ID Prediction Is Malarky

The Washington Post has an article explaining the strength of evolutionary theory. I want to focus on this portion:

Asked to provide examples of non-obvious, testable predictions made by the theory of Intelligent Design, John West, an associate director of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based ID think tank, offered one: In 1998, he said, an ID theorist, reckoning that an intelligent designer would not fill animals' genomes with DNA that had no use, predicted that much of the "junk" DNA in animals' genomes -- long seen as the detritus of evolutionary processes -- will someday be found to have a function.

(In fact, some "junk" DNA has indeed been found to be functional in recent years, though more than 90 percent of human DNA still appears to be the flotsam of biological history.)

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This is malarky. That prediction does not follow from intelligent design (at least the type the DI pushes) any more than evolution predicts that "junk DNA" should exist. All evolution predicts is that if "junk DNA" exists, unless there is a mechanism to remove it, it should be found in organisms in a pattern consistent with common descent. (As an aside, I should point out that to the extent that "junk DNA" has been found to have function, it is not the ID folks who have made the discoveries.) Now let's turn back to intelligent design.

ID proponents have repeated over and over again that intelligent design is about identifying features of the universe where design can be inferred because of their complexity. When scientists point out the many design flaws (or oddities) in nature--and even in the human body--ID proponents respond that the motivations of the designer are not relevant to the discussion about whether something is designed or not. They argue that we can infer design from the thing itself--questions about who the designer is or what his/her/its motivations were are not relevant. Further, although they do not repeat it much, they claim that ID can be compatible with much of evolutionary theory.

If they were sticking to their rules, they would say that intelligent design is silent on the issue of "junk DNA". Now West is trotting out a prediction that is clearly rooted in assumptions about what a designer would or would not do. He cannot have it both ways. Either issues of poor, inefficent, or malevolent design are legitimate in this debate or they are not.