INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND ITS CRITICS

John Wilson explores the good and the bad (in his view) about evolution's latest nemesis, Intelligent Design:

At the moment, at least, there are no signs that the debate is cooling down—on the contrary. And there is a good deal to celebrate in that. In particular, the ID movement has performed an invaluable service in highlighting the way in which much Darwinian thinking rests on philosophical assumptions that have no scientific warrant. At the same time, the aggressive ID attacks on Christian scientists who have not rejected evolutionary theory lock, stock, and barrel—"accommodationists," as they are called in ID literature, where they are treated rather like collaborationists with the Nazis during World War II—have pushed theistic evolutionists to formulate their own views more cogently. And of course the attention garnered by the ID movement has also provoked a vigorous range of responses from hardcore Darwinians that are often inadvertently revealing—especially of the extraordinary arrogance that still infests the field—but which also at times score telling points against ID weaknesses.

Wilson seems to be uncomfortable himself with at least some of ID. The approach seems to me a levelheaded approach. It certainly does expose the logical fallacies of Darwinism, but it also seeks to promote what certainly is a Biblical idea: that God left His telling hand in His Creation. I do agree that one must be careful of attempting to explain too much when it comes to God's creative work. But one thing seems clear to me: Darwinian evolution is based fundamentally on the assumption that there is no God therefore we need a way to explain the world as we find it. Those who endorse theistic evolution simply are trying to baptize secularism