3 Questions for Friends Skeptical of Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design the Future

Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture

Science, Philosophy, Astronomy, Society & Culture, Life Sciences

4 • 993 Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2023

⏱️ 16 minutes

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Summary

On today’s ID the Future from the archive, Tom Gilson--author, senior editor with The Stream, and occasional contributor to Evolution News & Science Today--tackles the question of how best to discuss intelligent design (ID) with friends and associates skeptical of the theory. There is so much misinformation about the theory of ID that many well-intended people reject not the actual theory but a silly caricature, a straw man. They don’t realize that ID is not an argument from ignorance but an inference to the best explanation based on positive evidence for design and negative evidence against competing materialistic explanations. It involves abductive reasoning, a standard mode of reasoning in the historical sciences. When in conversation with someone who understands none of this, Gilson suggests using the Socratic method and, in particular, three questions designed to turn down the heat, promote dialogue, and draw the other person into a discovery of the actual theory of intelligent design. Try it with friends, colleagues, and family members!

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0:00.0	I d the future a podcast about evolution and intelligent design
0:12.3	hello I'm Tom Gilson. Today I want to talk with you about a way to have productive, helpful conversations
0:19.1	with skeptical friends, colleagues, and family members about intelligent design.
0:25.0	Have you ever had this happen where you're in a conversation with a friend or a colleague or a family member and the topic of intelligent design comes up. You say you think it
0:36.1	makes a lot of sense and the other person just sniffs and says, seriously? You believe in that?
0:42.1	Pretty uncomfortable, isn't it your mind's in a jumble you're on the
0:46.6	defensive you've got everything you've ever heard about ID just tumbling around in your
0:51.6	brain and you have no idea where to start. I hate that feeling.
0:56.0	Well believe it or not there's an answer, a set of answers that you can use that are almost certain to get you on the right track just about
1:06.8	every time you have this kind of a conversation. It's a set of questions that you can
1:12.0	use in almost any ID-related situation to guide your conversation
1:17.8	toward a productive end.
1:20.0	Now before I go there though, let's just pause and think through what's going on there in the situation.
1:26.0	More often than not, the other person thinks they're standing on the intellectual high ground.
1:32.0	And you feel like you're on the defensive.
1:35.0	They've just implied that you're kind of crazy,
1:38.0	and now you've got to justify your belief in something that they think is crazy, right?
1:44.0	Wrong.
1:45.0	Wrong on all counts except maybe the first.
1:48.0	They probably do think they're standing on a high ground.
1:52.0	And you may feel like you're on the defensive,
1:54.0	but the fact is you don't need to,
	...

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