Extracts from the introduction to Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement, edited by John Brockman, Vintage Books (go here for an earlier report about this book on this blog):
Religious fundamentalism is on the rise under the rubric of “intelligent design.” ID imperils American global dominance in science and presents the gravest of threats to the American economy.
This book is a thoughtful response to the bizarre claims made by the ID movement’s advocates.
In actuality there is no debate, no controversy. What there is, quite simply, is a duplicitous public-relations campaign funded by Christian fundamentalist interests.
The intelligent-design movement has made collective fools of large segments of the American public. Educated Americans are dumbstruck by the attempt to redefine science to include the supernatural. Europeans cannot believe that such an argument should be raging.
Judge John E Jones III has halted ID in it’s tracks.
Readers can rely on the writings of the scientists in this volume, and on Judge Jones when he says; “while ID arguments may be true, ID is not science. ID violates the rules by 1) invoking and permitting supernatural causation; 2) irreducible complexity employs flawed and illogical contrived dualism 3) IDs negative attacks on evolution have been refuted. ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, has not generated peer reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.”
Two words will go down in history — “breathtaking inanity.” “ID cannot uncouple itself from it’s creationist, and thus religious antecedents”
All of science and reason is on the side of evolution. Questions have been raised providing scientists with a broad public platform to explain how natural selection answers those questions. Scientists should seize every opportunity to present their personal view of the issues and of the fact, power and beauty of the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection.
Some essays deal with “self-organization” in biology, the “intelligence” of the universe itself, and the natural selection of bio-friendly universes.
The ID movement will be seen for the giant step backward that it is.
There are examples in history of the collapse of great civilizations. The Visigoths are at the gates. Will we let them in?