In his excellent paper, Jeffrey Koperski argues very well that ID has been unjustifiably excluded from rational scientific consideration. He says that motives imputed to ID proponents should not color consideration of the validity of the theory, and that excluding a theory on definitional grounds is not historically or logically valid. He argues not so well that ID goes further than the data demands. He says there are other competing theories that require less radical movement by consensus science, and evolutionary theology. What do you think?
“ID arguments about the limited explanatory power of mutation and natural selection fit comfortably within Conway Morris’s picture. Both agree that new kinds of explanations are needed that would lead to a more general theory of biology. William Dembski himself sometimes equates ID with a “telic process” and acknowledges that some forms of naturalism are compatible with it, namely those that include irreducible teleology.
Yet instead of joining hands against Dawkins-style reductionism, he criticizes non-ID proponents of teleology, mainly on theological grounds. Although ID purports to have a “big tent” approach, the tent apparently is not big enough for theistic evolutionists. Mere teleology is too abstract for William Dembski. If design is not empirically detectable, he believes, there is no ID.
In my view, the leading proponents of ID often have been too quick to spot enemies and too slow at finding common ground with others. Similarly, to ID critics there can be no honest skeptics of Darwinism, only Creationists who have gone to extremes to appear dressed and in their right minds.”
An earlier version of this paper is available free here.