Intelligent Design, Intelligent Falling

Everyone should read the following article from The New Republic: "The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name", by Jerry Coyne, Aug 22, pp 21-33. It’s available online (free registration) here.

"ID is here for only one reason -- to act as a Trojan horse poised before public schools: a seemingly secular vessel ready to inject its religious message into the science curriculum." (p 32)

It's embarrassing that we’re still dealing with this nonsense in the year 2005. One could regard the controversy almost as a spoof -- like the one mentioned by Tyler Williams on "Intelligent Falling":

"'Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, God, if you will, is pushing them down,' said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University."

We may as well start promoting Intelligent Falling too. What the ID idiots fail to grasp -- and as the New Republic article points out -- is that evolution is as theoretical and factual as gravity:

"It is important to realize that at the outset that evolution is not 'just a theory'. It is a theory and a fact... It makes little sense to doubt the factuality of evolution as it does to doubt the factuality of gravity... We know that species on earth today descended from earlier, different species, and that every pair of species had a common ancestor that existed in the past." (pp 23, 25)

"Intelligent Design is simply the third attempt of creationists to proselytize our children at the expense of good science and clear thinking." (p 25)

And so the travesty continues...