What is the Design Matrix?

The Design Matrix is a method for assessing a design inference and can help when using the hypothesis of design to guide research. This method is both tentative and open-ended, and can be used by both supporters and critics of intelligent design.

What is A Consilience of Clues?

Ask a group of scientists how life on earth arose, and you will get a multitude of answers. In the field of origin-of-life research there is little consensus and much speculation. Any good researcher knows this, and is careful to remember that what seemed clear today may be wrong tomorrow. It is with this in mind that I propose the Design Matrix. I have used the word “clue” to make it clear that I do not think that intelligent design has been proven. Rather, it is an attempt to make sense of a question where the evidence about origins is ambiguous. In The Design Matrix, I will consider a number of clues that, when merged together, point to new ways of thinking about evolution and intelligent design.

I explore the conventional ways of thinking about design and biology and suggest a different way of approaching these issues. I outline clues that point toward design with the ultimate goal of moving beyond these clues. But before we get to this, we’ll see the challenges that we face. I consider Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and expand our way of thinking about it. Then, I consider the ways design and evolution can actually co-exist, opening new doors for thinking about design. Finally, I outline the Design Matrix, the method for inferring the existence of design and moving beyond the level of mere suspicion. It is an open-ended method that can be used by both sides of this debate and it is my hope that you will find it easy to understand and use. After explaining the Design Matrix, I take it for a test drive. In Volume 2 that is to follow, I will use it, and more, to explore the living world.

The Design Matrix: A Consilience of Clues is the beginning of a journey. Writing in the journal Science in 1977, Nobel Laureate Francois Jacob once offered some truly profound words that have been the inspiration of this book:

To produce a valuable observation, one has first to have an idea of what to observe, a preconception of what is possible. Scientific advances often come from uncovering a hitherto unseen aspect of things as a result, not so much of using new instruments, but rather of looking at objects from a different angle. This look is necessarily guided by a certain idea of what this so-called reality might be. It always involves a certain conception about the unknown, that is, about what lies beyond that which one has logical or experimental reasons to believe.

This book is indeed about looking at objects from a different angle and having a certain conception about reality that is beyond current logical or experimental reasons to believe. It is the first step in an investigation that uses intelligent design as part of a positive approach. You are invited to join along.