The main point in my paper is that the apprehension of design in nature is essentially phenomenological in character. It is phenomenological because it originates from our immediate experience. Or put in another way - on the descriptive level we all agree that we experience design in nature. We describe e.g. an organism as a whole, whose parts are organized in such a way as to enable the joint performance of a function no single component could accomplish in isolation, and that description corresponds exactly to the description of intelligent designed artefacts. We see the integrated systems of the organisms, and we get a clear impression of design and purpose.

Therefore everybody who talks about biological phenomena uses references and analogies to artefacts. Proteins are called nano-machines, the brain is compared to a computer and so on. Any textbook of biology will show numerous analogies to artefacts. Kant pointed out in The Critique of Judgment that we are only able to get a grip on what organisms are by means of analogies to artefacts.

This is of course the explanation why the idea of design in nature is so old and persisting. Kant thought that it was as old as the reason of man.It is found in Western as well as in non-Western religion and philosophy and science. It is universal. I think it is very important that we contemplate how spontaneous, involuntary and universal this thought is. It is not a matter of choice.

Science argues that design in nature is an illusion. I want to argue, it is not. Being a phenomenological philosopher I am sceptical about denouncing an apprehension which is so universal and persisting to be an illusion. Maybe modern natural science does not discover design in nature, because it in consequence of it’s method is not looking for it? Modern natural science is a perspective; it is a project constrained by the requirement that all explanations may invoke only “unintelligent” agents of causation such as the mechanical laws of nature and the occurrence of chance events. An intelligent cause has no place in modern science. The evolution of science has consisted of a slow but steady eradication of any explanations referring to intelligent causation, and so of course it creates an outcry when somebody wants to introduce intelligent causation into science again. It is considered high treason against the scientific project, and I agree completely.

It is very problematic if we conclude from the perspective of natural science that there is no design in nature. If we do so we subscribe to scientism, which claims that the only genuine (in contrast to apparent) knowledge we have is natural science. In scientism provisional scientific theories are elevated from being a perspective to be ontology.

In my paper I shall argue that natural science and phenomenology are two different perspectives on nature, and they both represent valid recognition of nature.