Intelligent Design Icon Intelligent Design

Doug Axe: Darwinian Biology Is to Spelling as Intelligent Design Is to the Art of Writing


Looking for a good metaphor to help explain the relationship between standard Darwinian biology and the new paradigm offered by intelligent design? In a podcast at our sister site ID: The Future, “Key Figures in Intelligent Design Measure the Impact of Discovery Institute,” Biologic’s Doug Axe has a fine one:

You can think about it in terms of the difference between mastering spelling versus mastering the art of writing. One could be a very good speller and a miserable writer and vice versa. In one case you’re looking at the micromechanics of how you put letters together to make words but in the other you are looking at higher-level principles that allow good writing to take place, the principles you have to master in order to write well.
We feel that biology has been stuck, looking at the mechanics — like spelling — and it really has to move to a higher level where it embraces principles, and these principles are manifestly design principles. We think that life cannot really be understood until you move to that higher level.

Listen to the rest, as David Boze interviews Dr. Axe, Guillermo Gonzalez, David Berlinski and Casey Luskin, here.