Are evolution and intelligent design mutually exclusive?

Evolution is science. Intelligent design is a way to absolve the masses from doing any thinking. God made it that way, now pay your dues. Religion=opiate of the masses.

Answer

First of all, evolution and religion are not mutually exclusive. Consider the position of the Catholic Church, among others:

Pope Pius XII stated in his encyclical Humani Generis (1950) that there was no opposition between evolution and the doctrine of the faith and that he considered the doctrine of "evolutionism" a serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation and in-depth study equal to that of the opposing hypothesis; Pope John Paul II, in an address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (1996), said that new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis; Pope Benedict has refused to endorse "intelligent design" theories, instead backing "theistic evolution" which considers that God created life through evolution with no clash between religion and science.

So-called intelligent design and evolution are mutually exclusive because intelligent design supposes that God made all animals, plants, even viruses and bacteria exactly as they exist now. This places intelligent design in opposition to some world religious leaders who are increasingly aligning their views to evolution.

Answer

It could be argued that evolution and intelligent design (ID) are not competing ideas, or it could be argued that they are mutually exclusive. Let's look at both sides of the equation and attempt to puzzle it out.

Evolution is represented by modern evolutionary synthesis (MES), the current "state of the art" model of evolution. MES looks at the big picture as regards life on earth and the changes it has undergone in the eons since it arose here. MES is not science that is "scrambling" for facts to support it as some supporters of creation theory might suggest. Rather, MES explains the facts. It is fact. Life has been here a long, long time. And it has taken many forms. Changes in its forms are evolutionary developments. The paleontological record, backed up by the geological record, could not be plainer in demonstrating this. But MES has no facts to offer as regards the origin of life. Only theories. Intelligent design (ID) is another theory about how life began. ID suggests that an intelligent designer (God) created life. There is no conflict between the theoretical concepts of ID and the idea that life arose spontaneously on earth or was transported here. Certainly MES and evolutionists can't say that God didn't create life. Evolution and ID are not at odds in agenesis, are not mutually exclusive. All ideas of agenesis are just factless competing theories. Only that. But the problem is that ID doesn't stop there. Nor shall we. Let's look at "the rest" of ID.

ID as it was put forth basically says that life arose by the hand of an intelligent designer. And this intelligent designer is God (though it is not so stated by them). ID theorists are starting to group together under the banner of "creation science" to further their agenda. The problem is that creation science is an oxymoron. If there was any real scientific evidence to "creation science" it could then puff out its chest and strut around as "regular science" and the scientific community as a whole would have to take it seriously. But ID is not supported by any scientific facts whatsoever. Do you see the problem? Evolution and ID are mutually exclusive here. Evolution is science. Real science. ID is without any factual support, and that makes it "wanna be" science. ID is actually a political and social tool. And other questions under the heading of Creation in WikiAnswers deal with this in more detail. Further reading is strongly suggested, and links are provided.

Answer

You'd need to define evolution and intelligent design. If take evolution to merely mean common descent, an old earth, etc, and intelligent design to be ID, the modern resurrection of Paley's watchmaker argument + some BS, they are not incompatible. This compatibility doesn't indicate that it's in any way scientific, since we've used a weird version of evolution.

Now, if we take modern evolutionary theory, it is like oil and water. One is science, the other pseudoscience. One has specific predictions, follows direct empirical evidence, and is well-established (evolutionary theory). The other, Intelligent Design, is muddled with a complete lack of explanation, baseless claims, very obvious fallacies, outright dishonesty, and arose fairly recently out of antiscience initiatives (the desire to change the methodology/philosophy of science). Not only this, but ID proponents directly oppose and slander modern evolutionary theory, often using dishonest polemic (like Dembski). Biological scientists as well as many other scientists criticize ID fairly heavily whenever the topic arises, given its many faults (it's nothing *but* faults, really).

Unlike what was written above, however, ID proponents do not put themselves under the "creation science" banner, although it's an offshoot from the same general movement: antievolution, antiscience, pro-deity. It's an attempt to wrap a scientific (pseudoscientific) veneer around a group of "intellectuals"' theological ideologies. You can find this is Meyers' writings, Dembski's writings, Wells' writings: a prior commitment to a specific antiscience or antievolution goal that is not to be concerned with petty things like facts, hypotheses, or acadmic honesty.

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