Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright is taking a poll on X. He poses the following question: “Is Intelligent Design a scientific hypothesis?” Dr. Wright is a Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and an advisor for Atheists for Liberty who has taken heat for defending the scientific objectivity of gender. It could be worth telling him that even Richard Dawkins finds the idea of a cosmic designer to be a “scientific hypothesis” albeit, Dawkins thinks, a mistaken one.

Recently Dr. Dawkins had a moving dialogue with former New Atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is also a former Muslim. She has announced her conversion to Christianity for what she describes as “very subjective” reasons. It was in response to a “personal crisis”: “I lived for about a decade with intense depression and anxiety and self-loathing. I hit rock bottom. I went to a place where I actually didn’t want to live anymore, but wasn’t brave enough to take my own life.” Faith was her way out of the crisis.

Hold That Thought

Dawkins answers kindly that belief in a creator or designer is more than a mere subjective response: “You appear to be a theist,” he tells her. “You appear to believe in some kind of higher power. Now, I think that the hypothesis of theism is the most exciting scientific hypothesis you could possibly hold” (emphasis added). Hold that thought in your mind.

Obviously, Dawkins wasn’t giving up his own atheism. He goes on: “And the idea that the universe was actually created by a supernatural intelligence is a dramatic, important idea. If it were true, it would completely change everything we know. We’d be living in a totally different, different universe. That’s a big thing. It’s bigger than personal comfort and nice stories and these things. The idea that the universe has lurking beneath it an intelligence or supernatural intelligence that invented the laws of physics, that invented mathematics, is a stupendous idea, if it’s true.” Minus the reference to “lurking,” that is of course the thesis of intelligent design. He adds, “To me that simply dwarfs all talk of nobility and morality and comfort and that sort of thing.” 

This is a remarkable response, granting the premise of arguments for intelligent design like those of Stephen Meyer in Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries Revealing the Mind Behind the Universe. The premise is that in discussions of ID, there really is a scientific question to consider. The design hypothesis could be wrong, or it could be right. But let’s weigh it on its own terms as the scientific hypothesis that it is. Thank you to Richard Dawkins for using his authority to point that out.