On another blog, the following quotes from Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement are listed approvingly:
“Evolutionary biology certainly hasn’t explained everything that perplexes biologists, but intelligent design hasn’t yet tried to explain anything at all.†–Daniel C. Dennett, Philosopher
“Not only is ID markedly inferior to Darwinism at explaining and understanding nature but in many ways it does not even fulfill the requirements of a scientific theory.” –Jerry A. Coyne, evolutionary biologist
“The geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky famously declared, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.†One might add that nothing in biology makes sense in the light of intelligent design.” –Jerry A. Coyne, evolutionary biologist
“The supernatural explanation fails to explain because it ducks the responsibility to explain itself.” â€â€Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist
“What counts as a controversy must be delineated with care, as we want students to distinguish between scientific challenges and sociopolitical ones.” â€â€Marc D. Hauser, evolutionary psychologist
“Incredulity doesn’t count as an alternative position or critique.” â€â€Marc D. Hauser, evolutionary psychologist
Leaving aside ID, the subtext of these quotes is, “We’ve got a theory that has vast gaping holes, we don’t have a clue how the theory might fill the holes, but we still believe the theory accounts for what actually happened.” To challenge this is to be guilty of “an argument from incredulity,” in other words, of refusing to believe despite overwhelming evidence. Isn’t it rather that to accept this is to be guilty of “an argument from gullibility,” of believing despite the overwhelming absence of evidence?