Someone in the comments mentioned the Salem Hypothesis. For those who don’t know what this is, it is basically the idea that people with advanced degrees who criticize evolution tend to be engineers, not scientists.
This is supposed to be levied as a diss on the critics of evolution, but I’ve never understood why this is so. Intelligent Design focuses on the *requirements* for the development of intricate, purposeful systems. Is there a science that focuses on developing intricate, purposeful systems? That might know what the requirements of building such systems are? Anyone?
Perhaps the reason that engineers are more likely to be critical of evolution, is because evolution actually is more of a question of engineering than biology, as it deals with the development of the most intricate, purposeful systems available. Thus, the field of study most likely to be able to correctly analyze this question would, in fact, be engineers.
Biologists are rarely, if ever, tasked with building biosystems. That isn’t what they do. They study biosystems. They analyze biosystems. But it is the rare biologist who actually builds a metabolic network from scratch.
But engineers have to build things continually. That’s what they do every single day. Therefore, while engineers are much less likely to know the details of *how* a biosystem operates, or how to investigate such operations, they are *more* likely to know what the requirements are for building such systems from precursors, and have more tools at their disposal for the analysis.
So, in short, I think the Salem Hypothesis has a lot going for it, and it is a reason that we should think *more* highly of Intelligent Design, not less so.
On an additional note, the bench scientist who has the most well-known association with ID is James Tour, who—wait for it—*builds* chemical systems.