Intelligent Design: A scientific theory that holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than undirected process such as natural selection.

Intelligent design (ID) is a scientific theory that employs the methods commonly used by other historical sciences to conclude that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. ID theorists argue that design can be inferred by studying the informational properties of natural objects to determine if they bear the type of information that in our experience arise from an intelligent cause. The form of information which we observe is produced by intelligent action, and thus reliably indicates design, is generally called “specified complexity” or “complex and specified information” (CSI).

On this page you can download an annotated bibliography of peer-reviewed and peer-edited scientific articles supporting, applying, or arising from the theory of intelligent design. You also can read a description of the intelligent design research community and its aims.

Bibliography of Peer-Reviewed and Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design.

Download the full bibliography in Adobe pdf format.

Intelligent Design Research Community

There are multiple hubs of ID-related research. Biologic Institute, led by molecular biologist Doug Axe, is “developing and testing the scientific case for intelligent design in biology.” Biologic conducts laboratory and theoretical research on the origin and role of information in biology, the fine-tuning of the universe for life, and methods of detecting design in nature.

Another ID research group is the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, founded by senior Discovery Institute fellow William Dembski along with Robert Marks, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University. Their lab has attracted graduate-student researchers and published multiple peer-reviewed articles in technical science and engineering journals showing that computer programming “points to the need for an ultimate information source qua intelligent designer.”

Other scientists around the world are also publishing peer-reviewed scientific papers supportive of intelligent design. These include biologist Ralph Seelke at the University of Wisconsin Superior, Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig who recently retired from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Germany, and Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe.

These and other labs and researchers have published their work in a variety of appropriate technical venues, including peer-reviewed scientific journals, peer-reviewed scientific books (some published by mainstream university presses), trade-press books, peer-edited scientific anthologies, peer-edited scientific conference proceedings and peer-reviewed philosophy of science journals and books. These papers have appeared in scientific journals such as Protein Science, Journal of Molecular Biology, Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics, Quarterly Review of Biology, Cell Biology International, Rivista di Biologia / Biology Forum, Physics of Life Reviews, Quarterly Review of Biology, Annual Review of Genetics, and many others. At the same time, pro-ID scientists have presented their research at conferences worldwide in fields such as genetics, biochemistry, engineering, and computer science.

Collectively, this body of research is converging on a consensus: complex biological features cannot arise by unguided Darwinian mechanisms, but require an intelligent cause.

Despite ID’s publication record, we note parenthetically that recognition in peer-reviewed literature is not an absolute requirement to demonstrate an idea’s scientific merit. Darwin’s own theory of evolution was first published in a book for a general and scientific audience—his Origin of Species—not in a peer-reviewed paper. Nonetheless, ID’s peer-reviewed publication record shows that it deserves— and is receiving—serious consideration by the scientific community.

The purpose of ID’s budding research program is thus to engage open-minded scientists and thoughtful laypersons with credible, persuasive, peer-reviewed, empirical data supporting intelligent design. And this is happening. ID has already gained the kind of scientific recognition you would expect from a young (and vastly underfunded) but promising scientific field. The scientific progress of ID has won the serious attention of skeptics in the scientific community, who engage in scientific debate with ID and attend private scientific conferences allowing off-the-record discussion with ID proponents.

Selected List of Peer-Reviewed Scientific Publications Supportive of Intelligent Design

The list below provides bibliographic information for a selection of the peer-reviewed scientific publications supportive of intelligent design published in scientific journals, conference proceedings, or academic anthologies:

Again, for a more complete list of peer-reviewed pro-ID scientific publications, please download the full bibliography.