It's true that there is, for the most part, no "there" in Intelligent Design. Once you've articulated the concept that you think life is too complicated to have evolved due to random mutations, you've said all there is to say about Intelligent Design. Period.
I debate a lot with creationists on Free Republic.
I don't claim to be an expert on evolution, although I was an anthropology major for a while many years ago, and for some reason grasped the basic concepts well enough that I've even tutored grad students. But there are actual life scientists who are on the evo side in the crevo-evo wars, people who can martial countless research articles on the topics raised.
My job is to rebut the arguments that evolutionists are all Godless atheists, and stalking horses for abortion, gay marriage, abolition of Christianity, destruction of the nuclear family, and generally haters of truth, justice and the American way.
It's true that these people have no support in academia or the main stream media.
But they're doing an end run. They've got their own grammar schools, their own high schools, their own colleges, their own grad schools, and their own law schools, as well as their own churches, and they're raising up a cadre of True Believers who operate on what Mqurice calls "moral certainty." And they are not going away.
Are they going to prevail? No, not any more than Judge Moore was able to prevail with his Rock. As you recall, in the end, his fellow members of the Alabama Supreme Court voted unanimously to oust him.
As Lindy put it, real scientists think that IDers are little more than banjo playing snake handlers whose parents were a little too closely related. But they're not going away quietly.
One of my favorite taunts when I lose my patience from being accused of being a Nazi and a Commie is to point out that fundamentalist Islamists like Osama bin Laden also reject evolution and believe in Young Earth Creation.
But the truth is just that they embarrass me, because they pretend to be Republicans. They're the skeletons in the Conservative closet, the batty aunts locked away in the attic, the poor relatives from the wrong side of the track, and they think they deserve their day in the Big Tent. |
