Design

Design is the purposefully made enhancement of an animate object or artifact by a planned process. In the context of the evolution vs. creation controversy, "design" often refers to intelligent design, the scientific theory that life carries traits which could not have arisen absent purposeful direction towards a goal.

• Evolutionary biologists such as Francisco Ayala and Richard Dawkins assert much more. Dawkins, for example, acknowledges that living organisms "give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." But, he argues that this appearance of design is completely misleading because undirected Darwinian processes — random mutations and natural selection — can produce the features of living systems that look designed. In Ayala's words, natural selection produces "design without a designer." [1]

• Charles Darwin said his theory of evolution had disproved design in nature. He declared that natural causes could explain life. Although the world looked designed, he said, it actually was produced by the blind action of the environment on random variations in organisms. [2]

See also[edit]

• List of Intelligent Design Theorists