In another raw display of judicial power, a judged ruled that Intelligent Design as a scientific hypothesis cannot be taught in classrooms along side evolution hypothesis. Thanks to David for highlighting this passage from the judge's opinion
Those are common and wrong-headed arguments.
Firstly, Intelligent Design doesn't require any religion. Nobel Laureate Francis Crick (agnostic) seriously put forth the idea that life on earth could have come from aliens long time ago. No gods, intelligent design...
Secondly, ID can be falsified...
Mike Behe, Dembski and gang also have a nicely-done blog here on Intelligent Design - The Future
"... the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions."
Those are common and wrong-headed arguments.
Firstly, Intelligent Design doesn't require any religion. Nobel Laureate Francis Crick (agnostic) seriously put forth the idea that life on earth could have come from aliens long time ago. No gods, intelligent design...
Secondly, ID can be falsified...
Design theorist Michael Behe, for instance, argues that we can detect design in the bacterial flagellum because the tiny motor needs all of its parts to function at all. That’s a problem for Darwinian evolution, which builds novel form one tiny functional mutation at a time. How to falsify Behe’s argument? Provide a detailed evolutionary pathway from simple ancestor to present motor. The flagellum might still be designed, but Behe’s argument that such design is detectable would have been falsified.
Mike Behe, Dembski and gang also have a nicely-done blog here on Intelligent Design - The Future
Comments
actually it is 'naturalistic philosophy' as the modern creation story vs the biblical narrative that life and humanity were created for a purpose
Scientists have shown repeatedly what evolutionary processes lead to supposedly "irreducibly complex" organs like the eye and the flagellum. Each time they do, the ID folks invoke Zeno's paradox, asking for the intermediate steps between the intermediate steps already given. ID can move the goalpost all they want, they still have shown zero conclusive evidence for design.
Of course, that's assuming that there can be such evidence. ID presupposes a supernatural designer. Science has no tools to evaluate the supernatural. Hume and William of Ockham would have us accept the natural answer, rather than the one that resorts to magic or God.
If given the choice between "gravity" and "God pushing down on you," science will always choose the former. We can measure force, we can theorize mechanism, but there's no such thing as a deitometer.