Abstract
For some time, Howard Van Till has been critical of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. Van Till claims, inter alia, that proponents of ID misuse Scripture, and that ID theory reduces to "folk science." Van Till proposes instead his Robust Formational Economy Principle (RFEP), the idea that creation has within it from the beginning the wherewithal to bring about the emergence of all biological forms and complexities which have existed, do exist, and will exist. I try to show that, while ID may end up being incorrect and something like the RFEP may be correct, Van Till's arguments against ID have not yet carried the day. I challenge Van Till's a priori approach to science and suggest that ID cannot be judged correct or incorrect prior to empirical confirmation or disconfirmation. To make the claim that the laws of nature can and have produced all of the complexity of biological organisms is a philosophical presupposition which forecloses on the possibility that an empirical analysis of the data might suggest otherwise. On this score, ID seems to employ a superior scientific method than the one employed by those advocating the RFEP. It is an empirical investigation of the data which must be allowed to either confirm or disconfirm a scientific theory, not an a prior theoretical assumption.