Here are the recent additions to this file of columnists’ views on the intelligent design controversy, a useful compendium if you are looking for a range of opinion:
Adams, Mike S. suspects (June 4, 2007) that popular Darwinism is supported mainly as a way of avoiding responsibility for sexual choices. Can this be true? Oh, surely not! <grin>:
My understanding of (and disrespect for) the underpinnings of modern feminism was actually fostered by a biologist who once made a very candid remark about the foundation of his support of Darwinism. When asked about the lack of evidence supporting Darwinism – the fossil record, etc. – he confessed there was a very human reason for his faith in evolutionary theory despite the lack of scientific evidence. He confessed that if Darwinism were not true, he wouldn’t be able to sleep around.
At the heart of his support for Darwinism was a desire to get God out of the picture by any means whatsoever. And his desire to get God out of the picture was in turn motivated by his desire to copulate with as many people as possible without feeling guilty. I wonder whether some untenured psychologist would dare to publish a paper called “A Cognitive Dissonance Theory of Human Devolution.†I think we all know the answer to that question. (June 4, 2007)
A tricky case to argue nowadays, when so many people think that they are beyond virtue rather than beneath it, but Adams argues it fearlessly.
Krauthammer, Charles offers a cute play on words, riffing evolution off intelligent design, to talk about endless campaigning in electoral politics. This column offers an interesting study on word use in the controversy (June 8, 2007):
WASHINGTON — In Britain, Canada and other civilized places, national elections are often called, run and concluded within six weeks. In America, election campaigns go on forever. It used to be one year, now it’s two. No one planned this, but like other evolutionary artifacts (the Founders applied intelligent design to the general makeup of the U.S. government but never foresaw formal political parties, let alone the endless campaign), this crazy improvisation embodies a certain wisdom.
Limbaugh, David identifies consensus science as the way scientists deal with contrary data that they do not want to acknowledge (May 4, 2007). The consensus is that there is no such data (which spares everyone a lot of hasssle, right):
Tom Bethell, in his “Politically Incorrect Guide to Science,” quotes author Michael Crichton as saying that consensus science “is an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.”
We are witnessing a similar phenomenon on the subject of evolution versus intelligent design. Evolutionist Richard Dawkins, explains Bethel, believes that evolution is not a debatable topic. “I’m concerned about implying that there is some sort of scientific argument going on,” said Dawkins. “There’s not.” Meanwhile the Intelligent Design movement is gathering courageous and impressive adherents who would debate the notion that no debate is going on
O’Reilly, Bill dismisses the current pop chart atheists:
the atheists will never get it. The universe and the earth is so complex, so incredibly detailed, that to believe an accidental evolutionary occurrence could have exclusively led to the nature/mankind situation we have now, is some stretch of the imagination. I mean, call me crazy, but the sun always comes up, while man oversleeps all the time.
So bless you, Richard Dawkins, and all the other non-believers. As long as they don’t attack people of faith, I have no problem with them. As my eighth-grade teacher Sister Martin once said: “Faith is a gift.”But not everybody gets to open the box.
In point of fact, the current crop of atheists has not come up with anything that was not known in the eighteenth century, and Darwinism is not helping them any either.