"And to "understand what the debate is about," the debaters must be more honest."

I agree with this, but that goes for both sides, or the existence of other is side is necessarily justified, which is the case, in this case.

~

"Intelligent design presumes a higher power -- a more intelligent force -- is responsible for the way humans, plants and animals have evolved over time. That belief, as opposed to theory, is a matter of faith."

Your statement becomes a matter of slanted opinion when you are predisposed as to how you will interpret evidence.

This comes from perceived fanaticism, and it leads to posturing that includes automatic and willful significance denial of any and all evidence for purposeful design in nature that the other side presents.

That ain't good for science, so ID becomes necesary to force the issue, regardless of the agenda may lurk within.

As an atheist,I certainly don't believe in "intelligent design", as the book of Genesis is now being labeled. Never-the-less, I find this editorial condescending at best, blatantly political at worst.

For example, the writer uses the term "a woman's reproductive rights" as though that is a term for which there is universal understanding among us. I take issue with that. A woman can not get pregnant without a male sperm, therefore no woman has any reproductive rights without the specific approval or disapproval of a male somewhere. Before the NOW fanatics scream, rape is a specific disapproval of the male, because he has forfeited his rights by violent behavior. On the other hand,should a married woman be allowed to abort a baby conceived between her and her husband without his approval? I think not. Why should she have special "rights" that actually involve their mutual intimate relationship? If he wants the abortion, and she doesn't, then he will be required by law to support that child for at least 18 years. So he is definitely involved in, and greatly affected by, her "reproductive rights".

The rest of the editorial glosses over many other issues in the same causal manner, assuming intellectual superiority where I find none. The fact that the so-called "religious right" in this country are a bunch of dangerous, bigoted kooks is no reason to dismiss biblical creation belief with the simple waving of the hand. Even many avowed evolutionists admit that they don't know how "it" all started in the first place.

I'm always puzzled by the lack of stated opinion by the Jewish community on this very political subject. On the one hand, they are completely opposed to the "religious right", as well as any Christian teachings in any institution that even resembles "public". But they are silent on expressing public views of "creationism vs evolution". I assume it's because they are not worried about what non-Jews say about the matter, because as a minority, they are quite comfortable with their own abilities to teach their young as they see fit, the majority views or beliefs being irrelevant to them.

This is another Post editorial that fails to move the ball forward. For some reason, the left is predominately concerned with the possibility of faith in the schools and so that is the only focus they have on ID.

Rational people (subtle, eh?) realize that Darwin’s theory works well for what we know. However, evolution says nothing about how life started. There are theories claiming lightening in the primordial ooze created the first life, but there is little or no evidence for this. The little evidence offered is unpersuasive. So, to accept this theory of creation also requires faith.

The Post made no effort to engage the discussion of ID. The editorial board simply tried to spin the argument into an anti religious argument, threw in a non-sequitor or two in hopes of hiding the lack of engagement, and called it a day.

Throughout the history of man, science was done by philosophers and theologians. For some reason, we have attempted to divorce the two. Yet, the groundwork for the “Big Bang� theory was first proposed by a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaître.

The Post errs in believing great science is divorced from philosophy and theology. Great science comes from great ideas. Separating science and philosophy because it may allow the intrusion of faith is a little idea.

Rick

You can't say that design in nature doesn't exist if stuff that humans design can be called "design". The flaw occurs when we assume that this human construct can be separated from the rest of nature to say that human design is more than our particular version of the pre-disposition that fungi have for making "fairy-rings".

I think that point draws a subtle distinction between the world-view of modern "critical-thinkers" and a form of "old-school" naturalism that's valid in context with the cosmological model that falls out of the observed universe. That's where higher purpose in nature got lost, Rick, because humans are physically connected to the rest of the universe if you don't assume idealizations like; uncertainty, infinities, and purely random probabilities.

I belieive that a relevant and meaninful contradiction becomes absurdly apparent when we are taught that projected idealizations in physics aren't the reality, only to find that these idealizations are then actually embraced as the gospel truth.

I think that Einstein got screwed out of the beauty that he had found in nature by those idealizations, and it's been "all-down-hill" for science since then.