Monday, June 25, 2007

The Fading of Intelligent Design

If you want to see what a fading political movement looks like, check out Denise O'Leary's column on Uncommon Descent entitled Recent columns addressing the intelligent design controversy, where she stretches in desperation to find someone, anyone, paying attention to ID in the mainstream press. The list is quite telling:

First there is Mike Adams:

"My understanding of (and disrespect for) the underpinnings of modern feminism was actually fostered by a biologist who once made a very candid remark about the foundation of his support of Darwinism. When asked about the lack of evidence supporting Darwinism – the fossil record, etc. – he confessed there was a very human reason for his faith in evolutionary theory despite the lack of scientific evidence. He confessed that if Darwinism were not true, he wouldn’t be able to sleep around."

Sure he did Mike. This sounds like a Jack Chick tract, where the evil scientists always say what the creationists need them to say, even though it never resembles anything that real scientists say. There's a good reason that the scientist in these stories is always nameless, and Adams' is no exception.

Believe it or not, that was the most scientifically substantive reference on the list. The rest were unsubstantial:

Charles Krauthammer, for metaphorical use of the term in a discussion of elections.

David Limbaugh, who cites popular fiction authors as authorities on science.

And of course, that bastion of cutting edge scientific knowledge Bill O'Reilly, who says things like "the sun always comes up, while man oversleeps all the time".

This is what the IDers are reduced to: lapping at the low end of the trough, desperate to get any crumb or mention at all, no matter how obscure, irrelevant, or embarrasing ignorant. And of course no mention on their site of any scientific research done by anyone associated with ID.

It looks like ID has run it's course. Looks good.

1 comment:

Little David said...

I am going to approach this subject from the both "liberal" and "scientific" point of view and attempt to prove the hypocrisy of this mixture.

Please explore the "links to this article" to get at what I have to say.