The only thing Intelligent Design expels is oh yeah - Science.

I write this short post with a sense of unease. Peter Hitchens has written an article on Intelligent Design on his blog page. Firstly this has made Peter Hitchens, a repeat offender which is a pretty impressive achievement for only 10 postings on quite varied topics, and I'd hate to think I was seen to be singling him out. Secondly Peter seems not to understand (or possibly he's deliberately distorting the issue to be contrarian. I don't know.) either what evolution is, and how science works, which is a bit of a bummer if you writing about both of these. So you have to give him credit for the sheer brass ballsed chutzpah of going ahead with it anyway.

The article concerns the DVD release in the UK of a 2008 documentary Expelled, a "documentary" about how proponents of Intelligent Design are being hounded out of the scientific establishment, by a shadowy cabal of the high priests of the orthodox Darwinians, and yes the Nazi's were all influenced by Darwins theories as well. It's pretty much the usual charges put out by the ID lobby against Richard Dawkins and other well known evolutionary biologists. The film has been pretty much panned across the board (a lousy 10 % positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes) as dishonest and mincing facts. There is a great story on the Pharyngula blog by PZ Myers, the author, on what happened when he went to see it. My stance on the ID lobby, is get some facts to back up your claims, and a your first ever scientifically peer reviewed paper published, before you start wanting acceptance in the greater scientific community. (Though I just cannot see how I.D can be called science at all! How (without saying God did it) do you terminate infinite regression, by explaining who designed the designer of stuff that by your own theory needed a designer to design? re-produce the designer in experimental conditions, and how can you objectively and analytically explain irreducibly complex things, if they are blooming irreducibly complex to begin with! You know the little things!)

Intelligent Design is silly and distracts from real science. (which is the primary issue I have with it.) It's simply semantic mischief, repackaging creationism, by being more coy about Gods role in the whole affair, with a fancy new name to try (it failed) and dodge the 1987 ruling in the US Supreme court that creationism violated the separation of church and state. It is primarily an American issue, which explains (not an attempt to shut off pro I.D literature as he claims) why Hitchens article complains about the lack of publicity (and published books by I.D proponents) of I.D in the UK. These local science "disputes" are nothing new, MMR scares are primarily confined to the U.K, and anti-retroviral treatment for AIDS is common in South Africa. I.D will probably largely remain on the fringes of the consciousness of most UK residents. (largely those educated in faith schools.)

I could if I wanted too, do a point to point rebuttal of what Hitchens has written in the article (there's tons of stuff on the web debunking the core arguments of I.D), but that would not be the point of what I think is my gripe about articles like this. I think this kind of article stems from a misunderstanding of how modern science operates. In common with many similar articles by journalists and layman climate change deniers, and anti-MMR supporters, they like to see themselves as brave dissenters, who are standing up to a cold an unaccountable scientific elite. A distant and orthodox agency who are willing to do whatever it takes to maintain their control over the brainwashed masses. They seem to think that "Scientific Consensus" is the same as "Conventional Wisdom" . Conventional wisdom occurs through anecdote and subjective analysis. Gut feeling and "commonsense approach". It can be right and indeed wise, but often wrong, misguided and a bad way to evaluate something. I have no complaint against those who tackle the wisdom of crowds head on, and know it doesn't always win you friends. Healthy skepticism is a great thing, and should be encouraged. But Scientific Consensus is something quite different. It is formed by peer reviewing, some of the most intense cross examination, and objective analysis there is out there. Challenging established knowledge and building on it. It also has the benefit of publishing its findings, you can be a part of it, if you want. I just don't see that happening in this article. When I read, this sort of thing:

"But it's plainly true that ID is an attempt to smuggle religion into the classroom - or at least the religious world view. Though it might more fairly be seen as an attempt to prevent the science curriculum from making metaphysical claims which it is not actually qualified to make. For the heart of this is the claim by 'science' that by explaining the operation of the universe it has explained its origin, and that there is and can be no explanation beyond the materialist one. ID casts doubt on that rather dubious claim, and so is Theistic by implication, just as modern science teaching is Atheistic by implication."

So there we are, Intelligent Design by his own admission - is to put religion back into science. I could point out the contradiction of saying science is dabbling in metaphysics, by teaching Darwinian evolution (which it isn't), and then saying science says nothing immaterial (by extension metaphysical) exists, but what would be the point? And that is what pisses me off about this stuff. This kind of thing distorts the public consciousness on science issues, when science is struggling to even get into the consciousness. This article has less to do with promoting debate, than trying to promote theology by the back door.