It's an idea with a history as illustrious as its mere mention today can be contentious: that the order and complexity of the natural world are evidence of supernatural design. So-called natural theology is a doctrine that can be traced back to the Bible and that shaped the thinking of such early Christian philosophers as Thomas Aquinas.
One of the influential proponents of the notion that the existence of God could be understood by studying His creation was English philosopher John Ray (1628-1705). Ray's cataloguing of mammals, birds, fish, insects and plants inspired subsequent naturalists to collect and classify organisms as a reflection of the divine order of creation.
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"There is for a free man no occupation more worthy and delightful," wrote Ray, "than to contemplate the beauteous works of nature and honour the infinite wisdom and goodness of God."
Ray's systems brought order to the chaotic study of nature. His insight that fossils were once living organisms overturned popular hypotheses of his time (that they were, for example, lusi naturae or mere games of nature). And, by encouraging naturalists to look at an organism's form in relation to its function, he paved the way for studies of adaptation.
A century later, English theologian William Paley (1743-1805) elaborated on these concepts in his "Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature." Using his famous analogy of a watchmaker, Paley inferred the existence of a creative god:
"In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there: I might possibly answer, that for any thing I know to the contrary, it had lain there for ever. . . But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; . . . . when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose . . . This mechanism being observed . . . the inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker . . . who comprehended its construction, and designed its use."
Just as the watch's complexity provides evidence of a watchmaker, Paley reasoned, so the natural world's complexity provides evidence of a worldmaker.
This "argument from design" prevailed until Charles Darwin published his "Origin of Species" in 1859, shattering the existing paradigm.
Few scientists held out against the empirical evidence for natural selection that Darwin presented, but among them was one of the founders of the modern American scientific tradition, paleontologist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873).
Agassiz, whose vast private collection of fossils formed the nucleus for Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, openly opposed Darwinism. He believed that the study of natural history was ultimately analogous to the analysis of God's thoughts.
"The combination in time and space of all these thoughtful conceptions exhibits not only thought," he wrote, "it shows also premeditation, power, wisdom, greatness, prescience, omniscience, providence. In one word, all these facts in their natural connection proclaim aloud the One God, whom man may know, adore, and love."
The arguments have evolved, but many of today's proponents of intelligent design echo the fundamental philosophy of the pre-Darwinian thinkers. In the words of one of the movement's leaders, William A. Dembski: "Undirected natural processes like the Darwinian mechanism are incapable of generating the specified complexity that exists in biological organisms . . . the natural sciences need to leave room for design." Evolutionary scientists, on the other hand, point to powerful evidence to demonstrate that the mechanisms described by Darwin are perfectly capable of explaining the complexity of life.
-- Frances Stead Sellers, for the Outlook staff
