Here is a current debate on the subject from Cassandra’s Tears and here at Intelligent Reasoning is a comment, if you’d like to weigh in. Many sources think that intelligent design is concerned principally with the plausibility of proposed mechanisms for evolution, not with denying that it occurs. Most ID theorists are skeptical – based on evidence, or in this case lack of it – that certain claimed mechanisms, such as Darwin’s natural selection acting on random mutation, can do all that is claimed for it, or even a tiny fraction. When pigs fly first class, maybe.

I did an interview recently with the Sceptics’ Society of Birmingham (UK) on the relationship between science and religion, which may be of interest to people here. The interview was conducted over Skype, which explains some of the alien sounds, especially from my end, even though my interlocutor and I were separated by a mere 20 miles. What struck me most about this quite genial interview is the lack of scepticism that today’s self-avowed ‘sceptics’ have towards the scientific establishment. Indeed, they have a rhetorical strategy for deflecting this point. So, if you listen to the whole interview, you’ll hear that my interlocutor periodically draws a strange distinction between ‘intelligent’ and ‘rational’ — as in ‘I grant that anti-evolutionists are Read More ›

Francis Beckwith is one of the more interesting commentators on Darwinism and intelligent design.  Beckwith is intelligent and independently minded, willing to move with the evidence and the arguments, and thus capable of non-partisan thought on the issues.

Originally a Protestant and a supporter of intelligent design as formulated by the major ID theorists, he has since become a Roman Catholic and a Thomist, and now believes that the best arguments for design are metaphysical arguments of a Thomist variety, rather than scientific arguments of the sort proposed by ID supporters.  In a recent two-part posting on the Biologos site, Beckwith has explained why he was uncomfortable with ID from the beginning, and how his new Thomist insights clarified for him the defects of ID as an argument for natural theology.  The articles can be found at:

http://biologos.org/blog/intelligent-design-and-me-part-i-in-the-beginning/

 and

 http://biologos.org/blog/intelligent-design-and-me-part-ii/

 There is a Comments section following each article, with some useful criticism of Beckwith’s position, notably from Mike Gene and from a poster writing under the alias of “pds”.  There is also further discussion of Beckwith articles, with more from “pds” and some responses by Beckwith, at:

 http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2010/03/what-role-naturalism-2—insig.html

 It would be impossible in one column to discuss both of Beckwith’s articles and all of his responses to commenters, so I will content myself with pulling out the highlights of Beckwith’s arguments from these three locations, and responding to them.

First, it is important to note that Beckwith’s criticism of ID is not on the plane of natural science.  He does not pretend to referee between Ken Miller and Michael Behe on the irreducible complexity of the flagellum; nor does he object in principle to the attempt to show, against Dawkins & Co., that Darwinian processes are incapable of producing complex organs and biological systems.  As he puts it in Comment 48 on the beliefnet.com/jesuscreed site: Read More ›

FOREWORD This is – and will perhaps always be – a work in progress. Patrick and others originated this area of the website when they grew weary of refuting the same old shop worn anti-ID arguments over and over again. Their work was ad hoc and progressive, but in the end they had developed an impressive resource. In the fall Read More ›

According to this reviewer:

“The Happening” is the biggest ID movie of the year:

M. Night Shyamalan’s critically-panned flick The Happening is Hollywood’s first blockbuster to promote the anti-evolutionary theory of intelligent design. Maybe you thought Ben Stein’s ill-fated documentary Expelled was the only movie to argue in favor of the neo-Christian idea that an “intelligent designer” created the universe. Think again. With its references to “unexplained acts of nature” and a science teacher main character who calls evolution “just a theory,” The Happening is basically a giant propaganda machine for intelligent design. Maybe science journalists are jizzing all over its allegedly realistic plants-attack-humans plot, but we talked to Shyamalan and we know the truth.

Avowed Christian Shyamalan told us that The Happening is really about religious faith, and explained that he chose Mark Wahlberg to play science teacher Elliot Moore because of the actor’s intense belief in Jesus.

I said here, the Darwinists have no idea what will is yet to be unleashed on them in the culture war. They’ve only been sparring with the scouting parties so far.

If this reviewer is accurate about the movie being pro-ID, it’s indicative of a rising anti-Darwin sentiment in our culture in important places like Hollywood…

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“Evolution” is defined so broadly as to prevent refutation. That requires that the whale of “macroevolution” (simple organism to human beings) must be swallowed along with the gnat of “microevolution” – any mutation or change = “evolution”.

Now Kenneth Miller is attempting to transform the Design vs Evolution argument, by claiming nature reveals “evolutionary design” – purely based on “nature” – without an intelligent cause.
Will the public recognize this as an oxymoron?
OR
Will it welcomed as the Trojan horse that undermines Intelligent Design?
————————
There Is ‘Design’ In Nature, Biologist Argues

“ScienceDaily (Feb. 18, 2008) — Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller has to hand one victory to the “intelligent design” crowd. They know how to frame an issue. “The idea that there is ‘design’ in nature is very appealing,” Miller said. “People want to believe that life isn’t purposeless and random. That’s why the intelligent design movement wins the emotional battle for adherents despite its utter lack of scientific support.”

“To fight back, scientists need to reclaim the language of ‘design’ and the sense of purpose and value inherent in a scientific understanding of nature,” he said.
In a Feb. 17, 2008 symposium at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston,* Miller will argue that science itself, including evolutionary biology, is predicated on the idea of “design” — the correlation of structure with function that lies at the heart of the molecular nature of life. . . “

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Bill Dembski has drawn my attention to the Darwinists who vote up negative reviews at Amazon of Design of Life, his textbook supplement with Jonathan Wells, on whose behalf I blog at Design of Life blog. He writes, The Design of Life has 13 five-star reviews and 4 one-star reviews. None of the one-star reviews give evidence of the reviewer having read the book. Yet the three reviews placed front and center by Amazon are the one-star reviews and none of the five-star reviews appear there. That’s because the Darwinists keep voting up the negative reviews and voting down the positive reviews. Please go to the link right now, look at the reviews, and vote on them (toward the bottom Read More ›

From Anti-evolutionists raise their profile in Europe in the November 23, 2006 issue of the prestigious scientific journal Nature.
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Orthodox Jews in S. Florida join debate on evolution vs. intelligent design
By James D. Davis
Religion Editor
December 12, 2005

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-cdesigndec12,0,3441548.story?coll=sfla-news-broward

Evangelical Christians aren’t the only ones making evolution and intelligent design a cause célèbre: Leading Orthodox Jews have the topic in their sights as well — some of them gathering for a three-day conference this week in South Florida. Read More ›

THE CASE AGAINST INTELLIGENT DESIGN.
The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name
—THE NEW REPUBLIC—
by Jerry Coyne
Post date: 08.11.05
Issue date: 08.22.05
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050822&s=coyne082205

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William Dembski writes: I am responding again to Jason Rosenhouse about his book The Failures of Mathematical Anti-Evolutionism. See my earlier posts here and here. In Rosenhouse’s book, he claims that “natural selection serves as a conduit for transmitting environmental information into the genomes of organisms.” (p. 215) I addressed this claim briefly in my review, indicating that conservation of information shows it to be incomplete and inadequate, but essentially I referred him to technical work by me and colleagues on the topic. In his reply, he remains, as always, unpersuaded. So let me here give another go at explaining the role of the environment as a source of information for Darwinian evolution. As throughout this response, I’m addressing the unwashed middle. Darwinian evolution depends on Read More ›