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“Foresight is an imperfect thing — all prevision in economics is imperfect. And, even more serious, the economist in high office is under a strong personal and political compulsion to predict wrongly. That is partly because of the temptation to predict what is wanted, and it is better, not worse, economic performance that is always wanted.” –John Kenneth Galbraith, MONEY (1975), pp. 269-70.
This quote is relevant to the ID debate. People in high scientific office, whether in the straight-up secular world or in evangelical educational circles, would look bad if they were seen as endorsing a grand scientific theory, for which they are on record as saying that this theory contributes to science’s caché, that ends up being thoroughly discredited (as ID is doing to Darwinian evolution). If we substitute for “prediction” in the Galbraith quote the idea of “betting on” or “backing,” then it becomes clear why the main incentives for those in high scientific office are to “bet on” or “back” Darwinism and attack ID.