent design is the proposition that aspects of the universe and the variation of life cannot be explained by reference to random mutation and natural selection alone, and that at least some of the diversity of life is not due to chance. Proponents call this the problem of irreducible complexity, and say it can only be explained by reference to intelligence. The philosopher Thomas Nagel argues that on the face of it this is a scientific claim about what the evidence suggests, one that is not self-evidently absurd, but the argument is rejected by most scientists, who say there are natural explanations for what seems to be irreducible complexity.

The concept is a contemporary version of the teleological argument for the existence of God, though it does not specify the nature of the designer; scientists have called it creationist pseudoscience. Nagel argues that intelligent design is very different from creation science, in that it does not depend on distortion of the evidence, or on the assumption that it is immune to empirical evidence. It depends only on the idea that the hypothesis of a designer makes sense.

Philosopher Robert B. Johnson writes that most commentators inside and outside the intelligent design movement say the modern form of intelligent design began with Darwin on Trial (1991) by Philip E. Johnson, an American law professor. Johnson was influenced by two books: The Blind Watchmaker (1986) by Richard Dawkins, who argued that random mutation and natural selection could alone account for the diversity of life, and Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985) by Michael Denton, who argued that it could not. Johnson wrote in Darwin on Trial that evolutionary biologists argue for Darwinism not on the basis of evidence, but because their philosophy of science disallows any alternative. He organized conferences in 1992 and 1993, after which a listserv was set up to allow proponents to network. In 1996, the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank, set up its Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture to explore and promote intelligent design, and in November that year a conference at Biola University saw 200 scientists, philosophers, and theologians gather to discuss it.

Efforts to have intelligent design taught in science classes in the United States culminated in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005), when parents of high-school students challenged a school-district requirement that teachers present it in biology classes as an alternative explanation of the origin of life. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science, that it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents," and that the school district's promotion of it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Origin of the concept
Whether the complexity of nature indicates purposeful design has been the subject of debate since the Greeks. In the 4th century BCE, Plato posited a good and wise "demiurge" as the creator and first cause of the cosmos in his Timaeus. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle developed the idea of an "Unmoved Mover". In De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods, 45 BCE) Cicero wrote that "the divine power is to be found in a principle of reason which pervades the whole of nature." This line of reasoning has come to be known as the teleological argument for the existence of God. Some well-known forms of it were expressed in the 13th century by Thomas Aquinas and in the 19th century by William Paley. Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae, used the concept of design in his "fifth proof" for God's existence.

In the 17th century the English physician Sir Thomas Browne wrote a Discourse arguing the case for intelligent design. His 1658 The Garden of Cyrus is one of the earliest examples of 'proof' of the wisdom of God and gives examples of intelligent design in botany. In the early 19th century, Paley's argument from design in Natural Theology (1802), used the watchmaker analogy, and such arguments led to the development of what was called natural theology, the study of nature as way of understanding "the mind of God". This movement fueled the passion for collecting fossils and other biological specimens, which ultimately led to Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859). Similar reasoning postulating a divine designer is embraced today by many believers in theistic evolution, who consider modern science and the theory of evolution to be compatible with the concept of a supernatural designer. In correspondence about the question with Asa Gray, Darwin wrote that "I cannot honestly go as far as you do about Design. I am conscious that I am in an utterly hopeless muddle. I cannot think that the world, as we see it, is the result of chance; & yet I cannot look at each separate thing as the result of Design." Though he had studied Paley's work while at university, by the end of his life he came to regard it as useless for scientific development.

Development of its modern form
Intelligent design in the late 20th and early 21st century is a development of natural theology that seeks to change the basis of science and undermine evolutionary theory. As evolutionary theory expanded to explain more phenomena, the examples held up as evidence of design changed, though the essential argument remains the same: complex systems imply a designer. Past examples have included the eye and the feathered wing; current examples are typically biochemical: protein functions, blood clotting, and bacterial flagella; see irreducible complexity.

Philosopher Barbara Forrest writes that the intelligent design movement began in 1984 with the publication by Jon A. Buell's the Foundation for Thought and Ethics of The Mystery of Life's Origin by Charles B. Thaxton, a chemist and creationist. Thaxton held a conference in 1988, "Sources of Information Content in DNA," which attracted creationists such as Stephen C. Meyer. Forrest writes that, in December 1988, Thaxton decided to use the term "intelligent design," instead of creationism, for the movement.

In March 1986 a review by Meyer used information theory to suggest that messages transmitted by DNA in the cell show "specified complexity" specified by intelligence, and must have originated with an intelligent agent. In November of that year Thaxton described his reasoning as a more sophisticated form of Paley's argument from design. At the Sources of Information Content in DNA conference in 1988 he said that his intelligent cause view was compatible with both metaphysical naturalism and supernaturalism,

Intelligent design avoids identifying or naming the agent of creation—it merely states that one (or more) must exist—but leaders of the movement have said the designer is the Christian God. Whether this lack of specificity about the designer's identity in public discussions is a genuine feature of the concept, or just a posture taken to avoid alienating those who would separate religion from the teaching of science, has been a matter of great debate between supporters and critics of intelligent design. The Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District court ruling held the latter to be the case.

Origin of the term
thumbnail|right|160px|[[Of Pandas and People was the first modern intelligent design book. Rethinking Schools magazine characterizes it as a "creationist treatise dressed up to look like a legitimate discussion of science". ]] The phrase "intelligent design" can be found in an 1847 issue of Scientific American, in an 1850 book by Patrick Edward Dove, and in an 1861 letter from Charles Darwin. The phrase was used in an address to the 1873 annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science by Paleyite botanist George James Allman:

The phrase can be found again in Humanism, a 1903 book by one of the founders of classical pragmatism, F.C.S. Schiller: "It will not be possible to rule out the supposition that the process of evolution may be guided by an intelligent design". A derivative of the phrase appears in the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967) in the article titled, "Teleological argument for the existence of God": "Stated most succinctly, the argument runs: The world exhibits teleological order (design, adaptation). Therefore, it was produced by an intelligent designer". Robert Nozick (1974) wrote: "Consider now complicated patterns which one would have thought would arise only through intelligent design". The phrases "intelligent design" and "intelligently designed" were used in a 1979 philosophy book Chance or Design? by James Horigan and the phrase "intelligent design" was used in a 1982 speech by Sir Fred Hoyle in his promotion of panspermia.

Modern use of the term
The modern use of the words "intelligent design", as a term intended to describe a field of inquiry, began after the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), ruled that creationism is unconstitutional in public school science curricula. A Discovery Institute report says that Charles Thaxton, editor of Of Pandas and People, had picked the phrase up from a NASA scientist, and thought "That's just what I need, it's a good engineering term". In drafts of the book over one hundred uses of the root word "creation", such as "creationism" and "creation science", were changed, almost without exception, to "intelligent design", while "creationists" was changed to "design proponents" or, in one instance, "cdesign proponentsists". [sic] In June 1988 Thaxton held a conference titled "Sources of Information Content in DNA" in Tacoma, Washington, and in December decided to use the label "intelligent design" for his new creationist movement. Stephen C. Meyer was at the conference, and later recalled that "the term came up".

Of Pandas and People was published in 1989, and was the first book to make frequent use of the phrases "intelligent design," "design proponents," and "design theory", thus representing the beginning of the modern "intelligent design" movement. "Intelligent design” was the most prominent of around fifteen new terms it introduced as a new lexicon of creationist terminology to oppose evolution without using religious language. It was the first place where the phrase "intelligent design" appeared in its present use, as stated both by its publisher Jon Buell, and by William A. Dembski in his expert witness report. The book presented all of the basic arguments of intelligent design proponents before any research had been done to support these arguments, and was actively promoted by creationists for public school use. Rethinking Schools magazine has criticized the book, saying it was a "creationist treatise" packaged to look like a high quality science textbook, with a "glossy cover, full-color illustrations, and chapter titles such as 'Homology' and 'Genetics and Macroevolution'", with numerous "professionally prepared charts and illustrations appear to show how concrete scientific evidence supports the existence of the unnamed 'designer'". Philosopher of science Michael Ruse believes the contents were "worthless and dishonest", and it was described by an ACLU lawyer as a political tool aimed at students who did not "know science or understand the controversy over evolution and creationism".