Intelligent Design as the Boogeyman

A recent post at Telic Thoughts really leaves me dumbfounded. I don't know how else to say this, but I think that even if Darwinists are so persuaded to the truth of their claims that they feel that Intelligent Design must be defeated at all costs it still isn't acceptable to lie about it. Here's what the Telic Thoughts article says:

One of the reasons I don't take grandiose statements about how "many scientists reject intelligent design" seriously is because the average scientist has no clue as to what intelligent design is about, having only read some anti-ID editorials in the journals they subscribe to. A perfect example is provided by James L. Powell, professor of geology and the former director and president of the L.A. County Museum of Natural History. In a video urging scientists to tell the public what's what regarding intelligent design, he makes this… ahem, incisive argument against intelligent design (HT: Paul Nelson):

We have to say that if creationism is right and if there is an intelligent designer, then almost everything else we know about science is wrong. Then your flu vaccine wouldn't work, your car wouldn't start, there was no Hiroshima, and on and on and on.

Apparently saying this to the public is enough - you don't have to actually provide any evidence for it.

If ID is right your flu vaccine wouldn't work? If ID is right, your car wouldn't start? Is this serious? I mean, c'mon! What's next . . . if ID is right then triangles would no longer have three sides? If you're going to criticize a different view of the facts, you could at least make the criticisms legitimate. Some factual basis for the claims would be nice. After all, if ID is as barren of scientific fact as Darwinists claim, they should focus on its failings and pound on them until ID goes away. But, perhaps it isn't the case that ID is that weak. Perhaps Darwinists need to make up stuff about it in order to villify the theory so that people will be turned off to it.

But that's part of the problem with the entire ID/Darwinianism debate -- the Darwinists are trying to portray ID as something it's not. Merely another form of creationism. As I pointed out in my on-line article Which Numbers are Really Relevant? Intelligent Design, Evolution and Project Steve:

Moreover, of the scientists that have heard of intelligent design, many have been misinformed about its nature due to mischaracterizations about the movement in the pro-evolution camp. Supporters of intelligent design have been compared to those who believe in a flat earth. ("Survival of the fittest--or the best organized" Author: Weis, Judith S. Source: BioScience v. 51 no1 (Jan. 2001) p. 3 ISSN: 0006-3568 Number: BBAI01013826.) For example, the National Center for Science Education Research webpage hosts an article entitled “Creationism Evolves: Review of Robert Pennock's Tower of Babel” noting that Mr. Pennock, a writer who regularly equates Intelligent Design with creationism (see, e.g., "Lions, Tigers and APES, Oh My! Creationism vs. Evolution in Kansas"), advances the idea that because many of the advocates of intelligent design are also Christians the intelligent design movement must also be a mere form of the earlier creationist movement.

In Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism, philosopher Robert T. Pennock neatly exposes the creationist roots of intelligent-design theory; from the beginning he refers to "intelligent-design creationism," and shows us how it has descended with modification from its creation science predecessor.

In "Meeting Darwin’s Wager" (Author: Woodward, Tom. Source: Christianity Today v. 41 (Apr. 28 1997) p. 14-21 ISSN: 0009-5753 Number: BRDG97027170), Tom Woodward notes:

Inevitably, many scientists charge Behe with "thinly disguised creationism." This strategy is employed by University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne, whose review of Behe was published in September in the prestigious British journal Nature. While Coyne admits, "There is no doubt that the pathways described by Behe are dauntingly complex and their evolution will be hard to unravel," he claims that Behe has offered no solution: "Behe's 'scientific alternative to evolution (is) a confusing and untestable farrago of contradictory ideas." Twice in the review Coyne's rhetoric links Behe to the San Diego "scientific creationists" whom professional evolutionists tend to dismiss. Coyne describes Behe's work as a "new and more sophisticated" version of literal-Genesis creationism.

The simple fact is that it is an unfair tactic to equate ID with creationism. It is an equally unfair tactic to claim that ID will result in the fall of science. Both claims are untrue, dishonest and not worthy of inclusion into the debate.

(HT: Evolution News and Views)