Evolution - Intelligent Design Keeps in the News
Creation safari has a good roundup of recent comments on intelligent design, including reporting on a recent article in The Scientist where Dr Philip Skell tries to put to bed the myth that common descent evolution is an essential foundation to all of modern biology. The Scientist article is available to non-subscribers via the Discoverie Institute. This article is well worth reading and in it Dr Skell also replies to charges of quote mining that some people seem all to eager to accuse him of.

The Pew research center has released a recent survey which finds that nearly 2/3 of americans think creation science should be taught alongside evolution in the classroom. I am sure many evangelistic evolutionists will be mortified.

David, over at He Lives also provides a fairly blunt rebuttal of a recent John Derbyshire article opposing Intelligent Design. Amongst other things he feels John, whilst moderately clever, thinks of himself as 'an intellectual giant among men; a person who makes at most a marginal effort to hide his sneering contempt for those whom he considers his inferiors, a group which includes, in his mind, nearly everyone.' Ouch.

ABC TV has put up a transcript from one of its interviews regarding Intelligent Design. The anti-ID people make the usual comments such as

DR DAVID YOUNG, MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: I think the main reservation I would have is that it explicitly seeks to take the explanation of things outside science, so its argument is that these things are so complex that they can't be explained by known causes, therefore we must step outside science to the supernatural, and so, in that respect, it can't really be called science.

David misrepresents ID and so creates a straw man. In terms of life on this planet, there is no requirement for the designer to be supernatural. I have to wonder at the magical powers of random mutation and natural selection, which without any experimental proof are claimed to have created complex features with the appearance of design, perhaps theirs is a supernatural belief too?

ROBERT MARSHALL: There are still people who pray for rain, in fact, even though those same people probably with another part of their mind recognise that meteorology is a well-advanced science and there's no point in praying for rain in the middle of a drought. It's not going to happen. But there is a human need, a very deep-seated human need, to believe that everything is being done by something else, and of course that's why the concept of God is found everywhere, all around the world.

Robert seems to have a deep seated need to avoid any notion of being morally accountable to a higher power. See, I can disparage the motivations of evolutionists too! How bout we deal with the arguments instead of throwing stupid ad hominem attacks? Of curious note is that Robert seems to forget a recent city-wide pray for rain day that happened here in brisbane in the middle of a drought. I seem to recall it rained a whole lot after that. But of course, that must only be a coincidence.

The distinct lack of addressing ID arguments in all of these anti ID comments is somewhat telling. Evolutionists are trying to win by imposition not by persuasion, a sure sign of the weakness of their evidence.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Thursday, September 01, 2005