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Hard Questions

Arguments that nature points to a designer, each given as its proponents make it, followed by the main critiques and where the debate stands, with the key claims rated against the evidence.

How the ratings work
Established
Published evidence, accepted by researchers in the relevant field.
Supported
Good published evidence, though some details remain uncertain.
Debated
Credentialed researchers actively disagree. Philosophical inferences, which no experiment can settle, are rated debated at most.
Unverified
Proposed, but not yet tested or confirmed.
Contradicted
The published evidence points the other way.

Each article rates the observation it starts from, the scientific claim built on it, and the inference to design separately, because they stand or fall on different evidence.

Life and biology

  • Does the information in DNA point to a designer?

    Stephen Meyer argues that the digital code in DNA is best explained by intelligence, since information of that kind always comes from minds. Critics answer that the argument rests on gaps in origin-of-life research and a disputed notion of information.

    Read the debate: Does the information in DNA point to a designer?

  • Are some molecular machines irreducibly complex?

    Michael Behe argues that systems like the bacterial flagellum need all their parts at once, so they could not have evolved step by step. Biologists answer that parts can be borrowed from other systems, and point to the flagellum’s relatives.

    Read the debate: Are some molecular machines irreducibly complex?

  • Does the Cambrian explosion challenge evolution?

    Most major animal groups with a fossil record appear within a geologically short span after the Cambrian began, about 540 million years ago. Stephen Meyer argues undirected evolution cannot explain it; paleontologists answer that it was fast but not too fast.

    Read the debate: Does the Cambrian explosion challenge evolution?

The universe

  • Is the universe fine-tuned for life?

    Physicists find that small changes to several constants and initial conditions would make life impossible. Whether that points to a designer, a multiverse or a brute fact is debated.

    Read the debate: Is the universe fine-tuned for life?

  • Did the universe need a cause?

    The kalam cosmological argument reasons that whatever begins to exist has a cause, and the universe began to exist. Modern cosmology bears on the second premise; both premises are disputed.

    Read the debate: Did the universe need a cause?